Confidence in Christ\u2019s presence with us. \u00a0Confidence in Christ\u2019s purposes for us. Confidence in Christ\u2019s protection over us.<\/p>\n
A couple weeks ago I came across a verse from Proverbs 3:26 \u201cFor the Lord will be your confidence\u201d, and it got me to thinking.\u00a0<\/span>What kind of confidence is this? Is this a kind of holy self-confidence? Is this just another way of \u00a0saying that there is power in positive thinking? Oh no, it surely can’t be. There has to be more to it than that.\u00a0<\/span>In the first place, we read that the Lord will be your confidence. The <\/span>Lord<\/span>. Who are we dealing with here? The psalmist writes in one place, \u201cLet all the earth fear the Lord, Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. \u00a0For He spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.\u201d The Lord, our Creator. It is a dogma of the Christian faith that the eternal God created everything there is out of nothing. Ex nihilo is the Latin term for it. And in the book of Hebrews we read that \u201cthe worlds were framed by the Word of God, so the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible\u201d. But, really, how could it be otherwise? Unless you want to say that stuff, that is matter, has always existed—always—in which case we are all living in an idiot universe. And if that is true, what is the point of talking about confidence at all?\u00a0<\/span>We read from Psalm 139 this morning, a Psalm of David. \u201cO Lord, you have searched me and known me. You [even] know my sitting down and my rising up. [Why] there is not a word on my tongue but behold O Lord, you know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before.\u201d Do these verses make you uncomfortable? They seemed to have made David, at least initially, uncomfortable. Look how he goes on in verse 7 to say, \u201cWhere can I <\/span>go<\/span><\/i> from your Spirit? Where can I flee?\u201d I need to get away. \u00a0How did Billy Joel put it, I don’t care what you say anymore this is my life. Go ahead with your own life and leave me alone.\u00a0<\/span>But we are not alone. One of my favorite Bible verses is from the prophet Jeremiah, in chapter 23. \u201cAm I a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so I shall not see him, says the Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth, says the Lord?\u201d\u00a0<\/span>We can’t get our minds around it, but verses like the ones we’ve read reveal to us the fact that God is actually closer to us than we are to ourselves. The overwhelming emphasis in Scripture is not that God is very far from us, but that we are far from Him. We push back. \u00a0We want to run. \u00a0It is all too natural for us not to want a God we have to answer to. A God we can’t pull one over on. A God that crowds our space. This all too natural tendency the Bible calls sin. I\u2019ll do it my way. \u00a0And what is the middle letter in the word sin? I think you know what I’m trying to say. And in our pushing God away we cut off our nose to spite our face. \u00a0No, it is much, much worse than that. \u00a0The Bible describes sin using the metaphor of a paymaster. \u00a0\u201cThe wages of sin is death.\u201d Physical death. \u00a0Spiritual death.\u00a0<\/span>This is why our Lord Jesus Christ—of whom the apostle John declares, \u201call things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made\u201d—this is why he began his earthly ministry saying, \u201cRepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u201d Repent. Oh sure, I get it, Jesus. \u00a0I guess I\u2019ve got to turn over a new leaf. \u00a0I\u2019ve got to do better. \u00a0I\u2019ll try not to swear quite as much. \u00a0And maybe I throw a few more back than I should now and again. I\u2019ll clean up my act. After all, I\u2019m basically a good person.\u00a0<\/span>Well, that wasn\u2019t the gospel the apostles preached. \u00a0Or the martyrs died for. \u00a0No, it was this—that none of us are basically good. \u00a0We read in Paul\u2019s epistle to the Romans, \u201cAll have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>True repentance is the turning away from ourselves, to Christ. We all learned in Sunday School that He is the Savior of the world. \u00a0Yet it is not enough to believe that He died for the sins of the world. \u00a0It is enough to believe that He died for your sins. \u00a0It\u2019s not really about \u201caccepting the Lord\u201d. \u00a0It\u2019s more, as we sing at Christmas—\u201cFall on your knees! \u00a0O hear the angel voices!\u201d \u00a0I have learned, my Lord and my God, that you are rich in mercy. \u00a0While on others Thou art calling, do not pass <\/span>me<\/span><\/i> by. \u00a0That\u2019s being poor in spirit. \u00a0\u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit, for <\/span>theirs<\/span><\/i> is the kingdom of heaven.\u201d \u00a0<\/span>For the Lord will be your confidence. <\/span>Your<\/span><\/i> confidence.\u00a0<\/span>There is or used to be a poster in the back of the church that read, God accepts you just the way you are, but not so you\u2019ll stay the way you are.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span>Our salvation is not some pie-in-the-sky thing. \u00a0It\u2019s a life-transformation. \u201cOld things have passed away. \u00a0Behold, all things have become new.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Before, the thought of God\u2019s nearness was irritating, something we\u2019d rather not think about. \u00a0Now, it is our confidence. \u00a0We read in Psalm 91, \u201che who dwells in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. \u00a0I will say of the Lord, he is my rock and my fortress, my God in Whom I trust.\u201d Or from Psalm 16, \u201cI have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices. \u00a0My flesh also will rest in hope. \u00a0For you will leave my soul in Sheol, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption. \u00a0[This is the resurrection that we look for] You will show me the path of life. \u00a0In your presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Our confidence is in Christ. \u00a0We are confident of His presence with us, now and forever. \u00a0\u201cLo, I am with you always, even to the end.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>St Augustine is famous for having said, \u201cWe were made for God, and our hearts are restless until they can find their rest in you.\u201c\u00a0<\/span>And as good Presbyterians, we should all know the answer to the first question from the Westminster Confession, \u201cWhat is the chief end of man?\u201d To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. <\/span>Our confidence in Christ. \u00a0We can be confident of His presence with us. \u00a0We can be confident of His purposes for us. \u00a0For you and me. \u00a0Apart from Christ, life really has no path and no destination. \u00a0That is why Jesus said, \u201cI am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. \u00a0Nobody comes to the Father but by Me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>And we can be confident of Christ\u2019s protection, too. \u00a0This last part, however, is no doubt the most challenging. <\/span>If you listened carefully as Psalm 91 was read, and it did not raise questions, then you probably weren\u2019t really listening. Let\u2019s look at it again. \u00a0\u201cSurely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence. \u00a0He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge. \u00a0His truth shall be your shield and buckler. \u00a0You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. \u00a0A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you.\u201d \u00a0Wait, stop.<\/span> Isn\u2019t the Psalmist getting carried away here? \u00a0Let\u2019s be real. \u00a0Isn\u2019t this hyperbole? \u00a0Verses like this used to really give me trouble, until I realized something. \u00a0Our Lord, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, when He assumed a human nature, became man, and walked among us, He went to the synagogue faithfully. \u00a0He would have read these verses. \u00a0He would have no doubt memorized them. Not just because He was a good Jewish boy, but because he knew them to be the inspired words of God, His Father.\u00a0<\/span>What am I trying to say? \u00a0We need to look at these verses through the lens of Christ. \u00a0Was He protected? \u00a0More than once, when the scribes and Pharisees surrounded Him with plans to throw Him off a cliff, the Scripture says He disappeared from their midst. You can almost picture them saying, \u00a0\u201cWhat the? \u00a0Where\u2019d He go? \u00a0He was just here.\u201d \u00a0Jesus would often say things like, \u201cMy hour has not yet come.\u201d And yet it did finally come. \u00a0He was given over to His enemies. \u00a0He was mocked. \u00a0He was beaten. \u00a0He was crucified. \u00a0He was laid in a borrowed tomb. \u00a0His dying words were, \u201cFather, into your hands I commit my spirit.\u201d \u00a0And three days later His message, His life, his divinity were all gloriously vindicated when He was raised from the dead.\u00a0<\/span>No, the Psalmist wasn\u2019t getting carried away. \u00a0We can be confident of Christ\u2019s presence, His purposes and His protection. \u00a0We don\u2019t go through life whistling through the graveyard, so to speak. \u00a0Life is real. \u00a0Death is real. \u00a0Pain and suffering are real. But we, like the Psalmist, are to set the Lord always before us, because He is at our right hand, we shall not be moved. \u00a0Moved from our firm conviction that God is Sovereign over all things, and if He calls on us to endure hardship, His grace will be available to endure it. \u00a0\u201cLooking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>I can think of one case in church history where a thousand did fall, and close to ten thousand at his right hand, and yet he was spared. \u00a0It is the story of Martin Rinkart…\u00a0<\/span>Christ is our confidence. \u00a0Confident of His presence, His purposes for our lives, and His protection. \u00a0These truths are summed up beautifully by the apostle Paul in the eighth chapter of his epistle to the Romans:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cWhat then shall we say to these things? \u00a0If God is for us, who can be against us? \u00a0He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? \u00a0Who shall bring a charge against God\u2019s elect? \u00a0It is God who justifies. \u00a0Who is he who condemns? \u00a0It is Christ who died—more than that—who was raised, who is seated at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. \u00a0For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>And all God\u2019s people said, Amen.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Confidence in Christ\u2019s presence with us. \u00a0Confidence in Christ\u2019s purposes for us. Confidence in Christ\u2019s protection over us. A couple weeks ago I came across a verse from Proverbs 3:26 \u201cFor the Lord will be your confidence\u201d, and it got me to thinking.\u00a0What kind of confidence is this? Is this a kind of holy self-confidence? … <\/p>\n