The Key To Confident Living
Sermon
Together In Christ
Sermons and Prayers For the Christian Year
Have you ever noticed how some people go through life full of confidence and vigor, no matter what happens to them? When disaster strikes, they survive. When obstacles are placed in their path, they persevere. In the tumult of life's arena they are knocked down but never out, and they always have the internal fortitude to get up and get going again.
Have you ever noticed how such people are at their best when things are at their worst? They have an attitude about them which overcomes adversity. They have an inner strength to help them defeat the trials and traumas which come their way.
Why, one of the strongest, most confident people I know has suffered like Job all her life. I mean, it is just unbelievable the heartaches and disappointments this woman has endured! But she is like a willow tree. When the storms come and the hard winds blow, she bends but she does not break - and then she bounces back again, stronger than before. And now, having survived so much over the years, she is like the sturdy willow grown tall and true, with strong roots in the soil. She has a quiet confidence which says that she will still be there tomorrow, no matter what may try to knock her down today.
Some people have the confidence to defeat the negative circumstances of their lives and some people are defeated by them. Other people die a little bit inside with each setback and disappointment. Life hits them with some blows and leaves them a little weaker each time. Their confidence drains away until suddenly, they are just hanging on in life and going through the motions, a mere shell of what they might have been.
Countless lives are truly affected by a lack of confidence and affected for the worse! Think of all the people who are abused or taken advantage of every day because they lack the confidence to stop it. They think that somehow they deserve what they are getting, so they make no effort to change the situation.
Think of all the opportunities people have missed because they lacked the confidence to try for them! They didn't think they could do something, so they settled for something less. Or, think of all the relationships which have suffered because people lacked the confidence to tell the truth! They didn't think they would still be loved if they really spoke their minds, so they kept quiet and failed to solve the problem between them.
We all need the confidence not to quit, at every stage of our lives, if we are to live up to the potential God gives us.
When we were preparing for our eldest child to enter kindergarten, my wife and I went to talk to the teacher in the local school. The teacher told us that even at the age of five, some children come into school more confidently than others, and the differences between the kids can be obvious.
She told us that some children are confident they can learn because their parents have worked with them at home, and these parents have built up their children's confidence with lots of praise when they learned something well or did something right.
Other children have no idea about learning because no one at home took the time to teach them very much. I was astounded to hear the teacher say that some kids literally don't know what a book is when they get to kindergarten! How are these children going to learn confidence in school when the world of books and learning is totally foreign to them?
In our middle years, we need confidence to thrive or even survive in the world of work, where we can easily feel like a small cog in a giant machine, or a tiny boat on a turbulent sea. Then, as we raise our children (and we all must become parents without any prior experience), we need confidence to know that somehow it will turn out, and our labors will not be in vain.
And most importantly - more than any other time of our lives - we need confidence as we face our death. As we prepare to make that unknown journey, which no one else can make for us, we can do it with fear or with grace. We can quit living and merely exist in anticipation of our death, or we can live fully each day we are given. Live at any time without confidence and life in this world (or the fear of death) can truly destroy you.
Judging by the culture around us, we are a nation of people sadly lacking in confidence and self-esteem. In the midst of all our material advantages, we hunger and thirst for confidence, and we don't know where to find it, so we give millions of dollars to people who will sell us a technique for getting
it.
Look at the best-seller list and you will see that you can gain confidence through your diet: you can Eat To Win. Or look at the evening news and notice how many politicians and businessmen are wearing the same color suits and ties. Do you know why that is? Because someone decided that a certain color is "power color." So go out and buy the book on "power dressing," and learn how to gain more confidence through fashion.
You can learn how to "win through intimidation." You can learn to be assertive. You can learn techniques for "positive thinking." There are a hundred seminars and support groups to help people feel more confident about themselves. And now, many preachers have taken this religion of self-esteem and wrapped it in Christian language, having discovered that it raises money over the airwaves or fills the pews of the local church.
It is everywhere around us, this hunger and thirst, and it's really a shame. It's a crying shame because the answer people need has been with us all along, right here in the pages of Scripture! The point that so many teachers and preachers miss today is that to feel good about yourself, you must look beyond yourself. You must have confidence in something beyond this world if you are to find confidence in this world.
Look at the familiar words of the twenty-third Psalm. Here is a psalm of utter, unshakable confidence which doesn't depend on our diet or fashion, or on our own ability to fill our minds with positive thoughts. The whole psalm is about God and that's why the Psalmist feels so confident about his life.
He knows that he "shall not want," his material needs will be taken care of, why - because "The Lord is my shepherd." Right from the start, he is talking about God: God "makes me lie down, God leads me beside still waters; God restores my soul, God prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies."
The Psalmist also says, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." Not if I walk, but when I walk. He knows there will be valleys in his life, and finally, he will enter the shadow of death. But even then, he "will fear no evil." Why? Because "Thou art with me." Again, the Psalmist is back to God: "Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me."
The twenty-third Psalm talks about our deepest anxieties and problems in life: our material needs; our conflicts with our enemies; our fear of death. But the Psalmist isn't talking about what he will do to defeat his problems or overcome his fears. He talks about what God will do, and that's why he is so confident.
No enemy, not even death itself, can shake his faith in God. His confidence is unshakable because it doesn't rest in himself or in this world but rests instead with God, and so the Psalmist is able to say, "I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
The apostle Paul shows us the same confidence in his letter to the Galatians. Now, we know that Paul had every reason to be afraid and reluctant. He had enemies on every side. He was small in stature, his speaking voice was rather unimpressive and he suffered a physical ailment, a "thorn in the flesh" (2 Corinthians 12:7). In today's language, we might say that Paul looked like a "wimp" or a "nerd." But here was a supremely confident man, a man confident enough to move mountains and topple empires: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
Friends, here is the Christian method for gaining all the confidence you will ever need. It's not in you; it's in Christ! You'll never have enough patience for the trials of this world, but Christ bears every burden, so let His patience live in you.
You'll never have enough strength and courage to live faithfully in this life, but Christ has overcome the world, so let His strength and courage live in you. You'll never have enough love for all the evils of this world, so let His love live in you. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
A vivid example of this key to confident living can be found in an episode from the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we are remembering today. Dr. King told about a certain night in 1956, which came at a very trying time. He had been arrested that week and received several death threats. His nerves were shot and he was filled with fear as he went to speak at a church rally.
When the program was over, an old woman, who was known as Mother Pollard, came up to him. "Something is wrong with you," she said; "you didn't talk strong tonight." Dr. King tired to disguise his feelings by saying, "No, no, Mother Pollard, I'm feeling just fine." But she persisted: "No, I can tell; something isn't right. Is it that we ain't doing things to please you? Is it that the white folks is bothering you?"
Before he could answer, Mother Pollard went on, "I told you that we are with you to the end." Then her face became radiant, and her voice became certain: "And even if we ain't with you, God's gonna take care of you!"
If you want the key to confident living, begin right there, by knowing where to look for your confidence. It lies not in ourselves or in our stars, but in our God. It lies in knowing that at the end of the day, "God's gonna take care of you." God's gonna take care of you and when you know that from the very core of your being, then you have an utter confidence about life which nothing or no one can take away.
The spirit of this age wants to say, "O Jesus, come and walk with me." It's better to say, "O Master, let me walk with Thee." It's better to look first to Him, to find your strength in Him and then to say with Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." When this is the way you live, you can never lose heart, and truly, you can never die. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
Precious Lord, we pray today for strength and grace through the challenges and blessings of this life. Teach us as a people to look up our faith to Thee. Teach us to find our strength and confident hope in You, that we may remain firm in Your ways all the days of our lives.
And we give thanks today, 0 God, for the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., a prophet and preacher, and servant of the Lord Most High. We give thanks that You choose a man in our own lifetime to put flesh on Biblical words, to speak Your eternal promises, and to share Your Divine dream. Strengthen all of us today as people who live that dream, that we may go beyond Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free - and love one another as children of God. Make us eager for the day when all Your children - black and white, Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic - can all join hands and truly say, "We are free at last."
Make us instruments of Your peace today, that we might honor the memory of this great man and be acceptable servants of our Savior, who is Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen
This story appears in Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, (Harper and Row, New York), pp. 116-117.
Have you ever noticed how such people are at their best when things are at their worst? They have an attitude about them which overcomes adversity. They have an inner strength to help them defeat the trials and traumas which come their way.
Why, one of the strongest, most confident people I know has suffered like Job all her life. I mean, it is just unbelievable the heartaches and disappointments this woman has endured! But she is like a willow tree. When the storms come and the hard winds blow, she bends but she does not break - and then she bounces back again, stronger than before. And now, having survived so much over the years, she is like the sturdy willow grown tall and true, with strong roots in the soil. She has a quiet confidence which says that she will still be there tomorrow, no matter what may try to knock her down today.
Some people have the confidence to defeat the negative circumstances of their lives and some people are defeated by them. Other people die a little bit inside with each setback and disappointment. Life hits them with some blows and leaves them a little weaker each time. Their confidence drains away until suddenly, they are just hanging on in life and going through the motions, a mere shell of what they might have been.
Countless lives are truly affected by a lack of confidence and affected for the worse! Think of all the people who are abused or taken advantage of every day because they lack the confidence to stop it. They think that somehow they deserve what they are getting, so they make no effort to change the situation.
Think of all the opportunities people have missed because they lacked the confidence to try for them! They didn't think they could do something, so they settled for something less. Or, think of all the relationships which have suffered because people lacked the confidence to tell the truth! They didn't think they would still be loved if they really spoke their minds, so they kept quiet and failed to solve the problem between them.
We all need the confidence not to quit, at every stage of our lives, if we are to live up to the potential God gives us.
When we were preparing for our eldest child to enter kindergarten, my wife and I went to talk to the teacher in the local school. The teacher told us that even at the age of five, some children come into school more confidently than others, and the differences between the kids can be obvious.
She told us that some children are confident they can learn because their parents have worked with them at home, and these parents have built up their children's confidence with lots of praise when they learned something well or did something right.
Other children have no idea about learning because no one at home took the time to teach them very much. I was astounded to hear the teacher say that some kids literally don't know what a book is when they get to kindergarten! How are these children going to learn confidence in school when the world of books and learning is totally foreign to them?
In our middle years, we need confidence to thrive or even survive in the world of work, where we can easily feel like a small cog in a giant machine, or a tiny boat on a turbulent sea. Then, as we raise our children (and we all must become parents without any prior experience), we need confidence to know that somehow it will turn out, and our labors will not be in vain.
And most importantly - more than any other time of our lives - we need confidence as we face our death. As we prepare to make that unknown journey, which no one else can make for us, we can do it with fear or with grace. We can quit living and merely exist in anticipation of our death, or we can live fully each day we are given. Live at any time without confidence and life in this world (or the fear of death) can truly destroy you.
Judging by the culture around us, we are a nation of people sadly lacking in confidence and self-esteem. In the midst of all our material advantages, we hunger and thirst for confidence, and we don't know where to find it, so we give millions of dollars to people who will sell us a technique for getting
it.
Look at the best-seller list and you will see that you can gain confidence through your diet: you can Eat To Win. Or look at the evening news and notice how many politicians and businessmen are wearing the same color suits and ties. Do you know why that is? Because someone decided that a certain color is "power color." So go out and buy the book on "power dressing," and learn how to gain more confidence through fashion.
You can learn how to "win through intimidation." You can learn to be assertive. You can learn techniques for "positive thinking." There are a hundred seminars and support groups to help people feel more confident about themselves. And now, many preachers have taken this religion of self-esteem and wrapped it in Christian language, having discovered that it raises money over the airwaves or fills the pews of the local church.
It is everywhere around us, this hunger and thirst, and it's really a shame. It's a crying shame because the answer people need has been with us all along, right here in the pages of Scripture! The point that so many teachers and preachers miss today is that to feel good about yourself, you must look beyond yourself. You must have confidence in something beyond this world if you are to find confidence in this world.
Look at the familiar words of the twenty-third Psalm. Here is a psalm of utter, unshakable confidence which doesn't depend on our diet or fashion, or on our own ability to fill our minds with positive thoughts. The whole psalm is about God and that's why the Psalmist feels so confident about his life.
He knows that he "shall not want," his material needs will be taken care of, why - because "The Lord is my shepherd." Right from the start, he is talking about God: God "makes me lie down, God leads me beside still waters; God restores my soul, God prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies."
The Psalmist also says, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." Not if I walk, but when I walk. He knows there will be valleys in his life, and finally, he will enter the shadow of death. But even then, he "will fear no evil." Why? Because "Thou art with me." Again, the Psalmist is back to God: "Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me."
The twenty-third Psalm talks about our deepest anxieties and problems in life: our material needs; our conflicts with our enemies; our fear of death. But the Psalmist isn't talking about what he will do to defeat his problems or overcome his fears. He talks about what God will do, and that's why he is so confident.
No enemy, not even death itself, can shake his faith in God. His confidence is unshakable because it doesn't rest in himself or in this world but rests instead with God, and so the Psalmist is able to say, "I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
The apostle Paul shows us the same confidence in his letter to the Galatians. Now, we know that Paul had every reason to be afraid and reluctant. He had enemies on every side. He was small in stature, his speaking voice was rather unimpressive and he suffered a physical ailment, a "thorn in the flesh" (2 Corinthians 12:7). In today's language, we might say that Paul looked like a "wimp" or a "nerd." But here was a supremely confident man, a man confident enough to move mountains and topple empires: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
Friends, here is the Christian method for gaining all the confidence you will ever need. It's not in you; it's in Christ! You'll never have enough patience for the trials of this world, but Christ bears every burden, so let His patience live in you.
You'll never have enough strength and courage to live faithfully in this life, but Christ has overcome the world, so let His strength and courage live in you. You'll never have enough love for all the evils of this world, so let His love live in you. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
A vivid example of this key to confident living can be found in an episode from the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we are remembering today. Dr. King told about a certain night in 1956, which came at a very trying time. He had been arrested that week and received several death threats. His nerves were shot and he was filled with fear as he went to speak at a church rally.
When the program was over, an old woman, who was known as Mother Pollard, came up to him. "Something is wrong with you," she said; "you didn't talk strong tonight." Dr. King tired to disguise his feelings by saying, "No, no, Mother Pollard, I'm feeling just fine." But she persisted: "No, I can tell; something isn't right. Is it that we ain't doing things to please you? Is it that the white folks is bothering you?"
Before he could answer, Mother Pollard went on, "I told you that we are with you to the end." Then her face became radiant, and her voice became certain: "And even if we ain't with you, God's gonna take care of you!"
If you want the key to confident living, begin right there, by knowing where to look for your confidence. It lies not in ourselves or in our stars, but in our God. It lies in knowing that at the end of the day, "God's gonna take care of you." God's gonna take care of you and when you know that from the very core of your being, then you have an utter confidence about life which nothing or no one can take away.
The spirit of this age wants to say, "O Jesus, come and walk with me." It's better to say, "O Master, let me walk with Thee." It's better to look first to Him, to find your strength in Him and then to say with Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." When this is the way you live, you can never lose heart, and truly, you can never die. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
Precious Lord, we pray today for strength and grace through the challenges and blessings of this life. Teach us as a people to look up our faith to Thee. Teach us to find our strength and confident hope in You, that we may remain firm in Your ways all the days of our lives.
And we give thanks today, 0 God, for the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., a prophet and preacher, and servant of the Lord Most High. We give thanks that You choose a man in our own lifetime to put flesh on Biblical words, to speak Your eternal promises, and to share Your Divine dream. Strengthen all of us today as people who live that dream, that we may go beyond Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free - and love one another as children of God. Make us eager for the day when all Your children - black and white, Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic - can all join hands and truly say, "We are free at last."
Make us instruments of Your peace today, that we might honor the memory of this great man and be acceptable servants of our Savior, who is Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen
This story appears in Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, (Harper and Row, New York), pp. 116-117.
