Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message. Philippians,
Speaker 1: Chapter three, Verse one. I'll give you my title before
Speaker 1: I read my text. Today we're in a series called Triggered,
Speaker 1: taking back your Mind in the Age of Anxiety, and
Speaker 1: I will keep preaching until you are totally sane, until
Speaker 1: you are no longer hiding Dorito's under your bed because
Speaker 1: of stress, eating and cussing people out in your car
Speaker 1: while you're listening to Elevation Worship at the same time,
Speaker 1: you don't even pause the music. So the series is
Speaker 1: going to go a little bit longer, and this text
Speaker 1: is going to help us today. The apostle paulis in
Speaker 1: his own way, upset and triggered for good reason about
Speaker 1: something that is going on to affect the believer. And
Speaker 1: so the title I want to use, I need you
Speaker 1: to announce this title to the person sitting next to you,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to talk to him another time
Speaker 1: after this, it would be the last time that you
Speaker 1: have to talk to him. But tell him this, say,
Speaker 1: I hate to admit it, but I lost my confidence.
Speaker 1: Hey man, Philippians, Chapter three, verse one. Further, my brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble
Speaker 1: for me to write the same things to you again,
Speaker 1: And it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for
Speaker 1: those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For
Speaker 1: it is we who are the circumcision, We who serve
Speaker 1: God by his spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and
Speaker 1: who put no new, zero, new new confidence in the flesh.
Speaker 1: Though I myself have reasons for such confidence, if anyone else,
Speaker 1: if someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence
Speaker 1: in the flesh, I have more. We're gonna stop right
Speaker 1: there and talk a little, and then we'll work through
Speaker 1: the rest of the passage. But tall you something real quick.
Speaker 1: That seminary professor taught me about preaching when I was
Speaker 1: preaching from the Old Testament Book of First Samuel, and
Speaker 1: there were a lot of names and places that I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to pronounce because they were based on
Speaker 1: Hebrew words. And I took all of them up to
Speaker 1: him to ask him to help me pronounce them correctly,
Speaker 1: because I was preaching in a few days and I
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure I said all the words right.
Speaker 1: And he said, he well, first of all, he laughed
Speaker 1: at my list of words, and he said, it's not
Speaker 1: important that you say it right. It only matters that
Speaker 1: you say it with confidence. He said, don't worry about
Speaker 1: mispronouncing the words. Nobody will know the difference if you
Speaker 1: say it with confidence. Kind of seems to be the
Speaker 1: thing these days. It's like, you know, we're all it's
Speaker 1: kind of like we all found a Bible verse, fake
Speaker 1: it till you make it, only it's not in the Bible.
Speaker 1: That's how I was taught to get girls, you know,
Speaker 1: Harold Staley. He said, it is really doesn't matter. You
Speaker 1: could your car doesn't have to be fast or nice,
Speaker 1: he said. You're not especially good looking or tall, he said,
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna tell you, if you just walk up
Speaker 1: to a girl with confidence, you'd be surprised how much
Speaker 1: better looking confidence can make you. But then that's only
Speaker 1: kind of true, because there's a fine line between confident
Speaker 1: and creepy. Am I right about it? And I'm kind
Speaker 1: of trying to figure that out as a parent, Like
Speaker 1: how much confidence do I really want my kids to have?
Speaker 1: Because you kind of like them being confident when they're younger,
Speaker 1: it's cute. And then in their teenage yeers, when they
Speaker 1: are so confident that they no longer believe that you
Speaker 1: have any knowledge about anything, it's an issue. It's like,
Speaker 1: can we find a middle ground on this this confidence thing?
Speaker 1: Can you be like confident enough to be socially not awkward,
Speaker 1: but then be humble enough to listen to me when
Speaker 1: I'm telling you what's best for you? Is there is
Speaker 1: there like a is there an in between? Is there
Speaker 1: a middle ground on this confidence thing? Like is there
Speaker 1: somewhere between you being intimidated and scared to death and
Speaker 1: feeling the need to apologize for your existence on planet Earth?
Speaker 1: And like Connor McGregor on the other end of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: is there anywhere? But here's what's happening now. It's like
Speaker 1: we we have confidence without competence. Can I preach a
Speaker 1: little bit today before I send you to join any group?
Speaker 1: It's like we are okay, we are We are approaching
Speaker 1: it like they were approaching it in Philippians three, where
Speaker 1: Paul says, you need to watch out for the dogs.
Speaker 1: And I know you're wondering, who are these dogs? It's
Speaker 1: in verse two. Who is Paul calling a dog? Who
Speaker 1: are these dogs? And who let them out? We need
Speaker 1: to know And you would assume that these are people
Speaker 1: who are tempting the church at Philippi, the church that
Speaker 1: Paul founded and fathered in the gospel. Maybe they are
Speaker 1: luring them with sin. Maybe he's talking about drug dealers
Speaker 1: or liberals, you know, all the things that threaten the
Speaker 1: Christian worldview. But really what he's talking about here is
Speaker 1: religious people. They're trying to get the newly converted gentiles
Speaker 1: who weren't Jewish to be circumcised with no anesthesia, because
Speaker 1: that was the outward sign of the covenant with the
Speaker 1: Jewish people before Christ. But Christ came along and changed that.
Speaker 1: And Paul knows that it's not what you can show
Speaker 1: on the outside, but it's what happens in your heart
Speaker 1: that proves the authenticity of your relationship with God and
Speaker 1: validates your relationship with Him by faith. Everybody say, by faith,
Speaker 1: not flesh. It is impossible for you to please God
Speaker 1: with your flesh, with your effort. It is impossible for
Speaker 1: you to impress God with your Bible reading streak. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry he didn't call the angels over today because you
Speaker 1: read a psalm. Wow, check this out. She went a
Speaker 1: whole week without telling anybody off. Didn't impress God a bit.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, we can please God by faith.
Speaker 1: And so Paul is talking about the dogs. Wooooo, whooooooooo,
Speaker 1: how long are you going to do it? Well, no,
Speaker 1: but he's triggered. He says, what they're doing is evil.
Speaker 1: They're evildoers. They're mutilating the flesh. They're making it worse.
Speaker 1: They're telling you all these rules and regulations that will
Speaker 1: make you acceptable to God, and it's making it worse
Speaker 1: because it is teaching you to put confidence in the
Speaker 1: wrong thing. And it is a perversion of the Gospel
Speaker 1: to think that there are things that we can do outwardly,
Speaker 1: or behaviors that we can quit, or habits that we
Speaker 1: can enforce. And sometimes our consistency can become the enemy
Speaker 1: of our humility because we stop doing stuff and start
Speaker 1: doing stuff, and then immediately we start to create categories
Speaker 1: for people who have not yet arrived at the place
Speaker 1: of consistency. That we're at and now, God help us,
Speaker 1: because we're raising a generations that don't have to train
Speaker 1: for their trophies. So it's as if we think that
Speaker 1: confidence is our birthright. We have developed a sick, twisted
Speaker 1: version of confidence that knows nothing in the biblical context.
Speaker 1: We have put our confidence in confidence, But confidence that
Speaker 1: has developed outside of the process that produces true confidence
Speaker 1: is false confidence. And you know, I'm just thinking about
Speaker 1: it now a little differently than age sixteen, when I
Speaker 1: first gave my life to Christ and was very confident,
Speaker 1: very confident in my ability to live for Jesus, very
Speaker 1: confident in my ability to stay away from certain temptations. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's so easy to be confident when you've never lived
Speaker 1: through a crisis. It's so easy to preach faith when
Speaker 1: you never watched your dad take his die and gasping
Speaker 1: breath from als and watched his body completely shut down,
Speaker 1: and prayed every prayer that you knew to pray over him,
Speaker 1: and quoted every scripture that you learned and wrote about
Speaker 1: in a book about sunstands still. And then things happen
Speaker 1: to shake your confidence. Paul is talking here about people
Speaker 1: who have lost their confidence in the gospel, or they
Speaker 1: are on the verge of losing their confidence in the
Speaker 1: gospel and putting their confidence in their performance, and that's dangerous.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to wonder do we need more confidence. It's
Speaker 1: just a question because lately I've been thinking that the
Speaker 1: dangers of overconfidence are just as great as the dangers
Speaker 1: of under confidence, that really, maybe it's not about the
Speaker 1: amount of confidence that we have at all. I wrote
Speaker 1: a little note to my son when he turned thirteen,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't really about him. It was about me
Speaker 1: remembering that age. And one thing I was trying to
Speaker 1: tell him in the note is that everybody, in some
Speaker 1: way is faking it. I just thought I would show
Speaker 1: him that there is no Wizard of Oz, just a
Speaker 1: little short dude behind the curtain, pulling levers and posting
Speaker 1: stuff with filters and captions that are perfectly crafted. And
Speaker 1: they spend an hour and a half to write that
Speaker 1: caption to make themselves sound witty, and they're really not
Speaker 1: that witty off the cuff, And if you compare, you're
Speaker 1: off the cuff to their manufactured caption. You're going to
Speaker 1: always feel like there's something missing and lacking in you.
Speaker 1: But so hard because it's like we're living in a
Speaker 1: culture that projects confidence at all costs, and the cost
Speaker 1: of false confidence is ignorance. The cost of false confidence
Speaker 1: is ignorance. And trust me, some of the people who
Speaker 1: are the most confident are also the most ignorant. Some
Speaker 1: of the wisest people that I've ever talked to in
Speaker 1: my life didn't have a lot of answers. They asked
Speaker 1: a lot of questions. You see what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: it's tough because we're teaching this to our kids, right
Speaker 1: Just just be confident, you know, be confident. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to find the balance because I do want to raise
Speaker 1: confident kids and I want to be a confident Christian.
Speaker 1: But I'm trying to find I'm trying to find the balance,
Speaker 1: you know, Like our kids are out playing sports, just
Speaker 1: like many of your kids. Someone said to me a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, stop talking about your kids so much
Speaker 1: in your sermons. We don't come to hear about your family.
Speaker 1: We come to hear the word of God. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I got another solution. Just quit coming and you won't
Speaker 1: have to hear me talk about Anything'll be fine, work
Speaker 1: well for both of us. Let's just agree to. We
Speaker 1: don't share the same interests, but that's my life right now,
Speaker 1: is raising these kids. So it's just like it's just
Speaker 1: what I mean. I'm always out at some baseball field
Speaker 1: or football game or something like that. And now even
Speaker 1: Abviy is playing seven year old softball and she says
Speaker 1: she likes it, but I don't know if she really
Speaker 1: likes softball or dugout cheers, because honestly, no, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make a plea here, and if anybody's watching this
Speaker 1: online that has any kind of authority in girls seven
Speaker 1: year old softball, I'm begging you, in the name of
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, whose gospel I preach, could we possibly ban
Speaker 1: dugout cheering for seven year old softball? And I know
Speaker 1: it's cute and it's delightful, but I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: protect these girls because I'm listening to them in the
Speaker 1: dugout and not only is it bad for my hearing,
Speaker 1: not only is it loud and it's rough on their voices,
Speaker 1: but what they're saying in these cheers is not true.
Speaker 1: I heard hat Abby the other day. She was doing
Speaker 1: a cheer. My name is Abby, and you know what
Speaker 1: I got and the whole team said, what do you got?
Speaker 1: Abby said, I got a team that is hotter than hot?
Speaker 1: See right there, we just sought the realm of reality
Speaker 1: because I've been watching all three innings of this and
Speaker 1: y'all are not hotter than hot. Y'all are not even lukewarm.
Speaker 1: Baby girl, you're frozen in the center. You need to
Speaker 1: be in the microwave. About three more. Then she said,
Speaker 1: grand slams and homers too. I'm like, how about a
Speaker 1: base hit? Can we start with a base hit? Praise
Speaker 1: the Lord. It's dangerous to have too much confidence in
Speaker 1: the wrong place, in the wrong place. But the Bible
Speaker 1: says to be confident. You know, in this I will
Speaker 1: be confident. Doesn't the Bible say that? Yes? But the
Speaker 1: question is in what? Will you be confident in? What?
Speaker 1: And sometimes we want to have a confident belief without
Speaker 1: the behaviors that build confidence in our lives, you know,
Speaker 1: Because to have real confidence, you gotta have consistency, don't you.
Speaker 1: I mean to have confidence, you gotta have competence. Competence
Speaker 1: is built through consistency. You gotta if you're gonna have
Speaker 1: real confidence, you gotta have character. Amen. Amen, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna spend the rest of my life preaching
Speaker 1: what I think is true, whether anybody says amen to
Speaker 1: it or not. I'm committing to that. These these little
Speaker 1: ray Harris to keep popping up or trying to tell me,
Speaker 1: you don't have time to get up there in that
Speaker 1: pulpit and just hype people anymore, because while we're hyping
Speaker 1: people in one sense to believe God, we are actually
Speaker 1: making the problem worse because when their circumstance is not
Speaker 1: reflecting their confession, their faith collapses beneath the weight of
Speaker 1: unmat expectations. And so the Lord was really speaking to me,
Speaker 1: you know, because I go back and forth of feeling
Speaker 1: really confident sometimes and then sometimes I feel I can't
Speaker 1: find my confidence anywhere, and so then I think, well,
Speaker 1: I had too much confidence. I need to be more humble.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes I think, well I don't have enough confidence.
Speaker 1: I need to just bump myself in a mirror mirror
Speaker 1: a few times and get out there and put myself
Speaker 1: back in the game. Coach, get out there. And I'm
Speaker 1: back and forth. And God spoke to me this week.
Speaker 1: He said, it's not how much confidence you have, is
Speaker 1: where you put it. That counts. Paul said, I have
Speaker 1: no confidence in the flesh. All of these people who
Speaker 1: are telling you you need to be circumcised, and that's
Speaker 1: how you prove that you have a relationship with God.
Speaker 1: Or you know, this temptation that we all have to
Speaker 1: fake it until we break, that's what really happens. You know,
Speaker 1: you fake it and you never make it because no
Speaker 1: matter how much you work to develop your confidence in
Speaker 1: your flesh, it will always fail you. It will always
Speaker 1: fail you. And all of this behavioral modification that I
Speaker 1: know is necessary for us to make improvements in our lives,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's important and for us to have confidence
Speaker 1: if we're going to stand on stage and give a
Speaker 1: presentation or go into a meeting that we don't feel
Speaker 1: qualified for. I understand that, but my question is have
Speaker 1: have you put that confidence in the right place? And
Speaker 1: the other day I noticed Holly didn't have her wedding
Speaker 1: ring on. Wasn't anything sketchy. We were just at the house.
Speaker 1: She wasn't going out without her wedding ring on. In fact,
Speaker 1: I got that cover too. I made her put a
Speaker 1: tattoo on her ring finger, so even if she wanted
Speaker 1: to take it off, it says H and S. And
Speaker 1: so if she wants to leave me, the dude is
Speaker 1: already going to be narrowed down. His name better start
Speaker 1: with S or she'll have to turn it into an eight.
Speaker 1: But she is mine. But I said, where's your ring?
Speaker 1: And oh, I put it over here. So I watched
Speaker 1: him this is and I asked her question. I didn't
Speaker 1: have to say much. I said, is that a good
Speaker 1: place to put it? Because listen, she lost it once
Speaker 1: and when she lost it, we had insurance she got
Speaker 1: a better one. So now I'm starting to wonder, are
Speaker 1: you trying ask somebody next to you is that a
Speaker 1: good place to put it? Because you keep putting your
Speaker 1: confidence in people, and you keep putting your confidence in
Speaker 1: your performance, and you keep putting your confidence in your
Speaker 1: ability to be disciplined. And ah, I'm a exercise and
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna stay on my diet this time, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pray for fifteen minutes every day. You know,
Speaker 1: I hear people say sometimes I gave up on God
Speaker 1: because some people in the church let me down. But
Speaker 1: let me ask you a question. Your relationship with God
Speaker 1: is so precious. Why would you put your confidence in
Speaker 1: God in how people treat you. People will always let
Speaker 1: you down. People will always fall short, even if they
Speaker 1: have good intentions, They have limitability. Do you really want
Speaker 1: to put it in people? Haven't you spend enough time
Speaker 1: trusting in people who meets your needs? I feel like preaching?
Speaker 1: Ask them again, is that a good place to put it?
Speaker 1: Do you really want to put confidence in your flesh,
Speaker 1: your effort, your ability to keep the law? Now, Paul said,
Speaker 1: if you want to play the game of who has
Speaker 1: more reasons to be confident on the basis of lifestyle
Speaker 1: or legality, he says, if you want to play the
Speaker 1: game whose circumcision is better, let's play watch this. He
Speaker 1: starts reading off his resume, and what a weird game
Speaker 1: this is. Watch this? You know people try to top everything.
Speaker 1: Paul's like, my circumcision is better than your circumcision because
Speaker 1: watch verse five. I was circumcised on the eighth day
Speaker 1: when you're supposed to be. A lot of the Judaizers
Speaker 1: the dog who they were circumcised after the fact. Paul said,
Speaker 1: I was circumcised when I was supposed to be circumcised,
Speaker 1: because I was born the way he was supposed to
Speaker 1: be born into the race. That God said that he
Speaker 1: would use to bless all the nations of the earth
Speaker 1: through So I was circumcised before all y'all on the
Speaker 1: eighth day. I don't remember it. I'm glad I got
Speaker 1: that out of the way early in life. I was
Speaker 1: of the people of Israel, so I have connections. I
Speaker 1: was not only of the people of Israel. I was
Speaker 1: of the tribe of Benjamin. That was the tribe that
Speaker 1: the kings came out of, the Benjamin. So he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm already one of God's favorite people because I'm an Israelite,
Speaker 1: and then I'm the favorite tribe within the favorite people.
Speaker 1: Come on, you want to talk about flesh. My flesh
Speaker 1: is impressive. Mm hmm. And I was not only of
Speaker 1: the tribe of Benjamin. It was not only a matter
Speaker 1: of birth. I wasn't only born into fortunate circumstances. But
Speaker 1: I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Wow, I was. I
Speaker 1: was a Hebrew of Hebrews. I was competent. Watch this,
Speaker 1: I was connected. I was competent in regard to the
Speaker 1: law of Pharisee. That's the strictest order of religious law
Speaker 1: for the Jewish people. So he says I was on
Speaker 1: a scholarship. I was a prize pupil of Gamalio. He
Speaker 1: doesn't mention that in Philippians three. He mentions it elsewhere
Speaker 1: that he sat underneath the tutelage of one of the
Speaker 1: greatest teachers of his day. This is like you interned
Speaker 1: under Elon Musk. Paul said, let's talk. You want to
Speaker 1: talk to me, You dogs that think you're so much
Speaker 1: better than other people. He said, I had all of that.
Speaker 1: I was so good at it that I was promoted
Speaker 1: to the highest level. I was so zealous Verse six. Please,
Speaker 1: I was persecuting the church as for righteousness based on
Speaker 1: the law faultless. So stop, make sure we got this.
Speaker 1: He's connected. He's competent. And his character, he says, according
Speaker 1: to human law and what you can measure and what
Speaker 1: you can see and what you can judge faultless. Connect
Speaker 1: it competent and his character is faultless. And he build
Speaker 1: his confidence to a certain level. But then something happened
Speaker 1: to Paul. Paul saw a contrast, and sometimes what we
Speaker 1: need when we get a little too full of ourselves,
Speaker 1: come on. Happens to all of us. Quiet people, loud people,
Speaker 1: flashy people, low key people. It can happen to every
Speaker 1: one of us that we start to trust in our flesh.
Speaker 1: And about the time you think you get it figured out,
Speaker 1: you know how we do. We get our categories exactly right. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's the kind of people that are going to heaven,
Speaker 1: and here's the kind of people that are going to hell.
Speaker 1: And the way I know is there are certain things
Speaker 1: that people who are going to heaven do and don't do,
Speaker 1: and certain people who are going to hell. Here's what
Speaker 1: they do and they don't do. The only problem that
Speaker 1: I'm finding with this is a lot of our confidence
Speaker 1: that we put in our judgments, and our assessment is
Speaker 1: based on our external observations of people, and we can
Speaker 1: never really know anyone's heart. And now here's a case
Speaker 1: in point. And I told this story the wrong way
Speaker 1: last night, so if you were here last night, I
Speaker 1: messed it up. But here's how it actually happened. That's
Speaker 1: why I put no confidence in the flesh, because I
Speaker 1: can't even tell my own stories right while I'm preaching
Speaker 1: about confidence. That's how much I need the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: But I was watching a sermon with my father in
Speaker 1: law when I was first starting in ministry, and he
Speaker 1: was telling me how the person preaching the sermon was
Speaker 1: cocky and arrogant. He said, look at him. You can
Speaker 1: tell he's strutting around that stage. He's wearing a five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars suit. Look at him. He's cocky and he's arrogant.
Speaker 1: Even his tie is loud. He's cocky and he's arrogant.
Speaker 1: He's so cocky and he's arrogant. Of course, I asked
Speaker 1: my father in law, have you met him? No, but
Speaker 1: you can tell he's cocky and he's arrogant. Do you
Speaker 1: know anybody who's met him? No, but I don't have to.
Speaker 1: You can tell he's cocky and he's arrogant. And I said,
Speaker 1: just kind of innocently, well, who's somebody that you think
Speaker 1: is not cocky and arrogant? That would be better to
Speaker 1: model my ministry after, because he was in ministry and
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear his wisdom. And he named the
Speaker 1: name of somebody that I knew. It was a man
Speaker 1: who had the Greek New Testament memorized. No, not the
Speaker 1: not the Little Philippians four thirteen, in the whole New Testament.
Speaker 1: He would show up. I took the class with him
Speaker 1: one time. He would say the Bible verse without looking
Speaker 1: at the Bible. But he wouldn't say it in our translation.
Speaker 1: He would be translating it in his mind from Greek.
Speaker 1: He never looked at the Bible to teach us the Bible.
Speaker 1: And my father in law said, that guy, that's a
Speaker 1: man of God. That's a humble man of God. That's
Speaker 1: a man of God who knows what matters and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: That's a man of God who is understated. That's a
Speaker 1: man of God. And twelve months later, the man of
Speaker 1: God who knew the Bible in Greek had left his
Speaker 1: wife for a woman in Russia. He had been taking
Speaker 1: mission trips to Russia, mission trips to Russia, but one
Speaker 1: mission he went for and he never came back. And
Speaker 1: the man that was cocky and arrogant is still serving
Speaker 1: God today, and his kids are in ministry too. And
Speaker 1: here's what I'm trying to say. Let's stop being so
Speaker 1: quick to categorize people based on what we see with
Speaker 1: our eyes or where they are in certain behaviors in
Speaker 1: their lives. Judge nothing before the appointed time. You don't
Speaker 1: even know what battles they're fighting, and you don't know
Speaker 1: how far they've come. And you don't know what has
Speaker 1: taken them, just to keep running the race, and they
Speaker 1: might be limping, but they might make it to the
Speaker 1: finish line because they lived. I don't know anymore. I
Speaker 1: put no confidence in the flesh. I don't have categories.
Speaker 1: They're not as clear anymore for who's a godly person
Speaker 1: and who's not, and who God has favored, and oh
Speaker 1: God hasn't because some of the people that I thought
Speaker 1: were walking in the favor of God were faking it.
Speaker 1: But I know it till they fell apart. Paul's writing
Speaker 1: to Damascus one day a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee
Speaker 1: of Pharisees, in regards to the law, righteousness, connected and competent,
Speaker 1: connected and competent, And all of a sudden he was
Speaker 1: blinded by a light on his way to imprison Christians
Speaker 1: in Damascus and bring them back to Jerusalem to be sentenced.
Speaker 1: And something happened to him that will happen to all
Speaker 1: of us in one way or another. If it hasn't
Speaker 1: happened to you yet, send me a text message when
Speaker 1: it does. God in his mercy and God in his
Speaker 1: wisdom knew that if I allow Paul to remain confident
Speaker 1: in his flesh. He will not fulfill my purpose for
Speaker 1: his life. He will live the rest of his life
Speaker 1: putting his confidence in himself and his competence and his character.
Speaker 1: And so all of a sudden you can read it.
Speaker 1: In Acts chapter nine, a blinding light throws Paul from
Speaker 1: his horse. He is thrown to the ground on the
Speaker 1: way to exercise his gift with authoritative letters from the
Speaker 1: Jewish Ruling Council. He falls off of his horse, and
Speaker 1: a voice from heaven asks him, Saul, who do you
Speaker 1: think you are? And Saul said back, I don't know
Speaker 1: who are you? And the voice said I am Jesus.
Speaker 1: And Paul spent three days blind and someone had to
Speaker 1: lead him by the hand. You know, that's when life
Speaker 1: gets really interesting. When you're used to leading others, when
Speaker 1: you're used to knowing what to do, when you're used
Speaker 1: to making it happen, when you're used to smiling and
Speaker 1: getting through it. But then every once in a while,
Speaker 1: something will come along in your life and you'll say,
Speaker 1: I didn't take a class on this, I didn't read
Speaker 1: a book about this. Nobody told me it would feel
Speaker 1: like this. I wasn't prepared for this. I didn't know
Speaker 1: it would be like this, and Paul said, I lost
Speaker 1: my confidence. I lost my confidence and I had to
Speaker 1: start all over. And I had to I had to
Speaker 1: give up all my connections because everybody hated me that
Speaker 1: I used to serve with. And I had to start
Speaker 1: all over because I didn't know how to preach Jesus
Speaker 1: because I just met him, and I had to humble
Speaker 1: myself and I had to reevaluate my character because I
Speaker 1: had been comparing myself to others. You know how we do.
Speaker 1: Holly preached this brilliant message to the ladies a couple
Speaker 1: weeks ago, and everything about it was good. But I
Speaker 1: just want to correct one thing she said. She said,
Speaker 1: we need to stop comparing ourself to others, and I
Speaker 1: think she's wrong about that. I think we need to
Speaker 1: compare ourself to others every chance we get, until we
Speaker 1: are so sick of comparing ourself to others. You know,
Speaker 1: because if you compare yourself to others long enough, you
Speaker 1: will come to the place eventually. If you're not there yet,
Speaker 1: you'll get there. Just keep doing it, keep comparing yourself
Speaker 1: to others. Just keep right on doing it, and do it.
Speaker 1: Do it to make yourself feel better. Do it. When
Speaker 1: you see somebody whose kids are on drugs, you just
Speaker 1: silently tell yourself, my kids would never do that. Go ahead,
Speaker 1: go ahead and go ahead and do that. Just go
Speaker 1: ahead and do it. Just go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1: When you see somebody who's not married, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: if they go ahead and compare yourself to them, because
Speaker 1: you know you're better than them. That's why you're married,
Speaker 1: they're not. Just go ahead, compare yourself. Go ahead and
Speaker 1: do it. Go ahead and do it too. The other
Speaker 1: way to go ahead and compare yourself to people that
Speaker 1: are better than you all the time, just all the time.
Speaker 1: Look at everybody sucking in on the ground, and then
Speaker 1: compare yourself bloated after a whole day of running your
Speaker 1: kids around, and then compare yourself who didn't have time
Speaker 1: to eat healthy because you actually care about other people
Speaker 1: and that's why you had to go through McDonald's. But
Speaker 1: compare yourself to them, you won't even know that they're
Speaker 1: selfish and that's why their body looks like that because
Speaker 1: they never they never have time for anybody else and
Speaker 1: all their things going. Here's what I want you to do.
Speaker 1: I want you to completely compare out of context for
Speaker 1: as long as you can, and don't ask the question.
Speaker 1: You know, like, they're real successful on their job, but
Speaker 1: I wonder are they happy? Don't ask that question, because
Speaker 1: if you can compare across all the categories, you might
Speaker 1: see that their success is costing them their fulfillment. But
Speaker 1: don't do that. Just compare, Just completely take it all
Speaker 1: out of context and compare what people show you to
Speaker 1: what you can see, and don't take time to wonder
Speaker 1: what's really going on, and don't take time to stop
Speaker 1: and think about how they're so gifted and they're so wonderful.
Speaker 1: Just compare yourself to them until you feel so terrible
Speaker 1: that the only place left for you to go, the
Speaker 1: only thing left for you to conclude, the only thing
Speaker 1: left for you to do, is to fall down off
Speaker 1: your horse and say, God, I'm sick of myself. I'm
Speaker 1: sick of false standards, I'm sick of worldly measurements, I'm
Speaker 1: tired of my flesh, I'm tired of keeping I'm tired
Speaker 1: of falling short, I'm tired of looking around. And in
Speaker 1: that moment, you will come to the point that Paul
Speaker 1: came to in verse seven, where he said, I compared
Speaker 1: myself to everyone else so long, and it finally brought
Speaker 1: me to a point, not because I hit the bottom,
Speaker 1: but because I was on top. And then something happened
Speaker 1: in my life. I compared myself to Jesus. And when
Speaker 1: I compared myself to him, I didn't have anything left
Speaker 1: to brag about. When I compared myself to him, I
Speaker 1: wasn't such a good person after all. When I compared
Speaker 1: myself to him, I lost my confidence in me. I
Speaker 1: lost my confidence and how nice I am, and how
Speaker 1: sweet I am, and how polite I am, and how
Speaker 1: educated I am. When I compared myself to the fullness
Speaker 1: of wisdom that was revealed in Jesus Christ, I didn't
Speaker 1: bring up my IQ anymore, and I didn't show them
Speaker 1: my sat scourse. When I compared myself to him. My
Speaker 1: posture changed. When I compared myself to him, I quit
Speaker 1: trying to be first place in a race that I
Speaker 1: realized I couldn't win. When I compared myself to him,
Speaker 1: I fell off my horse and I was led by
Speaker 1: the hand. And Paul says in verse seven, Now whatever
Speaker 1: were gains to me, I consider loss. I lost my confidence.
Speaker 1: But watch this, I gained Christ. Speak this message today
Speaker 1: in the hopes that someone who has lost your confidence
Speaker 1: in yourself would realize that this is a necessary step
Speaker 1: for you to receive the righteousness that comes by faith.
Speaker 1: And that's what Paul says here. He says, I lost
Speaker 1: my cane actions. I lost my sense of competence. I
Speaker 1: found out I wasn't so good at everything. You know
Speaker 1: how life is, man, just about the time you master
Speaker 1: a set of skills, the whole game changes. By the
Speaker 1: time I figure out how to get my kids to
Speaker 1: you know, sh then they are teenagers and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get them to talk to me, you know, the
Speaker 1: whole opposite changes. So it is designed that way, is
Speaker 1: designed that way. I wonder if God is trying to
Speaker 1: strip you of your confidence today so that you can
Speaker 1: gain something greater. I lost my confidence to preach to
Speaker 1: people and tell them, you know, if you do this,
Speaker 1: God's going to do that. I don't make those kinds
Speaker 1: of promises anymore because now I have a different kind
Speaker 1: of confidence. It's a kind of confidence that doesn't come
Speaker 1: from circumcision and changing your behavior, getting it right, knowing
Speaker 1: all the answers. It's it's in inward confidence. I wonder
Speaker 1: if that's the real contrast here, is that we are
Speaker 1: trying to project confidence and God is trying to impart it.
Speaker 1: I wonder if we're so busy trying to be confident
Speaker 1: and seem confident that we have isolated ourselves so we
Speaker 1: stay in places where no one really knows us and
Speaker 1: no one can really touch us, because we have gotten
Speaker 1: so good at looking confident, but on the inside, we
Speaker 1: have lost a sense of ourselves, and we have lost
Speaker 1: touch with our humanity as we project into the world,
Speaker 1: pretend images of who we wish we were and who
Speaker 1: we think we should be. But Paul said, I lost
Speaker 1: all that. I lost all that, and you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I lost it. I'm glad I got knocked
Speaker 1: off my horse. Glad I got my heart broken, Glad
Speaker 1: I got my plans disrupted. I'm glad I found out
Speaker 1: that the world wasn't flat. I'm glad I found out
Speaker 1: that it didn't revolve around me. I'm glad that I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do, because if I'd have kept
Speaker 1: trusting in my flot, I would have spent the rest
Speaker 1: of my life measuring myself against an irrelevant standard. But
Speaker 1: something wonderful happened when I lost my confidence. I gain Christ.
Speaker 1: And what is more versea, I consider everything a loss
Speaker 1: because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus, my Lord,
Speaker 1: for whose sake I have lost all things. I'm letting
Speaker 1: it go. I'm not trying to get back on my horse.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to ride in that direction anymore.
Speaker 1: I've been down that road, and I'm ready for something better.
Speaker 1: I consider them garbage that I may gain. Christ. Take
Speaker 1: the whole world, Take my skills, take my knowledge, take
Speaker 1: my insight, take my appearances, take my youth, But give
Speaker 1: me Jesus. I want to be found in Him, not
Speaker 1: having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
Speaker 1: but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness
Speaker 1: that comes from God on the basis of faith. Stand up.
Speaker 1: It's not about how much confidence you have, it's about
Speaker 1: on what basis you've built it. And the answer to
Speaker 1: our anxiety isn't just more confidence, it's more Christ. He
Speaker 1: says Verse ten. I used to know a lot of
Speaker 1: things about the law. I used to know a lot
Speaker 1: of things about life. But now look what happens after
Speaker 1: you lose your confidence and your arrogance and your prejudice
Speaker 1: and your presuppositions. He said, now that I've lost my confidence,
Speaker 1: I want to know Christ. I don't want to know
Speaker 1: about him. I don't want to know what I think
Speaker 1: I know about him. I want to know Christ. Yes,
Speaker 1: to know the power. Watch this of his resurrection. So
Speaker 1: after you have lost your confidence, you can expect a resurrection.
Speaker 1: I told my friend what I was going to preach
Speaker 1: to you today. I said, I'm going to preach on
Speaker 1: I lost my confidence. And he texted me after I
Speaker 1: preached it the first message, and he said, did you
Speaker 1: get it back? And I said no. I told the
Speaker 1: people to let it die. To let that confidence that
Speaker 1: we put in what we can see and then what
Speaker 1: we can know, and then what we can feel, let
Speaker 1: it die. Let it be nailed to the cross. You know,
Speaker 1: God will allow certain circumstances in your life, and he
Speaker 1: will use those circumstances to crucify your false confidence. And
Speaker 1: if we don't understand this, we will try to pray
Speaker 1: our confidence back down off the cross, and we'll try
Speaker 1: to get it back, and we'll go back into those
Speaker 1: same modes. But only after it dies can it be resurrected.
Speaker 1: As faith. I lost my confidence, and I'm glad I did,
Speaker 1: because while I was confident in me, I could not
Speaker 1: have faith in him. And I wonder if today God
Speaker 1: brought you here not to give you back your confidence,
Speaker 1: you know, so you can get the girl and win
Speaker 1: the bid. I wonder if God brought you here to
Speaker 1: give you something better then, now that we have buried
Speaker 1: your need to prove that you're better than everybody, helps
Speaker 1: because you realize that all of our righteousness is like
Speaker 1: filthy rags. Are you ready now for a resurrection of faith?
Speaker 1: That's what had to happen to the disciples. They were
Speaker 1: so confident in Jesus as an earthly king. When he
Speaker 1: went to the cross, it killed their confidence because they
Speaker 1: couldn't understand how he could set up a kingdom and
Speaker 1: die on a cross. But he had to crucify their
Speaker 1: confidence in order to give life to their faith. The
Speaker 1: same thing is happening in your life right now. You're
Speaker 1: getting older, or you got rejected, or something's happening in
Speaker 1: your body and it's not working like it used to.
Speaker 1: God is trying to give you something greater than confidence
Speaker 1: in your flesh. I've seen what my flesh can do,
Speaker 1: and I put no confidence in it anymore. I've seen
Speaker 1: what my effort can accomplish. I don't want to preach
Speaker 1: based on my opinions anymore. I'm ready now for the
Speaker 1: righteousness that comes on the basis of faith. Will you
Speaker 1: lift your hands in God's presence, Father, I thank you
Speaker 1: for the word that you sent forth from this pulpit today.
Speaker 1: While I understand God that there's a deep need in
Speaker 1: all of our hearts to feel assured that everything is
Speaker 1: going to be all right, I understand that also there
Speaker 1: are times that are necessary for us that we have
Speaker 1: to question everything, and sometimes we have to be shaken
Speaker 1: to our core in order to find a foundation that
Speaker 1: is worth building on. And I just believe today that
Speaker 1: you didn't give me this word so that I could
Speaker 1: preach it for myself. I believe that there is a
Speaker 1: brother or a sister who has lost their confidence because
Speaker 1: their circumstances have changed, or they've come to a place
Speaker 1: where something that used to work for them doesn't work anymore,
Speaker 1: or they have not been affirmed in certain ways. And
Speaker 1: I believe that you sent me here to tell them today,
Speaker 1: let it go and receive something better. And so as
Speaker 1: their hands are lifted to you, and their hearts are
Speaker 1: open to you. God, would you in each and every
Speaker 1: heart in this place fill our perspectives with faith, take
Speaker 1: away our confidence and our flesh. God, even if we
Speaker 1: can do it in our own strength, we can't sustain
Speaker 1: it in our own strength. We need you, We need you.
Speaker 1: You are our righteousness, and you are the only confidence
Speaker 1: that we have. Well, I hope you enjoyed the podcast today,
Speaker 1: and if you did, there are just a couple things
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to do. Number One, subscribe to
Speaker 1: our show. That way, the most recent episode will always
Speaker 1: be in your feed, waiting for you ready when you are.
Speaker 1: And Secondly, if this ministry has impacted you and you'd
Speaker 1: like to help us continue to reach others, you can
Speaker 1: click the link in the description and you can give
Speaker 1: now and I'll see you next time on the Elevation podcast.
Speaker 1: M m HM