1 JOHN 2:28 - 3:1 | Finding Hope in GODfidence

This is City Post Church, we're about three things, build

equipped and send all under the lordship of Jesus Christ, a

small Church Plant in Fort Worth Texas, who decided to do things

a little differently. I would almost I had to Crystal,

I love City Post because of the people.

It's where I belong, we truly preach the word.

I love City Post because of the community.

We've been able to build to do ministry.

Like Jesus perlite to push back Darkness.

This is City, Post podcast. First John, chapter 2 first

1 John 2 · chapter mention 1 John 2 · chapter mention

John, chapter 2. So first of all good morning

everyone, how's everybody doing? Pretty good.

Pretty busy weekend, right? I know I had an eventful day

yesterday, but it was all good. So before I dive in, I got to

give a shout out to Elena and livie because they are in East

Texas right now. I love you guys.

I know they're watching. Do not fall asleep at pops

Church. Okay so make sure you guys play

I'm doing. Alright, so that's called being

spiritually Petty. All right.

So I drank way too much coffee this morning.

Alright, so we're going to be in first John chapter 2 first John

1 John 2 · chapter mention 1 John 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 and I really believe that God has a word for us this

morning as I was going through this text, as I was just kind of

meditating on it and thinking about Lord like what do you try

to tell us here and God just kind of brought something to

Light that I'm going to do the best I can to explain it.

So let's go ahead and read. We're going to be starting in

verse 28 and we're going to look at verse 1.

So just three quick versus today and this is what the Lord says

it goes and now dear children continue in him so that when he

appears when sorry, when he appears we may be confident and

unashamed before him at his coming.

So if you know that he is righteous, you know that

everyone who does what is, right?

Has been born of him see? See that see what great love the

father has lavished on us. What?

We should. Sorry that we should be called

children of God, and that is what we are.

The reason that the world does not know us, is that it did not

know him. So, father, we pray that you

speak to us through your word, this morning.

Father, I pray for myself, Lord, that you helped me to focus and

remember everything that that was studied here.

And Lord, I pray that your word just penetrate our hearts and

our minds father. We thank you so much because

you're a good God and giving us just a beautiful day today and

then we pray these things. Amen.

All right, so we have to kind of break this down.

That's what we're only doing three verses today and guys like

Well Ricky says three verses I'm like just slow down you're going

to see why I should go through verse 3 in chapter 3.

But I really want a chance to just kind of walk through this.

But before I dive in so many of you guys know that I came to

Fort Worth Texas, going into my eighth grade year going into

pretty much high school. So we got here and I ended up

I'm going to Daggett, middle school.

So my parents are Rosemont. And there were like now what

they want to keep Ricky at Daggett, right?

They won't be see your sutras in which one like we do.

I kick her. Take your poison, right?

That's always joke around about that.

But so something I learned when I move the text as was that the

music was a little bit different than in South Florida.

So Daggett would have these after school dances in order to

raise money. And in Florida, you know, you're

used to a specific genre of music.

So it's either like side Summit and get it ever get done at the

time. Thank God, that didn't grow up

in that thing kind of came later, but it was either that or

like that, like Miami, like base.

Like the, you know what I mean? So, so that's kind of what I

grew up in, but then I come to Texas and it's a whole nother

world. So my friends are like, you got

to learn Cumbia. And I'm like, what's going on?

V.I.C this lady's name on everybody's car named Selena.

I was like, who's Selena and what happened to her?

Like, I do. So I that's that shows you how

removed I am from the culture. I mean, it was like moving to

another planet when I came to Fort Worth.

So we had a dance and they were teaching me and I'm like, I

could do cumbias. Not hard.

Like, anybody. With two left feet could do

cumbias. Like, you've got to really try

hard, not to be able to do this. Somebody's gonna Exposed over

there, right? Like they like, it's got to be

really difficult. So, so immediately, I knew and I

remember all my friends are like, Ricky, you gotta know how

to dance Cumbia because of not, you're not gonna be able to

dance or any of the girls. And, of course, the adolescence

is kicking in. I'm like, yeah, I gotta learn

this stuff. And so I, so after a couple of

dances, I got it down, I'm like, this is not hard.

I mean like that, technically All this stuff comes out.

If you don't know, just jog, it looks the same, right?

So so I got it. So I'm like, I'm confident now.

I'm like, okay, like we could do this and then the Valentine's

Day, dance was coming in February.

And my friends hype me up and they're like, Ricky, you should

ask Rayna to go with you. Now, think about this is an

eighth-grade dance is not that serious, but in my mind, I'm

like, I'm going to do it because she's cute.

My friends are like, hyping me up and I Know how to dance

Cumbia now. So like I my confidence is

through the roof. I'm like, I got this open out,

like we're going to go ask Rayna.

So I remember after class I go and I talk to Rayna and I was

like, hey, Trey and I, she's like what's up fool?

And then it was like hey would you like to go to the dance with

me? And she looks at me she giggles

she's like I said I'm not going to be here.

I'm not gonna go and I was like oh that's rough.

Okay. Fast-forward.

Two weeks later, the dance is going on.

Me and my friends show up and guess who Who is at the middle

of the dance, we're having the time of her life Reina, right?

So I walk in and I'm just like, let's take the knife out of my

chest, like my spirit is crushed, you know?

I was like, oh, but I had all like I learned Cumbia just for

you so we could dance together and then, you know, she'd even

acknowledge it. I was like, what's up recently?

I had a drink and she just kept going in the circle and I was

like, oh this is brutal. Now I know some of us are

thinking like Well Ricky that's silly, you know, like that's a

silly story, you're an eighth grade, who cares?

But I started thinking how many of us put our hope in stuff that

is silly. Like a lot of us.

We, we look at like materialistic things.

We look at things of this world that we tie Our Hope to and our

confidence. And like, man, if I were just to

learn this, if I were just to attain this, if I were just at

Make my life. A part of this then I will be

able to fill in the blank. The problem is when you put your

hope and things that are not of God, they will fail you.

Because there's no other absolutes, accept the word of

God. And what Christ tells us, that's

why John tells you abide in him, abide in Christ, abide in

Christ. And what we're going to look at

today is that he's going to point out something he's going

to say, listen you need to put your hope in Christ and he's

going to come back one day. and for any believer, anybody who

claims to be a follower of Jesus The return of Jesus should

excite you. Not terrify you, you should be

like yes, like my God is coming back.

I'm ready to go but those who are not found in Christ, this is

an extremely terrifying fact. Because I truly believe that

when that day comes, there's going to be two groups, there's

going to be one who runs toward him and say Yes.

King Jesus is here and they're going to be those who run for

the hills and we see that in scripture as well.

John is extremely clear. So this whole idea, the promise

that we should have our hope in in Christ, coming back kind of

serves as dislike purifying. Hope not just as for the

Believer. But also the way that we view

morality the way that we view Our Lives, the way that we live

our lives. It's extremely important.

And this truth, this the hope that we should like put all of

our chips. In all of our marbles in is this

right here and it's Christ. So this should impact everything

about us knowing that he's going to come back one day.

There's a passage Hebrews chapter 6, verses, 19 and 20

Hebrews 6 · chapter mention

I'll go and put it on. The board here on the projector

here. It says this is we have this

hope as an anchor for the soul firm and secure it enters.

The inner Sanctuary behind the curtain where our 4Runner Jesus

has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest

forever in order in the order of Melchizedek and I wish I had

more time to dissect. This passage this passage is

incredible but our hope is anchored in Christ.

That's what we cling to and for non-believers.

Their anchor is not kind of like arrancar arrancar does not shift

but for non-believers their anchor is on Sand, it's going to

shift it's going to feel so there's a lot of superficial

sources that people put their security in in there hoping like

it. And you know you guys know it's

like narcotics and alcohol and sex and entertainment and

materialistic. Realism and all this is like

extremely surface level stuff. This is all man-made stuff and a

lot of people, they put all of their hope in the center of this

desire for a better future. But in all reality, the only

thing that's guaranteed in life is this biblical hope that we

put all of our selves into because we abide in him and his

name is Jesus. The future reality is guaranteed

in the Lord. Anything outside of that is not

anything. Absolute, it will fail you.

So look what verse 28 says, Verse 28, there's a lot in verse

28 says, and now dear children continue in him so that when he

appears, we may be confident and unashamed before him at his

coming. So, let's kind of look at this.

The way that John writes it. He begins to the verse and now

and now this is different. He throws these two words in

here. Now, a lot of us will read then

they're like Well Ricky. That means like he's kind of

pointing You right now. No that's actually in scripture.

That's called an emphatic particle.

Yeah, particle. Which means that it's

introducing a new section of the text.

So really chapter 3 should start here.

But what John is doing is that he's introducing now a new

subject that he's attaching to everything that he's been

teaching. So if you guys remember, last

week, we talked about what it looks like to abide in Christ

especially in our culture, we talked about how obedience is

more important than our options because, you know, we We put a

lot of ourselves in our options thinking that that's going to

give us success which is false. Then also, we talked about Jomo

versus fomo, how a lot of us have this fear of missing out at

the expense of our obedience. But really, when you abide in

Christ there's a joy in missing out because you get to be

attached to him. So it's like, yes, I don't get

to do this because I know it's going to honor the Lord and then

presents over productivity. There's nothing more.

More important than the presence of God, in our lives.

In a lot of times, we get so busy and trying to be productive

that we miss his presence, and we sacrifice for his presence

because we think productivity brings value, and that's not the

case. And now he's cutting it.

Boom, and you knew you knew subject coming in and now dear

children. We know that's how John talks

because he's about 90 years old when he wrote this.

So it's a term of endearment he says and now continue in him AKA

abide in him. That word continue means

endurance. He's like not just abide in

Christ but if you abide in Christ there's an Endurance to

your faith. Your faith is going to last and

that's what John is pointing at. You don't come to Jesus and then

like a year later you walk away from the faith because something

bad happened to you. That's not abiding in Christ.

That is not continuing him, that's not enduring in Christ.

So he's saying abide in Christ continue in Christ endure in

Christ. So that way you persevere in the

faith because that shows salvation.

Why do we do this? So that when he appears.

So that way in, Jesus comes back as he said, he would, he said,

I'm going to come back the same way that I ascended.

He goes, you may be what confident, and what unashamed

confident unashamed before him at his coming.

So, John is throwing this out there.

He's like listen, Our Hope for our faith is rooted.

In the fact that Jesus is going to come back one day.

And you're either going to be ashamed.

And you're going to go run for the hills or you're going to be

unashamed, and you're going to be confident, see that word,

confident, and the text means like a freedom of speech, like

you can say whatever you want without getting in trouble,

which that doesn't happen in our culture, nowadays, but you could

do that. So confident is like, my Jesus

is here. I'm confident that he's going to

receive me. I'm confident that he's going to

look at me and see the righteousness of God and not the

sinful man. I'm confident.

Isn't that he's going to recognize me by my name?

I'm confident that I belong to the father.

That's what confidence we're talking about here.

But a lot of people are going to see The Return of Christ, and

they're going to shrink. Why?

Because this time when Jesus comes, it's not as the suffering

servant. And it's not going to be as the

humble King. He's coming in glory, he's

coming with armies. He's coming to re-establish his

kingdom, he's gonna burn everything down.

So if you're found in Christ, you get to be on his team.

You're not going to be against him, you're going to be with

them. So there's going to be two

groups of one of the groups are going to be excited and we're

going to be in awe of King Jesus showing up in the clouds.

The other groups going to be terrified and ashamed because

we're going to recognize who just showed up.

One group going to lift their hands and Glory.

The other groups going to lift their hands and fear like, oh

no, but based out of Philippians, Both groups are

going to Bow their knee, and both groups are going to

proclaim the name of Jesus, whether you like it or not.

And a lot of people like will recount Matey's.

I don't believe in that stuff. You're going to Bow your knee

and you're going to proclaim the name of Jesus.

That's what the word of God says.

So you can either do it willingly or you could do it

forcefully. It's going to happen.

So that's where our confidence comes from.

So our confident us not being a shame comes from knowing that

he's coming back now. If we put our hope, knowing that

Jesus will return, that's going to change the way that we view

life. Because if this is true, then

I'm going to, I'm going to develop a hunger for

righteousness in my life, so if I abide in Christ.

So remember, let's see if you walk backwards, John is saying.

Okay, you're a follower of Christ.

That means that you abide in him, that means that there's

confession. That means that you hate sin

that. So, all these things and he's

not saying you're gonna be perfect, none of us.

Here are perfect. We're all sinful in our nature.

Jesus is the only one that's perfect, but there's going to be

an anointing in you. The holy spirit, that when there

is sin in the picture, it's going to convict us.

There's going to be something about us in our lives were like,

man, I sinned against God, I need forgiveness.

There's got to be something in your life but you're like, I

like sin bothers me. and if you become numb to sin or

comfortable with sin, or you don't care, then we've really

got to kind of re-evaluate what your decision for Christ, look

like because then I have to ask where you repentant or you were

you remorseful, If you did not get caught, would you still be

doing it? You see, that's the difference.

So if we're repentant that means that we have a repentant heart

of repentance spirit. And that's something that only

the Holy Spirit could give you and you opens the eyes to the

gospel in your life. So you know, I love what Paul

says, in second, Timothy chapter 4 verse 8, he calls like the

Christ coming back like loving his presence or loving his

appearing. Like there's something in us

that loves the fact that Jesus is coming back now, he's going

to give like an inverse 29. He's about to show like a cause

and effect. So how's this work?

So we put all of our hope in the return of Jesus because we abide

in him. So we understand how How all

this is going to go down? Then verse 29.

Pretty much says it. Here is his, if you know that he

is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is,

right? Has been born of him.

So there's a cause here. So, if you've been born again,

because he uses the word born, and this is the same, this word

is translated for born. This is the same word that is

used in John chapter 3 with Jesus talks to Nicodemus.

John 3 · chapter mention

So it means like you're from a specific thing or Pacific person

or place. You are born again.

That means that we are born again of the spirit in Christ.

First Peter, 1 chapter chapter, 1, verse 3, new Birth into the

Living Hope of the Resurrection. So when you are believer in

Christ, you receive a new birth into what the Living Hope, which

is where in the resurrection, you see Saul, this is coming

together now. So Jesus is return.

Doesn't just a stain, our faith, but it also builds this habit of

righteousness inside of us. Where we want to pursue the

things of God. Why does it build a habit of

righteousness inside of us? I just think about it.

Because what I want you to know is like this text is not, he

says for he is righteous. Not for he stops doing good

things or bad things. He's not talking about like a

behavior here. He's talking about when you are

born again, of the spirit, you are putting on the character of

God, you have these traits from the anointed one, which is the

holy spirit inside of you love joy, peace, patience.

Kindness goodness. Faithfulness gentleness and

self-control like the song. Yeah.

So because you are born of the spirit.

Again, that means that you take on your father's

characteristics. He puts the spiritual DNA inside

of you. God is a holy and righteous God.

And if there's nothing in your life that cares for

righteousness, then we have got to re-evaluate what you think

being saved actually means. There should be something in you

that pursues righteousness. John looks at this as a cause

and effect. The cause is being truly Born

Again. Therefore, the effect is you

take on righteousness. Is that simple?

In the way that people know that you are a follower of Christ is

by the way that you live, your life is not just talking about

it, but it's also being about it.

There's got to be something in you that shows that you are a

follower of Christ and that you carry the anointing in you.

And we see that in James chapter 2 verse 20, where he talks about

James 2:20

how faith without Deeds. Is your faith is dead, if

there's no Deeds to it. He just had an emotional

experience. So there's a cause and effect

here. We know that he is righteous,

you know that everyone who does what is, right?

Has been born of him because he's righteous.

So you take on the character of God, so our hope doesn't just

come in to return of Christ because we're abiding in him.

So we don't get excited about that.

We do. It doesn't just help us with

endurance of our faith, but it also helps us pursue

righteousness. And then, he's going to wrap it

up here in verse 1. To see what great love.

The father has lavished on us that we should be called

children of God, man. Oh and that we are in and that

is what exactly what we are. I love what John does here.

You know, a lot of commentary say that this is like an

outburst of wonder. So as John is telling us this,

because remember, he's writing this to the gnostics, you know,

the way that they view morality is a lot different. they have

this dualism in life that we've all we've been talking about But

John looks at this Eagles. You know what all of this is

initiated by God's love for you? It's all initiated by his love

for us. And that he gets the glory.

So in verse 1, he's like men see what great love.

The father has lavished on us. I love he used the word

lavished. So that way we could be called

children of God. Listen, the gospel.

You should always be in awe of the Gospel in your life.

I always, we like you can't shut up about it.

I always think back of my life before Christ, transformed me

the way he called me into doing what I do now like I was like,

man, dude, I was such an idiot like I was do like the I was

living in sin. And because of his lavish love

for us, he still said Rick Kester want to use.

You makes no sense like, I'm not even like call like I'm not even

qualified to do this and he still says, I love you enough

that. I still want to use you.

On top of that, I want to adopt you.

That means that you're going to be part of my family.

That's the principle of adoption that we talked about.

And John isn't complete all of this.

How do we know he's in complete? Our look at the exclamation

points that he's. It's like he's, he's like

yelling at everyone here like see what great love.

The father has lavished on us that we should be called the

children of God. And that is what we are like,

like, it's like a disbelief, like, man.

This is awesome. This is incredible, that he

calls us his child. Even though we were once enemies

of God, he still saved us. And that's exactly what we are.

And because you and I, if your follower of Christ because we

are children of God, the world has no idea who we are.

The world is not rock with us. It doesn't Vibe with us.

I don't know how else to explain it.

It's like we're just too different.

The reason the world does not know us is because it does not

know him. So people are going to ask you

questions about your Sunday, they're going to ask you

questions and people who do not believe in Christ, we're going

to look like fools to them. They're going to see it as

foolishness. It doesn't make sense.

Why die to yourself? Why not?

Just do what you want because they don't have the hope that we

have. You see like this this

lifestyle, like our heavenly father and savior.

This this nature that we this this righteous nature that we

carry inside of us is totally opposite to the world.

The world does, it has nothing to do with what God has called

us to. That's why in Scripture, it

always looks at Believers and Christians and the word in

scripture, they always call us Pilgrim sojourners and

strangers. That's why he says that the

world is not our home. Like, we belong to heaven, like

our places in heaven. So, as we're in this world, as

Believers, the world's, like Build That Wall, right?

Like they're like, like, cut them off, don't let them in,

but, where to place that where we don't belong, Because we

belong to God's kingdom. We are his children.

We belong in his presence. So, the Lord Jesus was unearthly

in his in origin. So, are those that are born

again, you know, when Jesus came down, he, you know, he even said

he's, like, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

He's not from this world. He's not from this Kingdom.

And listen, when you become a follower of Christ, neither are

you because we belong with him in heaven.

So, there's going to be a little bit of a difference here.

So I want us to look at what John is saying, because this is

so Crystal Clear, John is saying that because we abide in him, I

remember got a tie, every we got to, we got to tie it all

together. We abide in him.

We have his anointing, so we're able to manage our sins were no

longer a slave to our sin, but, you know, we're able to say, no,

it doesn't control us anymore. We abide in Christ and because

We abide in Christ, go back one, go back, one.

And because we abide in Christ, we're able to say.

So don't go to the quote yet. Just go back one.

So, because we abide in Christ, we are able to say that we do

not belong here. That we know the Kingdom of

Heaven, We Know That we don't belong in that Jesus belongs to

us. And that's what our hope is in.

Now in verse 28, he talks about that as we continue in him.

When he appears we're going to be confident and we're going to

be unashamed. We're going to be confident and

we're going to be unashamed and what I want us to look at real

quickly. Here is that whole term

confidence. This is something that I felt

like the Holy Spirit was like kind of working in me.

If the scripture says that because I abide in Christ

because I know there's coming back that that's where I find my

confidence in. Then we have to ask ourselves,

where is Our Hope, and our confidence coming from?

Because of this text is true. That means I abide in Christ, so

that means that my hope and my confidence comes from him.

But it doesn't always feel that way, does it?

so I was, I was thinking about this and there's a quote that I

read there's a quote that I read from Psychology today because

the truth is that when we talk about confidence and that when

we talk about hope, A lot of us view.

Those two words, And we look at it in through this perspective

and the lens of the world. But it does not truly

necessarily mean that it works. Through the lens of God.

Because if we were to look at the world's definition of

confidence, which is this right here and I was reading, I was

looking it up, like this is from Psychology today.

Confidence is a belief in oneself, the conviction.

That one has the ability to meet life's challenges and to succeed

and the willingness to act accordingly, being confident

requires a realistic sense of one's capabilities and feeling

secure in that. Knowledge.

Now, you're like Well. Ricky, why are you?

Why are you saying this? If you and I as Believers in

Christ, if we are to Route go back one.

If we are to route, I'm going to introduce you, I promise.

Okay, if we are to Route our confidence in what the world

tells us that our confidence is, then that means that we are to

look internally in ourselves. The problem with that statement

is that ourselves are broken. You can't root your confidence

in something that is broken because what's going to come out

of that? Is not going to work.

What happens when God calls you to something.

How many times does God call you when you're qualified?

That's not what I read in the Bible.

But the truth is God never calls the qualified, he qualifies the

call. Like if you look at Moses, hey,

go free my people. I can't talk in public.

I'm gonna do it anyway. All right, take Aaron with you

just go right? No ago, build an ark.

What's rain? Nobody's ever seen rain before.

We just learned like Gideon Gideon.

I want you to like, take on this Army.

Like we are the weakest tribe of Manasseh.

How's this going to work? You know, even if we look at

Jesus, talking to his disciples, he I want you guys to follow me.

You're in change the world. I'm just a Fisher, man.

Well, it's cool. You're going to like be a fisher

of men now. Just come follow me.

You see, so it's like if none of those guys had the confidence to

do what God has called them to do impossible.

You know, I was even looking at my life when I knew that I had

to get continuing education, I had to go to Seminary, I'm

sending these classes. And I have all these guys

talking about like this all this crazy stuff and they get to me

like will Rica. Are you are minions or more

Calvinism? Like see, I don't care.

How about that. Actually let's let's let's get

more important question. Like what are you doing to

disciple that your church who are you disciple?

Linghu you serving all you don't get paid I'm sorry I forgot

right? I mean there's so many things

that we could go back and forth on but if you allow your worldly

confidence to impact you, it's not going to work when God calls

you to do some big stuff because I like to say you know maybe God

does not operate on confidence. I like to call it God fidence.

You see God fit ins is when you tie it all together, right?

So confident says, like, okay, I must look inside of myself, like

I got to see the realistic of my, the realism of my

capabilities and and I got to make sure I feel secure in the

knowledge that I have in order to do what God has called me to

do. Guess what?

You're never going to move forward.

If that's you. Impossible because God does not

call you to do the possible. You will never rely on him.

If that was the case, he calls you to do the impossible, he

wants you to rely on him. So when you start thinking okay

I'm abiding in Christ, I have the anointing I'm in God's word.

I know what it says and God is going to call me to do something

that I don't have confidence in. So instead of relying on my car,

Confidence, I'm going to rely on my God.

Fidence. What my God fit in says, is what

I read in the scripture that he's not going to leave me that.

He's going to stay true to his promises.

So if I work hard and I put my mind to it, like God is like

I've called you to this. So you're going to move forward

with it. You see my God fittings has to

take over, and I love this because it's like, okay, well

then we know what confidence is. Well, what is confidence rooted

in? I'm glad you asked.

Confidence is rooted in our perception of ourselves,

regardless of any tangible external reality.

So now you can go ahead and put that slide on because that's

what I just read right there. There you go.

Boom, right so so has the, you got this.

You got this, dude. All right, you go.

Confidence is rooted in our perception of ourselves.

Regardless of any tangible, external reality, you see, it's

rooted in what our perception of who ourselves Why is that?

Such an issue? because many of us, many of us

in this life grew up with a poor Foundation, For perception.

A lot of us did not have Mom and Dad who blew wind in our sails

and supported you and disciplined.

You and said, man, go at it. A lot of us had parents, who are

passive, aggressive could care less, what you did in life.

Or you know they might give you a hug.

If you jump through the hoop it may have been like

performance-based. A lot of us might have had like

a mom who just all they did was nurture you but you don't have a

dad who deals with you so you just grow up like oh Huggy and

nurtured. So you think that's how life is

On the flip side, you grow up with a dad who is constantly

just beating you down. We don't have anybody to like,

like helped you realize like why You see, for many of us, we come

from a Brokenness already, so the foundation of our

confidence, it's already cracked and shattered.

Even if you had a perfect mom and dad, they're still going to

fail. Because God the father is the

only one who's perfect. So our perception of confidence,

it's already shattered and what the world is saying is that it

is rooted in the perception of yourself, but you here's the

problem. When I look at myself, I see

everything that is wrong with me.

I can't read. Well, I'm not the smartest cat

in the room. I'm insecure about all these

things. I'm insecure about my looks.

I'm I'm all that stuff like man. And you know what?

I could blame everything on Rayna.

She said she wasn't going to come and she's having a great

time. She lied to me.

But look at me now. Like there's like you have all

these things like. So what we do is because our

confidence is shattered in our foundation, we need some kind of

explanation. Nation.

So what do we do? We need something to blame, we

blame our past. It's mom's fault is dad's fault.

I didn't grow up. Nobody ever hugged me.

You know, I remember like at our old church and I won't say his

name because he might be watching, but there was a guy

that we were talking. He looks at me like, you know,

Ricky like my dad never told me. He was proud of me.

And I was like, oh that's probably why, you know, things

are going pretty rough, right? He's like yeah man.

I just want to hear like my dad's proud of me.

So I look at them like I'm proud of you Mijo.

Did that help? I got to do better now.

Are you good? No. you see the thing is, We

could blame our past all we want.

And that's not going to fix anything.

But what Jesus does is Jesus comes.

And he's like, listen, if you just abide in me abide in me, I

will forgive you. I will restore you regardless of

your past. So your past will not have any

implications of the future that God has for you, except that

he's going to use your past to bring glory to his name in your

future. And we say like man your your

biggest misery is going to be your greatest Ministry because

God uses these things. So I'll finish with this.

We got to learn how to lead on our God for dense because if

not, you're never going to move forward into things that God has

called you to do. You have to learn how to apply

in him. Now, if some of us are

struggling with this, if we're tug like if we're like, Ricky,

like I get what you're saying, but you're not in my shoes right

now. Let me encourage you this way,

maybe, if you're starting to lean to one side, We have to

look at. How are you abiding in Christ?

Remember, last week that's the imperative that he gave us abide

in him. So if I'm struggling with my God

fidence, then I might need to take a step back and look around

and be like a my abiding in Christ that I did.

I pitch my tent here. Am I here?

You know what's interesting is how and I saw this on to man I'm

going to I'm going to tell you, our Bible study on Tuesday was

so good. Like man I went home like just

dry like that was good today man.

Like we share like we share some great stuff like man, it was

awesome. Even like in the morning like,

like student text me like man, I woke up feeling so good this

morning. I was like, I know me too

rolling. why though, because That Brotherhood.

That's how you abide in Christ. You would be around people like

that. And I think sometimes I have to

think, like, man if I'm struggling my comment, maybe I

need to take a step back and spend two hours just abiding in

Christ, ah, but I'm so busy Rick.

You do understand, I'm like, listen to hours of your whole

entire week. Give him two hours, and watch

God, redeem your time back abide in Christ abide in Christ abide

in Christ. then the last thing I'll say with this, Why is my

God fit in stronger than my confidence?

Because it is rooted in absolute truth.

He sees because it's rooted in absolute truth and that means I

don't have to internalize what I look at from myself.

I look at what God sees me as and because I look at what God

sees me as the word of God says, I'm a Child of God, I'm no

longer a slave to my sin. I've been redeemed restored, I'm

an heir to the throne like all these things.

Like we got to look at God's word and we won't know God's

word unless you abide in him. And then we have to look at the

truth of the Gospel. and we're able to see the truth of the

gospel because we carry the anointing, if you're a follower

of Christ, which he has put in me.

So what's the truth of the gospel and will end with this?

he sees me as his son, He sees me as his son, and I always say

this, like saying always calls you by your sin but God calls

you by your name. He sees me as his son.

So that's the truth of the gospel.

I've been redeemed restored, I belong to Christ now.

Talk about truth. What's truth routed through the

really didn't like the resurrection.

So, while everybody else is saying like men look at

yourself, look at other things. Listen, everything else that I'm

looking at is dead. Jesus is Alive, the power of the

Resurrection. I'm rooted in that too.

And then, lastly, the anointing in your life.

The Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit.

That means that we are Guided by the holy spirit.

So the Lord is guiding my steps. He's helping me.

He's comforting me. He's helping to make those

decisions in life, but listen, you got to do some of that work.

You have to put in some of that work, you have to know him, you

have to want to be with him. You you've got to do that.

We learned about that last week. So, before we worship our

father, I pray asking you to be a part of everything that we're

doing. And Jesus, we love you and we

pray all these things in your holy and righteous name.

Amen.