August 15, 2025 • 43 mins
It’s not just more confidence that we need. It’s more confidence in the right places.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope
it gives you perspective to see God is moving in
your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Philippians, Chapter three, Verse one. I'll give you my title
before I read my text. Today we're in a series
called Triggered, taking back your Mind in the Age of Anxiety,
and I will keep preaching until you are totally sane,
until you are no longer hiding Dorito's under.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Your bed because of.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Stress, eating and cussing people out in your car while
you're listening to Elevation Worship at the same time, you
don't even pause the music. So the series is going
to go a little bit longer, and this text is
going to help us today. The apostle paulis in his
own way, upset and triggered for good reason about something
(00:57):
that is going on to affect the blak And so
the title I want to use. I need you to
announce this title to the person sitting next to you,
and you don't have to talk to him another time
after this, it would be the last time that you
have to talk to him. But tell him this, say,
I hate to admit it, but I lost my confidence.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Hey man, Philippians, Chapter three, verse one.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. It
is no trouble for me to write the same things
to you again, And it is a safeguard for you.
Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of
the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision,
(01:43):
We who serve God by his spirit, who boast in
Christ Jesus, and who put no.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
New, zero, new new confidence in the flesh.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Though I myself have reason for such confidence, if anyone else,
if someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence
in the flesh.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I have more.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
We're gonna stop right there and talk a little, and
then we'll work through the rest of the passage.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
But tell you something real quick.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
That seminary professor taught me about preaching when I was
preaching from the Old Testament Book of First Samuel, and
there were a lot of names and places that I
didn't know how to pronounce because they were based on
Hebrew words. And I took all of them up to
him to ask him to help me pronounce them correctly,
because I was preaching in a few days and I
(02:39):
wanted to make sure I said all the words right.
And he said he well, first of all, he laughed
at my list of words, and he said, it's not
important that you say it right. It only matters that
you say it with confidence. He said, don't worry about
mispronouncing the words. Nobody will know that difference if you
(03:01):
say it with confidence. Kind of seems to be the
thing these days. It's kind of like, you know, we're
all it's kind of like we all found a Bible verse,
fake it till you make it, only it's not.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
In the Bible.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's how I was taught to get girls, you know,
Harold Staley. He said, it is really doesn't matter. You
could your car doesn't have to.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Be fast or nice.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
He said, You're not especially good looking or tall, he said,
but I'm gonna tell you, if you just walk up
to a girl with confidence, you'd be surprised how much
better looking confidence can make you.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
But then that's only.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Kind of true, because there's a fine line between confident
and creepy.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Am I right about it?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And I'm kind of trying to figure that out as
a parent, Like how much confidence do I really want
my kids to have? Because you kind of like them
being confident when they're younger, it's cute. And then in
their teenage years when they are so confident that they
no longer believe that you have any knowledge about anything,
it's an issue.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
It's like, can we find a.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Middle ground on this this confidence thing? Can you be
like confident enough to be socially not awkward, but then
be humble enough to listen to me when I'm telling
you what's best for you? Is there is there like
a is there an in between? Is there a middle
ground on this confidence thing? Like is there somewhere between
(04:31):
you being intimidated and scared to death and feeling the
need to apologize for your existence on planet Earth? And
like Connor McGregor on the other end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Is there anywhere? But here's what's happening now.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It's like, we we have confidence without competence.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Can I preach a.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Little bit today before I send you to join any group?
It's like we are okay, we are we are approaching
it like they were approaching it in Philip is three,
where Paul says, you need to watch out for the dogs.
And I know you're wondering who are these dogs? It's
in verse two. Who is Paul calling a dog? Who
(05:12):
are these dogs? And who let them out?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
We need to know.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And you would assume that these are people who are
tempting the church at Philippi, the church that Paul founded
and fathered in the gospel. Maybe they are luring them
with sin. Maybe he's talking about drug dealers or liberals,
you know, all the things that threaten the Christian worldview.
(05:41):
But really what he's talking about here is religious people.
They're trying to get the newly converted gentiles who weren't
Jewish to be circumcised with no anesthesia, because that was
the outward sign of the covenant with the Jewish people
(06:02):
before Christ.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
But Christ came along and changed that.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
And Paul knows that it's not what you can show
on the outside, but it's what happens in your heart
that proves the authenticity of your relationship with God and
validates your relationship with Him by faith. Everybody say, by faith,
not flesh. It is impossible for you to please God
(06:29):
with your flesh, with your effort it is impossible for
you to impress God with your Bible reading streak. I'm
sorry he didn't call the angels over today because you
read a psalm.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Wow, check this out. She went a whole week.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Without telling anybody off. Didn't impress God a bit. On
the other hand, we can please God by faith. And
so Paul is talking about the dogs. Wooooooo, woo wooooooooo.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
How long are you going to do it?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Well, no, but he's triggered. He says, what they're doing
is evil. They're evildoers. They're mutilating the flesh. They're making
it worse. They're telling you all these rules and regulations
that will make you acceptable.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
To God, and it's making it worse.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Because it is teaching you to put confidence in the
wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
And it is a perversion of the Gospel.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
To think that there are things that we can do outwardly,
or behaviors that we can quit, or habits that we
can enforce. And sometimes our consistency can become the enemy
of our humility because we stop doing stuff and start
doing stuff, and then immediately we start to create categories
for people who have not yet arrived at the place
(07:58):
of consistency that we're at and now, God help us,
because we're raising a generations that don't have to train
for their trophies. So it's as if we think that
confidence is our birthright. We have developed a sick, twisted version.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Of confidence that knows nothing in the biblical context.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
We have put our confidence in confidence, But confidence that
has developed outside of the process that produces true confidence
is false confidence. And you know, I'm just thinking about
it now a little differently than age sixteen, when I
(08:42):
first gave my life to Christ and was very confident,
very confident in my ability to live for Jesus, very
confident in my ability to stay away from certain temptations. Oh,
it's so easy to be confident when you've never lived
through a crisis. It's so easy to preach faith when
(09:06):
you never watched your dad take his die and gasping
breath from als, and watched his body completely shut down,
and prayed every prayer that you knew to pray over him,
and quoted every scripture that you learned and wrote about
in a book about sunstand still.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And then things happen to shake your confidence.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Paul is talking here about people who have lost their
confidence in the Gospel. Or they are on the verge
of losing their confidence in the gospel and putting their
confidence in their performance, and that's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I'm starting to wonder do we need more confidence.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
It's just a question because lately I've been thinking that
the dangers of overconfidence are just as great as the
dangers of under confidence, that really.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Maybe it's not about the amount of confidence that we
have at all.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I wrote a little note to my son when he
turned thirteen, and it wasn't really about him. It was
about me remembering that age. And one thing I was
trying to tell him in the note is that everybody,
in some way is faking it. I just thought I
would show him that there is no Wizard of Oz,
just a little short dude behind a curtain, pulling levers
(10:27):
and posting stuff with filters and captions that are perfectly crafted.
And they spend an hour and a half to write
that caption to make themselves sound witty, and they're really
not that witty off the cuff, And if you compare
your off the cuff to their manufactured caption, you're going
to always feel like there's something missing and lacking in you.
But so hard because it's like, we're living in a
(10:48):
culture that projects confidence at all costs, and the cost
of false confidence.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Is ignorance. The cost of false confidence is ignorance.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And trust me, some of the people who are the
most confident are also the most ignorant. Some of the
wisest people that I've ever talked to in my life
didn't have a lot of answers.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
They asked a lot of questions. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
But it's tough because we're teaching this to our kids,
right Just just be confident, you know, be confident. I'm
trying to find the balance because I do want to
raise confident kids and I want to be a confident Christian.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
But I'm trying to find I'm trying to find the balance,
you know. Like our kids are out playing sports, just
like many of your kids.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Someone said to me a few weeks ago, stop talking
about your kids so much in your sermons. We don't
come to hear about your family. We come to hear
the word of God. And I'm like, well, I got
another solution. Just quit coming and you won't have to
hear me talk about anything.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
That'll be fine, work well for both of us. Let's
just agree to.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
We don't share the same interests, but that's my life
right now, is raising these kids. So it's just like
it's just what I mean. I'm always out at some
baseball field or football game or.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Something like that.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And now even Abby is playing seven year old softball
and she says she likes it, but I don't know
if she really likes softball or dugout cheers, because honestly, no,
I'm gonna make a plea here, and if anybody's watching
this online that has any kind of authority in girls
seven year old softball, I'm begging you, in the name
(12:41):
of Jesus Christ, whose gospel I preach, could we possibly
ban dugout cheering for seven year old softball? And I
know it's cute and it's delightful, but I'm just trying
to protect these girls because I'm listening to them in
the dugout and not only is it bad for my hearing,
not only is it and it's rough on their voices,
(13:02):
but what they're saying in these cheers is not true.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I heard hat Abby the other day.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
She was doing a cheer my name is Abby, and
you know what I got, and the whole team said,
what do you got, Abby said, I got a team
that is hotter than hot. See right there, we just
st the realm of reality because I've been watching all
three innings of this and y'all are not hotter than hot.
(13:31):
Y'all are not even lukewarm. Baby girl, you're frozen in
the center. You need to be in the microwave. About
three more. Then she said, grand slams and homers too.
I'm like, how about a base hit? Can we start
with a base hit? Praise the Lord.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
It's danger is to have too much confidence in.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
The wrong place, in the wrong place. But the Bible
says to be confident. You know, in this I will
be confident. Doesn't the Bible say that?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yes? But the question is in what? Will you be
confident in what?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
And sometimes we want to have a confident belief without
the behaviors that build confidence in our lives, you know,
Because to have real confidence, you gotta have consistency, don't you.
I mean to have confidence, you gotta have competence. Competence
is built through consistency. You gotta If you're gonna have
(14:45):
real confidence, you gotta have character. Amen, Amen, you know
what I'm gonna spend the rest of my life preaching
what I think is true, whether anybody says amen to
it or not, I'm.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Committing to that. These these little gray hairs.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
That keep popping up or trying to tell me, you
don't have time to get up there in that pulpit
and just hype people anymore, because while we're hyping people
in one sense to believe God, we are actually making
the problem worse because when their circumstance is not reflecting
(15:23):
their confession, their faith collapses beneath the weight of unmat expectations.
And so the Lord was really speaking to me, you know,
because I go back and forth of feeling really confident
sometimes and then sometimes I feel I can't find my
confidence anywhere, and so then I think, well, I had
(15:45):
too much confidence.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I need to be more humble. And then sometimes I think,
well I don't have enough confidence.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I need to just bump myself in a mirror mirror
a few times and get out there and put myself
back in the game.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Coach, get out there. And I'm back and forth. And
God spoke to me this week.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He said, it's not how much confidence you have, is
where you put it that counts.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Paul said, I have no confidence in the flesh.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
All of these people who are telling you you need
to be circumcised and that's how you prove that you
have a relationship with God. Or you know, this temptation
that we all have to fake it until we break,
that's what really happens. You know, you fake it and
(16:39):
you never make it because no matter how much you
work to develop your confidence in your flesh, it will
always fail you.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
It will always fail you.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And all of this behavioral modification that I know is
necessary for us to make improvements in our lives. And
maybe it's important for us to have confidence if we're
going to stand on stage and give a presentation or
go into a meeting that we don't feel qualified for.
I understand that, But my question is, have have you
(17:12):
put that confidence in the right place? And the other
day I noticed Holly didn't have her wedding ring on.
Wasn't anything sketchy. We were just at the house. She
wasn't going out without her wedding ring on. In fact,
I got that cover too. I made her put a
(17:33):
tattoo on her ring finger. So even if she wanted
to take it off, it says h and s and
so if she wants to leave me. The dude is
already going to be narrowed down. His name better start
with S or she'll have to turn it into an eight.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
But she is mine.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
But I said, where's your ring? She said, oh, I
put it over here. So I watched him dishes and
I asked her a question. I didn't have to say much.
I said, is that a good place to put it?
Because listen, she lost it once, and when she lost it,
we had insurance she got a better one. So now
(18:20):
I'm starting to wonder, are you trying to ask somebody
next to you is that a good place to put it?
Because you keep putting your confidence in people, and you
keep putting your confidence in your performance, and you keep
putting your confidence in your ability to be disciplined and all,
(18:43):
I'm a exercise and now I'm gonna stay on my
diet this time, and I'm gonna pray for fifteen minutes
every day. You know, I hear people say sometimes I
gave up on God because some people in the church
let me down. But let me ask you a question.
You're a relationship with God is so precious. Why would
you put your confidence in God in how people.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Treat you, people will always let you down. People will
always fall short.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Even if they have good intentions, they have limited ability.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Do you really want to put it in people?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Haven't you spend enough time trusting in people who.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Eats your needs?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I feel like preaching? Ask them again, is that a
good place to put it? Do you really want to
put confidence in your flesh, your effort, your ability to
keep the law? Now, Paul said, if you want to
play the game of who has more reasons to be
(19:47):
confident on the basis of lifestyle or legality, He says,
if you want to play the game whose circumcision is better,
let's play watch this.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
He starts reading off his resume, and what a weird
game this is. Watch this? You know people try to
top everything.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Paul's like, my circumcision is better than your circumcision.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Because watch verse five.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I was circumcised on the eighth day when you're supposed
to be a lot of the Judaizers the dog who
they were circumcised after the fact, Paul said, I was
circumcised when I was supposed to be circumcised, because I.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Was born the way he was supposed to be born
into the race.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
That God said that he would use to bless all
the nations of the earth through So I was circumcised
before all y'all on the eighth day.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
I don't remember it. I'm glad I got that out
of the way early in life. I was of the
people of Israel, so I have connections. I was not
only of the.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
People of Israel. I was of the tribe of Benjamin.
That was the tribe that the kings came out of,
the tribe of Benjamin. So he's like, I'm already one
of God's favorite people because I'm an Israelite, and then
I'm the favorite tribe within the favorite people. Come on,
you want to talk about flesh. My flesh is impressive.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
And I was not only of the tribe of Benjamin.
It was not only a matter of birth. I wasn't
only born into fortunate circumstances. But I was a Hebrew
of Hebrews.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Wow, I was.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. I was competent. Watch this,
I was connected. I was competent in regard to the
law of Pharisee. That's the strictest order of religious law
for the Jewish people. So he says I was on
a scholarship. I was a prize pupil of Gamaliel. He
(21:52):
doesn't mention that in Philippians three. He mentions it elsewhere
that he sat underneath the tutelage of one of the
greatest teachers of his dad.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
This is like you interned under Elon Musk. Paul said,
let's talk. You want to talk to me, You dogs
that think you're so much better than other people.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
He said, I had all of that. I was so
good at it that I was promoted to the highest level.
I was so zealous. Verse six, polase I was persecuting
the church as for righteousness based on the law faultless.
So stop, make sure we got this. He's connected. He's competent.
(22:34):
And his character, he says, according to human law and
what you can measure and what you can see and
what you can judge faultless. Connect it competent and his
character is faultless. And he build his confidence to a
certain level. But then something happened to Paul.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Paul saw a contrast, and sometimes.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
What we need when we get a little too full
of ourselves, come on. Happens to all of us. Quiet people,
loud people, flashy people, low key people. It can happen
to every one of us that we start to trust
in our flesh. And about the time you think you
(23:21):
get it figured out, you know how we do. We
get our categories exactly right. Okay, here's the kind of
people that are going to heaven, and here's the kind
of people that are going to hell. And the way
I know is there are certain things that people who
are going to heaven do and don't do, and certain
people who are going to hell. Here's what they do
and they don't do. The only problem that I'm finding
(23:43):
with this is a lot of our confidence that we
put in our judgments, and our assessment is based on
our external observations of people, and we can never really
know anyone's heart. And now here's a case in point.
And I told this story the wrong way last night,
so if you were here last night, I messed it up.
But here's how it actually happened. This is why I
(24:04):
put no confidence in the flesh, because I can't even
tell my own stories right while I'm preaching about confidence.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
That's how much I need the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But I was watching a sermon with my father in
law when I was first starting in ministry, and he
was telling me how the person preaching the sermon was
cocky and arrogant. He said, look at him. You can
tell he's strutting around that stage. He's wearing a five
thousand dollars suit. Look at him. He's cocky and he's arrogant.
(24:31):
Even his tie is loud. He's cocky and he's arrogant.
He's so cocky and he's arrogant. Of course, I asked
my father in law, have you met him? No, but
you can tell he's cocky and he's arrogant. Do you
know anybody who's met him?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
No, but I don't have to.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You can tell he's cocky and he's arrogant. And I said,
just kind of innocently, well, who's somebody that you think
is not cocky and arrogant? That would be better to
model my ministry after. Because he was in ministry. I
wanted to hear his wisdom. And he named the name
of somebody that I knew. It was a man who
had the Greek New Testament memorized. No, not the not
(25:12):
the Little Philippians four thirteen, in the.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Whole New Testament. He would show up. I took the
class with him. One time.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
He would say the Bible verse without looking at the Bible.
But he wouldn't say it in our translation. He would
be translating it in his mind from Greek. He never
looked at the Bible to teach us the Bible. And
my father in law said, that guy, that's a.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Man of God.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
That's a humble man of God. That's a man of
God who knows what matters and what doesn't. That's a
man of God who has understated. That's a man of God.
And twelve months later, the man of God who knew
the Bible in Greek had left his wife for a
woman in Russia. He had been taking mission trips to Russia.
(25:59):
Mission trip to Russia, but one mission he went for
and he never came back. And the man that was
cocky and arrogant is still serving God today and his
kids are in ministry too.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And here's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Let's stop being so quick to categorize people based on
what we see with our eyes or where they are
in certain behaviors in their lives. Judge nothing before the
appointed time. You don't even know what battles they're fighting,
and you don't know how far they've come. And you
don't know what has taken them, just to keep running
(26:36):
the race. And they might be limping, but they might
make it to the finish line because they lived.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I don't know anymore. I put no confidence in the flesh.
I don't have categories. They're not as clear anymore.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
For who's a godly person and who's not, and.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Who God has favored and who God hasn't.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Because some of the people that I thought were walking
in the favor of God were faking it.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
But I know it till they fell apart.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Past writing to Damascus one day a Hebrew of Hebrews,
a Pharisee of Pharisees, in regards to the law righteousness,
connected and competent, connected and competent, And all of a
sudden he was blinded by a light on his way
to imprison Christians in Damascus and bring them back to
(27:32):
Jerusalem to be sentenced. And something happened to him that
will happen to all of us in one way or another.
If it hasn't happened to you yet, send me a
text message when it does. God in his mercy and
God in his wisdom, knew that if I allow Paul
to remain confident in his flesh.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
He will not fulfill my purpose for his life. He
will live the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Putting his confidence in himself and his competence and his character,
and so all of a sudden you can read it.
In Acts, chapter nine, a blinding light throws Paul from
his horse.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
He is thrown to the ground on the way to exercise.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
His gift with authoritative letters from the Jewish Ruling Council.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
He falls off of.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
His horse, and a voice from heaven asks him, Saul,
who do you think you are? And Saul said back,
I don't know who are you? And the voice said
I am Jesus. And Paul spent three days blind and
someone had to lead him by the hand. You know,
that's when life gets really interesting. When you're used to
leading others, when you're used to knowing what to do,
(28:43):
when you're used to making it happen, when you're used
to smiling and getting through it. But then every once
in a while, something will come along in your life
and you'll say, I didn't take a class on this,
I didn't read a book about this. Nobody told me
it would feel like this. I wasn't prepared for this, I.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Didn't know it would be like this, and Paul said,
I lost my confidence. I lost my confidence and I
had to start all over.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And I had to I had to give up all
my connections because everybody hated me that I used to
serve with. And I had to start all over because
I didn't know how to preach Jesus because I just
met him, and I had to humble myself, and I
had to reevaluate my character because I had been comparing
myself to others.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
You know how we do. Holly preached this brilliant message
to the ladies a couple weeks ago, and.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Everything about it was good. But I just want to
correct one thing she said. She said, we need to
stop comparing ourselves to others. And I think she's wrong
about that. I think we need to come compare ourself
to others every chance we get, until we are so
sick of comparing ourself to others. You know, because if
(30:10):
you compare yourself to others long enough, you will come
to the place eventually. If you're not there yet, you'll
get there. Just keep doing it, keep comparing yourself to others.
Just keep right on doing it, and do it. Do
it to make yourself feel better.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Do it.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
When you see somebody whose kids are on drugs, you
just silently tell yourself, my kids would never do that.
Go ahead, go ahead and go ahead and do that.
Just go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Just go ahead and do it. When you see somebody
who's not married, I'll tell.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
You if they go ahead and compare yourself to them,
because you know you're better than them. That's why you're married,
they're not. Just go ahead, compare yourselff.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Go ahead and do it. Go ahead and do it too.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
The other way to go ahead and compare yourself to
people that are better than you all the time, just
all the time. Look at everybody sucking in on the ground,
and then compare yourself bloated after a whole day of
running your kids around, and then compare yourself who didn't
have time to eat healthy because you actually care about
other people and that's why you had to go through McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
But compare yourself to them. You won't even know that.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
They're selfish and that's why their body looks like that
because they.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
They never have time for anybody else and all their
things going. Here's what I want you to do.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I want you to completely compare out of context for
as long as you can, and don't ask the question.
You know, like, they're real successful on their job, but
I wonder are they happy? Don't ask that question, because
if you can compare across all the categories, you might
see that their success is costing them their fulfillment.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
But don't do that.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Just compare, Just completely take it all out of context
and compare what people show you to what you can see,
and don't take time to wonder what's really going on,
and don't take time to stop and think about how
they're so gifted and they're so wonderful.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Just compare yourself to them.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Until you feel so terrible that the only place left
for you to go, the only thing left for you
to conclude, the only thing left for you to do,
is to fall down off your horse and.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Say, God, I'm sick of myself.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
I'm sick of false standards, I'm sick of worldly measurements,
I'm tired of my flesh, I'm tired of keeping up,
I'm tired of falling short, I'm tired of looking around.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
And in that moment, you will come to the point
that Paul came to in verse seven, where he said,
I compared myself to everyone else so long, and it
finally brought me to a point, not because I hit
the bottom, but because I was on top. And then
(32:26):
something happened in my life. I compared myself to Jesus.
And when I compared myself to him, I didn't have
anything left to brag about. When I compared myself to him,
(32:48):
I wasn't such a good person after all. When I
compared myself to him, I lost my confidence in me.
I lost my confidence and how nice I am, and
how sweet I am, and how light I am, and
how educated I am. When I compared myself to the
fullness of wisdom that was revealed in Jesus Christ, I
didn't bring up my IQ anymore, and I didn't show
(33:09):
them my sat scourse. When I compared myself to him.
My posture changed. When I compared myself to him, I
quit trying to be first place in a race that
I realized I couldn't win. When I compared myself to him,
I fell off my horse and I was led by
the hand. And Paul says in verse seven, Now whatever
were gains to me, I consider loss.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I lost my confidence. But watch this I gained Christ
speak this message today in the hopes that someone.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Who has lost your confidence in yourself would realize that
this is a necessary step for you to receive the
righteousness that comes by faith.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
And that's what Paul says here.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
He says, I lost my connections, I lost my sense
of competence.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
I found out I wasn't so good at everything.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
You know how life is, man, Just about the time
you master a set of skills, the whole game changes.
By the time I figure out how to get my
kids to you know, sh then they are teenagers and
I'm trying to get them to talk to me. You know,
the whole the whole opposite changes. So it's designed that way.
It is designed that way. I wonder if God is
(34:29):
trying to strip you of your confidence today so that
you can gain something greater. I lost my confidence to
preach to people and tell them, you know, if you
do this.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
God's going to do that.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I don't make those kinds of promises anymore because now
I have a different kind of confidences. It's a kind
of confidence that doesn't come from circumcision and changing your behavior,
getting it right, knowing all the answers.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
It's it's an inward confidence.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
I wonder if that's the real contract here, is that
we are trying to project confidence and God is trying
to impart it. I wonder if we're so busy trying
to be confident and seem confident that we have isolated
ourselves so we stay in places where no one really
knows us and no one can really touch us, because
(35:21):
we have gotten so good at looking confident, but on
the inside, we have lost a sense of ourselves, and
we have lost touch with our humanity as we project
into the world, pretend images of who we wish we
were and who we think we should be. But Paul said,
I lost all that. I lost all that, and you
know what, I'm glad I lost it. I'm glad I
(35:43):
got knocked off my horse. Glad I got my heart broken,
Glad I got my plans disrupted. I'm glad I found
out that the world wasn't flat. I'm glad I found
out that it didn't revolve around me. I'm glad that
I didn't know what to do, because if I'd have
kept trusting in my flesh, I would have spent the
rest of my life measureing myself against an irrelevant standard.
(36:06):
But something wonderful happened when I lost my confidence.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
I gained Christ.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
And what is more versay, I consider everything a loss
because of the surpassing word of knowing Christ, Jesus, my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost all things. I'm letting
it go. I'm not trying to get back on my horse.
I don't even want to ride in that direction anymore.
I've been down that road, and I'm ready for something better.
I consider them garbage that I may gain.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Christ.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Take the whole world, Take my skills, take my knowledge,
take my insight, take my appearances, take my youth.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
But give me Jesus.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
I want to be found in Him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but
that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that
comes from God on the bay basis of faith.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Stand up.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
It's not about how much confidence you have, it's about
on what basis you've built it. And the answer to
our anxiety isn't just more confidence, it's more Christ, he
(37:25):
says Verse ten. I used to know a lot of
things about the law. I used to know a lot
of things about life. But now look what happens after
you lose your confidence and your arrogance and your prejudice
and your presuppositions. He said, now that I've lost my confidence,
(37:46):
I want to know Christ. I don't want to know
about him. I don't want to know what I think
I know about him. I want to know Christ. Yes,
to know the power. Watch this of his resurrection. So
(38:07):
after you have lost your confidence, you can expect a resurrection.
I told my friend what I was going to preach
to you today. I said, I'm going to preach on
I lost my confidence. And he texted me after I
preached it the first message, and he said, did you
(38:28):
get it back?
Speaker 1 (38:31):
And I said no. I told the people to let
it die.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
To let that confidence that we put in what we
can see and then what we can know, and then
what we can feel, let it die.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Let it be nailed to the cross.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You know, God will allow certain circumstances in your life,
and he will use those circumstances to crucify your false confidence.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
And if we don't understand this.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
We will try to pray our confidence back down off
the cross, and we'll try to get it back, and
we'll go back into those same modes. But only after
it dies can it be resurrected as faith. I lost
my confidence, and I'm glad I did, because while I
was confident.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
In me, I could not have faith in him.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
And I wonder if today God brought you here not
to give you back your confidence, you know, so you
can get the girl.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
And win the bid. I wonder if God brought you
here to give you something better.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Then, now that we have buried your need to prove
that you're better than everybody, helps because you realize that
all of our righteousness is like filthy rags. Are you
ready now for a resurrect of faith? That's what had
to happen to the disciples. They were so confident in
(40:06):
Jesus as an earthly king. When he went to the cross,
it killed their confidence because they couldn't understand how he
could set.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Up a kingdom and die on a cross.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
But he had to crucify their confidence in order to
give life to their faith.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
The same thing is happening in your life right now.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
You're getting older, or you got rejected, or something's happening.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
In your body and it's not working like it used to.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
God is trying to give you something greater than confidence
in your flesh. I've seen what my flesh can do,
and I put no confidence in it anymore. I've seen
what my effort can accomplish. I don't want to preach
based on my opinions anymore. I'm ready now for the
(41:02):
righteousness that comes on the basis of faith.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Will you lift your hands in God's presence, Father, I
thank you for the word that you sent forth from
this pulpit today. While I understand God that.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
There's a deep need in all of our hearts to
feel assured that everything is going to be all right,
I understand that also there are times that are necessary
for us that we have to question everything, and sometimes
we have to be shaken to our core in order
to find a foundation that is worth building on. And
I just believe today that you didn't give me this
(41:38):
word so that I could preach it for myself. I
believe that there is a brother or a sister who
has lost their confidence because their circumstances have changed, or
they've come to a place where something that used to
work for them doesn't work anymore, or they have not
been affirmed in certain ways. And I believe that you
(41:59):
sent me here to tell them today, let it go
and receive something better. And so as their hands are
lifted to you and their hearts are open to you, God.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Would you.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
In each and every heart in this place fill our
perspectives with faith, take away our confidence and our flesh. God,
Even if we can do it in our own strength,
we can't sustain it in our own strength. We need you.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
We need you. You are our righteousness, and you are
the only confidence that we have. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
You can look the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope
it gives you perspective to see God is moving in
your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Philippians, Chapter three, Verse one. I'll give you my title
before I read my text. Today we're in a series
called Triggered, taking back your Mind in the Age of Anxiety,
and I will keep preaching until you are totally sane,
until you are no longer hiding Dorito's under.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Your bed because of.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Stress, eating and cussing people out in your car while
you're listening to Elevation Worship at the same time, you
don't even pause the music. So the series is going
to go a little bit longer, and this text is
going to help us today. The apostle paulis in his
own way, upset and triggered for good reason about something
(00:57):
that is going on to affect the blak And so
the title I want to use. I need you to
announce this title to the person sitting next to you,
and you don't have to talk to him another time
after this, it would be the last time that you
have to talk to him. But tell him this, say,
I hate to admit it, but I lost my confidence.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Hey man, Philippians, Chapter three, verse one.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. It
is no trouble for me to write the same things
to you again, And it is a safeguard for you.
Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of
the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision,
(01:43):
We who serve God by his spirit, who boast in
Christ Jesus, and who put no.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
New, zero, new new confidence in the flesh.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Though I myself have reason for such confidence, if anyone else,
if someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence
in the flesh.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I have more.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
We're gonna stop right there and talk a little, and
then we'll work through the rest of the passage.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
But tell you something real quick.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
That seminary professor taught me about preaching when I was
preaching from the Old Testament Book of First Samuel, and
there were a lot of names and places that I
didn't know how to pronounce because they were based on
Hebrew words. And I took all of them up to
him to ask him to help me pronounce them correctly,
because I was preaching in a few days and I
(02:39):
wanted to make sure I said all the words right.
And he said he well, first of all, he laughed
at my list of words, and he said, it's not
important that you say it right. It only matters that
you say it with confidence. He said, don't worry about
mispronouncing the words. Nobody will know that difference if you
(03:01):
say it with confidence. Kind of seems to be the
thing these days. It's kind of like, you know, we're
all it's kind of like we all found a Bible verse,
fake it till you make it, only it's not.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
In the Bible.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's how I was taught to get girls, you know,
Harold Staley. He said, it is really doesn't matter. You
could your car doesn't have to.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Be fast or nice.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
He said, You're not especially good looking or tall, he said,
but I'm gonna tell you, if you just walk up
to a girl with confidence, you'd be surprised how much
better looking confidence can make you.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
But then that's only.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Kind of true, because there's a fine line between confident
and creepy.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Am I right about it?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And I'm kind of trying to figure that out as
a parent, Like how much confidence do I really want
my kids to have? Because you kind of like them
being confident when they're younger, it's cute. And then in
their teenage years when they are so confident that they
no longer believe that you have any knowledge about anything,
it's an issue.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
It's like, can we find a.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Middle ground on this this confidence thing? Can you be
like confident enough to be socially not awkward, but then
be humble enough to listen to me when I'm telling
you what's best for you? Is there is there like
a is there an in between? Is there a middle
ground on this confidence thing? Like is there somewhere between
(04:31):
you being intimidated and scared to death and feeling the
need to apologize for your existence on planet Earth? And
like Connor McGregor on the other end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Is there anywhere? But here's what's happening now.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It's like, we we have confidence without competence.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Can I preach a.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Little bit today before I send you to join any group?
It's like we are okay, we are we are approaching
it like they were approaching it in Philip is three,
where Paul says, you need to watch out for the dogs.
And I know you're wondering who are these dogs? It's
in verse two. Who is Paul calling a dog? Who
(05:12):
are these dogs? And who let them out?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
We need to know.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And you would assume that these are people who are
tempting the church at Philippi, the church that Paul founded
and fathered in the gospel. Maybe they are luring them
with sin. Maybe he's talking about drug dealers or liberals,
you know, all the things that threaten the Christian worldview.
(05:41):
But really what he's talking about here is religious people.
They're trying to get the newly converted gentiles who weren't
Jewish to be circumcised with no anesthesia, because that was
the outward sign of the covenant with the Jewish people
(06:02):
before Christ.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
But Christ came along and changed that.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
And Paul knows that it's not what you can show
on the outside, but it's what happens in your heart
that proves the authenticity of your relationship with God and
validates your relationship with Him by faith. Everybody say, by faith,
not flesh. It is impossible for you to please God
(06:29):
with your flesh, with your effort it is impossible for
you to impress God with your Bible reading streak. I'm
sorry he didn't call the angels over today because you
read a psalm.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Wow, check this out. She went a whole week.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Without telling anybody off. Didn't impress God a bit. On
the other hand, we can please God by faith. And
so Paul is talking about the dogs. Wooooooo, woo wooooooooo.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
How long are you going to do it?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Well, no, but he's triggered. He says, what they're doing
is evil. They're evildoers. They're mutilating the flesh. They're making
it worse. They're telling you all these rules and regulations
that will make you acceptable.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
To God, and it's making it worse.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Because it is teaching you to put confidence in the
wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
And it is a perversion of the Gospel.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
To think that there are things that we can do outwardly,
or behaviors that we can quit, or habits that we
can enforce. And sometimes our consistency can become the enemy
of our humility because we stop doing stuff and start
doing stuff, and then immediately we start to create categories
for people who have not yet arrived at the place
(07:58):
of consistency that we're at and now, God help us,
because we're raising a generations that don't have to train
for their trophies. So it's as if we think that
confidence is our birthright. We have developed a sick, twisted version.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Of confidence that knows nothing in the biblical context.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
We have put our confidence in confidence, But confidence that
has developed outside of the process that produces true confidence
is false confidence. And you know, I'm just thinking about
it now a little differently than age sixteen, when I
(08:42):
first gave my life to Christ and was very confident,
very confident in my ability to live for Jesus, very
confident in my ability to stay away from certain temptations. Oh,
it's so easy to be confident when you've never lived
through a crisis. It's so easy to preach faith when
(09:06):
you never watched your dad take his die and gasping
breath from als, and watched his body completely shut down,
and prayed every prayer that you knew to pray over him,
and quoted every scripture that you learned and wrote about
in a book about sunstand still.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And then things happen to shake your confidence.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Paul is talking here about people who have lost their
confidence in the Gospel. Or they are on the verge
of losing their confidence in the gospel and putting their
confidence in their performance, and that's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I'm starting to wonder do we need more confidence.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
It's just a question because lately I've been thinking that
the dangers of overconfidence are just as great as the
dangers of under confidence, that really.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Maybe it's not about the amount of confidence that we
have at all.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I wrote a little note to my son when he
turned thirteen, and it wasn't really about him. It was
about me remembering that age. And one thing I was
trying to tell him in the note is that everybody,
in some way is faking it. I just thought I
would show him that there is no Wizard of Oz,
just a little short dude behind a curtain, pulling levers
(10:27):
and posting stuff with filters and captions that are perfectly crafted.
And they spend an hour and a half to write
that caption to make themselves sound witty, and they're really
not that witty off the cuff, And if you compare
your off the cuff to their manufactured caption, you're going
to always feel like there's something missing and lacking in you.
But so hard because it's like, we're living in a
(10:48):
culture that projects confidence at all costs, and the cost
of false confidence.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Is ignorance. The cost of false confidence is ignorance.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And trust me, some of the people who are the
most confident are also the most ignorant. Some of the
wisest people that I've ever talked to in my life
didn't have a lot of answers.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
They asked a lot of questions. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
But it's tough because we're teaching this to our kids,
right Just just be confident, you know, be confident. I'm
trying to find the balance because I do want to
raise confident kids and I want to be a confident Christian.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
But I'm trying to find I'm trying to find the balance,
you know. Like our kids are out playing sports, just
like many of your kids.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Someone said to me a few weeks ago, stop talking
about your kids so much in your sermons. We don't
come to hear about your family. We come to hear
the word of God. And I'm like, well, I got
another solution. Just quit coming and you won't have to
hear me talk about anything.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
That'll be fine, work well for both of us. Let's
just agree to.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
We don't share the same interests, but that's my life
right now, is raising these kids. So it's just like
it's just what I mean. I'm always out at some
baseball field or football game or.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Something like that.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And now even Abby is playing seven year old softball
and she says she likes it, but I don't know
if she really likes softball or dugout cheers, because honestly, no,
I'm gonna make a plea here, and if anybody's watching
this online that has any kind of authority in girls
seven year old softball, I'm begging you, in the name
(12:41):
of Jesus Christ, whose gospel I preach, could we possibly
ban dugout cheering for seven year old softball? And I
know it's cute and it's delightful, but I'm just trying
to protect these girls because I'm listening to them in
the dugout and not only is it bad for my hearing,
not only is it and it's rough on their voices,
(13:02):
but what they're saying in these cheers is not true.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I heard hat Abby the other day.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
She was doing a cheer my name is Abby, and
you know what I got, and the whole team said,
what do you got, Abby said, I got a team
that is hotter than hot. See right there, we just
st the realm of reality because I've been watching all
three innings of this and y'all are not hotter than hot.
(13:31):
Y'all are not even lukewarm. Baby girl, you're frozen in
the center. You need to be in the microwave. About
three more. Then she said, grand slams and homers too.
I'm like, how about a base hit? Can we start
with a base hit? Praise the Lord.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
It's danger is to have too much confidence in.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
The wrong place, in the wrong place. But the Bible
says to be confident. You know, in this I will
be confident. Doesn't the Bible say that?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yes? But the question is in what? Will you be
confident in what?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
And sometimes we want to have a confident belief without
the behaviors that build confidence in our lives, you know,
Because to have real confidence, you gotta have consistency, don't you.
I mean to have confidence, you gotta have competence. Competence
is built through consistency. You gotta If you're gonna have
(14:45):
real confidence, you gotta have character. Amen, Amen, you know
what I'm gonna spend the rest of my life preaching
what I think is true, whether anybody says amen to
it or not, I'm.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Committing to that. These these little gray hairs.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
That keep popping up or trying to tell me, you
don't have time to get up there in that pulpit
and just hype people anymore, because while we're hyping people
in one sense to believe God, we are actually making
the problem worse because when their circumstance is not reflecting
(15:23):
their confession, their faith collapses beneath the weight of unmat expectations.
And so the Lord was really speaking to me, you know,
because I go back and forth of feeling really confident
sometimes and then sometimes I feel I can't find my
confidence anywhere, and so then I think, well, I had
(15:45):
too much confidence.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I need to be more humble. And then sometimes I think,
well I don't have enough confidence.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I need to just bump myself in a mirror mirror
a few times and get out there and put myself
back in the game.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Coach, get out there. And I'm back and forth. And
God spoke to me this week.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He said, it's not how much confidence you have, is
where you put it that counts.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Paul said, I have no confidence in the flesh.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
All of these people who are telling you you need
to be circumcised and that's how you prove that you
have a relationship with God. Or you know, this temptation
that we all have to fake it until we break,
that's what really happens. You know, you fake it and
(16:39):
you never make it because no matter how much you
work to develop your confidence in your flesh, it will
always fail you.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
It will always fail you.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And all of this behavioral modification that I know is
necessary for us to make improvements in our lives. And
maybe it's important for us to have confidence if we're
going to stand on stage and give a presentation or
go into a meeting that we don't feel qualified for.
I understand that, But my question is, have have you
(17:12):
put that confidence in the right place? And the other
day I noticed Holly didn't have her wedding ring on.
Wasn't anything sketchy. We were just at the house. She
wasn't going out without her wedding ring on. In fact,
I got that cover too. I made her put a
(17:33):
tattoo on her ring finger. So even if she wanted
to take it off, it says h and s and
so if she wants to leave me. The dude is
already going to be narrowed down. His name better start
with S or she'll have to turn it into an eight.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
But she is mine.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
But I said, where's your ring? She said, oh, I
put it over here. So I watched him dishes and
I asked her a question. I didn't have to say much.
I said, is that a good place to put it?
Because listen, she lost it once, and when she lost it,
we had insurance she got a better one. So now
(18:20):
I'm starting to wonder, are you trying to ask somebody
next to you is that a good place to put it?
Because you keep putting your confidence in people, and you
keep putting your confidence in your performance, and you keep
putting your confidence in your ability to be disciplined and all,
(18:43):
I'm a exercise and now I'm gonna stay on my
diet this time, and I'm gonna pray for fifteen minutes
every day. You know, I hear people say sometimes I
gave up on God because some people in the church
let me down. But let me ask you a question.
You're a relationship with God is so precious. Why would
you put your confidence in God in how people.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Treat you, people will always let you down. People will
always fall short.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Even if they have good intentions, they have limited ability.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Do you really want to put it in people?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Haven't you spend enough time trusting in people who.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Eats your needs?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I feel like preaching? Ask them again, is that a
good place to put it? Do you really want to
put confidence in your flesh, your effort, your ability to
keep the law? Now, Paul said, if you want to
play the game of who has more reasons to be
(19:47):
confident on the basis of lifestyle or legality, He says,
if you want to play the game whose circumcision is better,
let's play watch this.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
He starts reading off his resume, and what a weird
game this is. Watch this? You know people try to
top everything.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Paul's like, my circumcision is better than your circumcision.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Because watch verse five.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I was circumcised on the eighth day when you're supposed
to be a lot of the Judaizers the dog who
they were circumcised after the fact, Paul said, I was
circumcised when I was supposed to be circumcised, because I.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Was born the way he was supposed to be born
into the race.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
That God said that he would use to bless all
the nations of the earth through So I was circumcised
before all y'all on the eighth day.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
I don't remember it. I'm glad I got that out
of the way early in life. I was of the
people of Israel, so I have connections. I was not
only of the.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
People of Israel. I was of the tribe of Benjamin.
That was the tribe that the kings came out of,
the tribe of Benjamin. So he's like, I'm already one
of God's favorite people because I'm an Israelite, and then
I'm the favorite tribe within the favorite people. Come on,
you want to talk about flesh. My flesh is impressive.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
And I was not only of the tribe of Benjamin.
It was not only a matter of birth. I wasn't
only born into fortunate circumstances. But I was a Hebrew
of Hebrews.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Wow, I was.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. I was competent. Watch this,
I was connected. I was competent in regard to the
law of Pharisee. That's the strictest order of religious law
for the Jewish people. So he says I was on
a scholarship. I was a prize pupil of Gamaliel. He
(21:52):
doesn't mention that in Philippians three. He mentions it elsewhere
that he sat underneath the tutelage of one of the
greatest teachers of his dad.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
This is like you interned under Elon Musk. Paul said,
let's talk. You want to talk to me, You dogs
that think you're so much better than other people.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
He said, I had all of that. I was so
good at it that I was promoted to the highest level.
I was so zealous. Verse six, polase I was persecuting
the church as for righteousness based on the law faultless.
So stop, make sure we got this. He's connected. He's competent.
(22:34):
And his character, he says, according to human law and
what you can measure and what you can see and
what you can judge faultless. Connect it competent and his
character is faultless. And he build his confidence to a
certain level. But then something happened to Paul.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Paul saw a contrast, and sometimes.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
What we need when we get a little too full
of ourselves, come on. Happens to all of us. Quiet people,
loud people, flashy people, low key people. It can happen
to every one of us that we start to trust
in our flesh. And about the time you think you
(23:21):
get it figured out, you know how we do. We
get our categories exactly right. Okay, here's the kind of
people that are going to heaven, and here's the kind
of people that are going to hell. And the way
I know is there are certain things that people who
are going to heaven do and don't do, and certain
people who are going to hell. Here's what they do
and they don't do. The only problem that I'm finding
(23:43):
with this is a lot of our confidence that we
put in our judgments, and our assessment is based on
our external observations of people, and we can never really
know anyone's heart. And now here's a case in point.
And I told this story the wrong way last night,
so if you were here last night, I messed it up.
But here's how it actually happened. This is why I
(24:04):
put no confidence in the flesh, because I can't even
tell my own stories right while I'm preaching about confidence.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
That's how much I need the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But I was watching a sermon with my father in
law when I was first starting in ministry, and he
was telling me how the person preaching the sermon was
cocky and arrogant. He said, look at him. You can
tell he's strutting around that stage. He's wearing a five
thousand dollars suit. Look at him. He's cocky and he's arrogant.
(24:31):
Even his tie is loud. He's cocky and he's arrogant.
He's so cocky and he's arrogant. Of course, I asked
my father in law, have you met him? No, but
you can tell he's cocky and he's arrogant. Do you
know anybody who's met him?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
No, but I don't have to.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You can tell he's cocky and he's arrogant. And I said,
just kind of innocently, well, who's somebody that you think
is not cocky and arrogant? That would be better to
model my ministry after. Because he was in ministry. I
wanted to hear his wisdom. And he named the name
of somebody that I knew. It was a man who
had the Greek New Testament memorized. No, not the not
(25:12):
the Little Philippians four thirteen, in the.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Whole New Testament. He would show up. I took the
class with him. One time.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
He would say the Bible verse without looking at the Bible.
But he wouldn't say it in our translation. He would
be translating it in his mind from Greek. He never
looked at the Bible to teach us the Bible. And
my father in law said, that guy, that's a.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Man of God.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
That's a humble man of God. That's a man of
God who knows what matters and what doesn't. That's a
man of God who has understated. That's a man of God.
And twelve months later, the man of God who knew
the Bible in Greek had left his wife for a
woman in Russia. He had been taking mission trips to Russia.
(25:59):
Mission trip to Russia, but one mission he went for
and he never came back. And the man that was
cocky and arrogant is still serving God today and his
kids are in ministry too.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And here's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Let's stop being so quick to categorize people based on
what we see with our eyes or where they are
in certain behaviors in their lives. Judge nothing before the
appointed time. You don't even know what battles they're fighting,
and you don't know how far they've come. And you
don't know what has taken them, just to keep running
(26:36):
the race. And they might be limping, but they might
make it to the finish line because they lived.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I don't know anymore. I put no confidence in the flesh.
I don't have categories. They're not as clear anymore.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
For who's a godly person and who's not, and.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Who God has favored and who God hasn't.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Because some of the people that I thought were walking
in the favor of God were faking it.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
But I know it till they fell apart.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Past writing to Damascus one day a Hebrew of Hebrews,
a Pharisee of Pharisees, in regards to the law righteousness,
connected and competent, connected and competent, And all of a
sudden he was blinded by a light on his way
to imprison Christians in Damascus and bring them back to
(27:32):
Jerusalem to be sentenced. And something happened to him that
will happen to all of us in one way or another.
If it hasn't happened to you yet, send me a
text message when it does. God in his mercy and
God in his wisdom, knew that if I allow Paul
to remain confident in his flesh.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
He will not fulfill my purpose for his life. He
will live the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Putting his confidence in himself and his competence and his character,
and so all of a sudden you can read it.
In Acts, chapter nine, a blinding light throws Paul from
his horse.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
He is thrown to the ground on the way to exercise.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
His gift with authoritative letters from the Jewish Ruling Council.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
He falls off of.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
His horse, and a voice from heaven asks him, Saul,
who do you think you are? And Saul said back,
I don't know who are you? And the voice said
I am Jesus. And Paul spent three days blind and
someone had to lead him by the hand. You know,
that's when life gets really interesting. When you're used to
leading others, when you're used to knowing what to do,
(28:43):
when you're used to making it happen, when you're used
to smiling and getting through it. But then every once
in a while, something will come along in your life
and you'll say, I didn't take a class on this,
I didn't read a book about this. Nobody told me
it would feel like this. I wasn't prepared for this, I.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Didn't know it would be like this, and Paul said,
I lost my confidence. I lost my confidence and I
had to start all over.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
And I had to I had to give up all
my connections because everybody hated me that I used to
serve with. And I had to start all over because
I didn't know how to preach Jesus because I just
met him, and I had to humble myself, and I
had to reevaluate my character because I had been comparing
myself to others.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
You know how we do. Holly preached this brilliant message
to the ladies a couple weeks ago, and.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Everything about it was good. But I just want to
correct one thing she said. She said, we need to
stop comparing ourselves to others. And I think she's wrong
about that. I think we need to come compare ourself
to others every chance we get, until we are so
sick of comparing ourself to others. You know, because if
(30:10):
you compare yourself to others long enough, you will come
to the place eventually. If you're not there yet, you'll
get there. Just keep doing it, keep comparing yourself to others.
Just keep right on doing it, and do it. Do
it to make yourself feel better.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Do it.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
When you see somebody whose kids are on drugs, you
just silently tell yourself, my kids would never do that.
Go ahead, go ahead and go ahead and do that.
Just go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Just go ahead and do it. When you see somebody
who's not married, I'll tell.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
You if they go ahead and compare yourself to them,
because you know you're better than them. That's why you're married,
they're not. Just go ahead, compare yourselff.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Go ahead and do it. Go ahead and do it too.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
The other way to go ahead and compare yourself to
people that are better than you all the time, just
all the time. Look at everybody sucking in on the ground,
and then compare yourself bloated after a whole day of
running your kids around, and then compare yourself who didn't
have time to eat healthy because you actually care about
other people and that's why you had to go through McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
But compare yourself to them. You won't even know that.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
They're selfish and that's why their body looks like that
because they.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
They never have time for anybody else and all their
things going. Here's what I want you to do.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I want you to completely compare out of context for
as long as you can, and don't ask the question.
You know, like, they're real successful on their job, but
I wonder are they happy? Don't ask that question, because
if you can compare across all the categories, you might
see that their success is costing them their fulfillment.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
But don't do that.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Just compare, Just completely take it all out of context
and compare what people show you to what you can see,
and don't take time to wonder what's really going on,
and don't take time to stop and think about how
they're so gifted and they're so wonderful.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Just compare yourself to them.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Until you feel so terrible that the only place left
for you to go, the only thing left for you
to conclude, the only thing left for you to do,
is to fall down off your horse and.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Say, God, I'm sick of myself.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
I'm sick of false standards, I'm sick of worldly measurements,
I'm tired of my flesh, I'm tired of keeping up,
I'm tired of falling short, I'm tired of looking around.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
And in that moment, you will come to the point
that Paul came to in verse seven, where he said,
I compared myself to everyone else so long, and it
finally brought me to a point, not because I hit
the bottom, but because I was on top. And then
(32:26):
something happened in my life. I compared myself to Jesus.
And when I compared myself to him, I didn't have
anything left to brag about. When I compared myself to him,
(32:48):
I wasn't such a good person after all. When I
compared myself to him, I lost my confidence in me.
I lost my confidence and how nice I am, and
how sweet I am, and how light I am, and
how educated I am. When I compared myself to the
fullness of wisdom that was revealed in Jesus Christ, I
didn't bring up my IQ anymore, and I didn't show
(33:09):
them my sat scourse. When I compared myself to him.
My posture changed. When I compared myself to him, I
quit trying to be first place in a race that
I realized I couldn't win. When I compared myself to him,
I fell off my horse and I was led by
the hand. And Paul says in verse seven, Now whatever
were gains to me, I consider loss.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I lost my confidence. But watch this I gained Christ
speak this message today in the hopes that someone.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Who has lost your confidence in yourself would realize that
this is a necessary step for you to receive the
righteousness that comes by faith.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
And that's what Paul says here.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
He says, I lost my connections, I lost my sense
of competence.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
I found out I wasn't so good at everything.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
You know how life is, man, Just about the time
you master a set of skills, the whole game changes.
By the time I figure out how to get my
kids to you know, sh then they are teenagers and
I'm trying to get them to talk to me. You know,
the whole the whole opposite changes. So it's designed that way.
It is designed that way. I wonder if God is
(34:29):
trying to strip you of your confidence today so that
you can gain something greater. I lost my confidence to
preach to people and tell them, you know, if you
do this.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
God's going to do that.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I don't make those kinds of promises anymore because now
I have a different kind of confidences. It's a kind
of confidence that doesn't come from circumcision and changing your behavior,
getting it right, knowing all the answers.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
It's it's an inward confidence.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
I wonder if that's the real contract here, is that
we are trying to project confidence and God is trying
to impart it. I wonder if we're so busy trying
to be confident and seem confident that we have isolated
ourselves so we stay in places where no one really
knows us and no one can really touch us, because
(35:21):
we have gotten so good at looking confident, but on
the inside, we have lost a sense of ourselves, and
we have lost touch with our humanity as we project
into the world, pretend images of who we wish we
were and who we think we should be. But Paul said,
I lost all that. I lost all that, and you
know what, I'm glad I lost it. I'm glad I
(35:43):
got knocked off my horse. Glad I got my heart broken,
Glad I got my plans disrupted. I'm glad I found
out that the world wasn't flat. I'm glad I found
out that it didn't revolve around me. I'm glad that
I didn't know what to do, because if I'd have
kept trusting in my flesh, I would have spent the
rest of my life measureing myself against an irrelevant standard.
(36:06):
But something wonderful happened when I lost my confidence.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
I gained Christ.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
And what is more versay, I consider everything a loss
because of the surpassing word of knowing Christ, Jesus, my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost all things. I'm letting
it go. I'm not trying to get back on my horse.
I don't even want to ride in that direction anymore.
I've been down that road, and I'm ready for something better.
I consider them garbage that I may gain.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Christ.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Take the whole world, Take my skills, take my knowledge,
take my insight, take my appearances, take my youth.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
But give me Jesus.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
I want to be found in Him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but
that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that
comes from God on the bay basis of faith.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Stand up.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
It's not about how much confidence you have, it's about
on what basis you've built it. And the answer to
our anxiety isn't just more confidence, it's more Christ, he
(37:25):
says Verse ten. I used to know a lot of
things about the law. I used to know a lot
of things about life. But now look what happens after
you lose your confidence and your arrogance and your prejudice
and your presuppositions. He said, now that I've lost my confidence,
(37:46):
I want to know Christ. I don't want to know
about him. I don't want to know what I think
I know about him. I want to know Christ. Yes,
to know the power. Watch this of his resurrection. So
(38:07):
after you have lost your confidence, you can expect a resurrection.
I told my friend what I was going to preach
to you today. I said, I'm going to preach on
I lost my confidence. And he texted me after I
preached it the first message, and he said, did you
(38:28):
get it back?
Speaker 1 (38:31):
And I said no. I told the people to let
it die.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
To let that confidence that we put in what we
can see and then what we can know, and then
what we can feel, let it die.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Let it be nailed to the cross.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You know, God will allow certain circumstances in your life,
and he will use those circumstances to crucify your false confidence.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
And if we don't understand this.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
We will try to pray our confidence back down off
the cross, and we'll try to get it back, and
we'll go back into those same modes. But only after
it dies can it be resurrected as faith. I lost
my confidence, and I'm glad I did, because while I
was confident.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
In me, I could not have faith in him.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
And I wonder if today God brought you here not
to give you back your confidence, you know, so you
can get the girl.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
And win the bid. I wonder if God brought you
here to give you something better.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Then, now that we have buried your need to prove
that you're better than everybody, helps because you realize that
all of our righteousness is like filthy rags. Are you
ready now for a resurrect of faith? That's what had
to happen to the disciples. They were so confident in
(40:06):
Jesus as an earthly king. When he went to the cross,
it killed their confidence because they couldn't understand how he
could set.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Up a kingdom and die on a cross.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
But he had to crucify their confidence in order to
give life to their faith.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
The same thing is happening in your life right now.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
You're getting older, or you got rejected, or something's happening.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
In your body and it's not working like it used to.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
God is trying to give you something greater than confidence
in your flesh. I've seen what my flesh can do,
and I put no confidence in it anymore. I've seen
what my effort can accomplish. I don't want to preach
based on my opinions anymore. I'm ready now for the
(41:02):
righteousness that comes on the basis of faith.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Will you lift your hands in God's presence, Father, I
thank you for the word that you sent forth from
this pulpit today. While I understand God that.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
There's a deep need in all of our hearts to
feel assured that everything is going to be all right,
I understand that also there are times that are necessary
for us that we have to question everything, and sometimes
we have to be shaken to our core in order
to find a foundation that is worth building on. And
I just believe today that you didn't give me this
(41:38):
word so that I could preach it for myself. I
believe that there is a brother or a sister who
has lost their confidence because their circumstances have changed, or
they've come to a place where something that used to
work for them doesn't work anymore, or they have not
been affirmed in certain ways. And I believe that you
(41:59):
sent me here to tell them today, let it go
and receive something better. And so as their hands are
lifted to you and their hearts are open to you, God.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Would you.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
In each and every heart in this place fill our
perspectives with faith, take away our confidence and our flesh. God,
Even if we can do it in our own strength,
we can't sustain it in our own strength. We need you.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
We need you. You are our righteousness, and you are
the only confidence that we have. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
You can look the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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