Confidence in the Gospel

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We’re going to be in Acts chapter 28 this morning. Acts chapter 28 and also Romans chapter 1. And I would tell you to mark both places, but it’s the very end of Acts and the very beginning of Romans, and they’re right there together.

So you should be able to find both if you find one of them. We’ll start in Acts 28 and we’ll look at Romans chapter 1 a little bit. Having finished up with the other study that we were doing on some of the most misinterpreted passages of Scripture, I was studying on some other things this week.

trying to decide what to teach on, and I was reading through the book of Philippians. And as I read through the book of Philippians, it occurred to me I kept seeing the word confidence. That word kept jumping off the page at me.

And I flipped to another book. I can’t remember what it was. And there was that word confidence again.

And I thought, well, okay, I remember seeing this in here a few times, but it’s never quite jumped out at me before like it did this week. So I got on the computer, pulled up Bible software, and started looking at all the times that the word confidence is found in the New Testament. It’s in there more times than I ever realized.

And most of the time, it’s used in a positive way, something we’re supposed to have confidence in, in a way that we’re supposed to walk. A few times, Paul uses it to say, basically, I have no confidence in this or that. But most of the time it’s given as an instructive thing that we’re supposed to have confidence in this or we’re supposed to walk confidently toward that.

And as I started looking at all the times that this word confidence is used, I started to realize that God really does intend for his children to be confident in our service toward him, in our walk in this world. That doesn’t mean that we’re never afraid. It doesn’t mean that we never have trouble.

But the Bible does teach us that perfect love casts out fear. It does teach us that He’s not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. God intends us to walk confidently.

Now, I told Charla what I was going to be preaching on, and I said, this is ironic, because I am not the most confident cookie in the jar. I know you probably think anybody who can get up and speak in front of people, You must be a confident person. Because I’ve seen polls where more people are afraid of public speaking than death.

Personally, I think death is more final. But in some studies, there are more people who are frightened of public speaking than they are of death. Yeah, I’m okay with public speaking. But when it comes to dealing with people sometimes one-on-one, I’m not always confident.

I’m the kind who will leave a conversation and worry for two days. I used that word wrong. I hope I didn’t offend them.

That’s not confidence. I’m the kind who has to play out a conversation in my mind before I go approach someone. I will go through six drafts of an email before I send it.

I am not the world’s most confident person. And sometimes dealing with people one-on-one or small groups of people, people don’t realize that I am a shy person, but being in ministry, I just kind of had to fight that natural inclination, work against it. And so what I’m getting at here is there are some of us who don’t feel naturally full of confidence by what we think the word means.

By what we think the word means. What we tend to think the word means, we look at, guys, go turn on TV today, you’ll see lots of people full of what the world calls confidence. I’ll be an equal opportunity offender here this morning.

Two different presidential candidates came to mind. I know, with me it’s always politics that my mind goes to. Two different presidential candidates this week that I thought, oh, that is a confident person.

There’s no way I did anything wrong about those emails. I seem absolutely confident in that. Another one saying, if I get elected, we’re going to have so much winning that you’re going to get bored with all the winning.

I can’t even imagine that kind of confidence. You turn on the TV, you see celebrities, you see musicians, you see actors, and maybe not all of them, but a lot of them tend to think that they’re the greatest thing that God has ever put on this earth. That’s not the kind of confidence that the Bible’s talking about, telling us to have.

Let’s not confuse confidence with arrogance. Let’s not confuse confidence with pride. We talked about last week that pride goes before a fall, the Bible says.

The Bible teaches that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. What the Bible is telling us to have when it talks about confidence is not, first of all, ladies and gentlemen, it’s not a belief that I’m the greatest that there ever has been. But folks, it’s also not a confidence that says, well, I can do anything that I set my mind to.

Because I realize there are some things, I realize, I realize my limitations. There are some things I cannot do. I watched the OU game last night, if you want to call it that, because it was not a game that they didn’t even show up to play until overtime.

I watched the OU game last night, and at the beginning I’m sitting there hollering, what are you doing? Defense, where are you? And then I realized, like, I could do any better.

I would be worse than useless on that field. It’s not the belief I can do anything. Guys, I know I can’t.

A lot of things I can do if I just set my mind to it, but I know I can’t. I’m realistic. I know I can’t do anything I set my mind to.

I do have some limitations. Folks, confidence that the Bible speaks of is not the belief either that I’m the greatest there ever was or that I can do anything I want to do. We hear the word confidence and those tend to be the things that we think of.

I want to dispossess you of that notion before we go forward with these, not just this morning, we’re going to talk for a few weeks about this idea of confidence. That is not what the Bible is telling us that we need to become, is prideful. And so I started studying these different times that the Bible uses the word confidence.

And what’s it talking about? What does that mean? And looking at the Greek and the couple different words it uses.

Folks, I came up with this definition because I don’t think God intends us to be defeated in our Christian walk. What is the kind of confidence that God wants the believer to have? And this is what I wrote down.

The confidence the Bible describes is an uncommon courage. It’s not something that’s naturally in us. It’s an uncommon courage that comes from being firmly convinced that what we believe is actually true.

Do you understand what I mean by that? We believe a lot of things just because that’s our best guess, but we don’t know for a fact that it’s actually true. We got into a debate in the car this morning.

Is it fair to call it a debate? About fourth downs in football. Are you allowed to run the ball and have another try at that 10 yards?

Or do you have to pump the ball? We debated that for probably 20 minutes. And I know what I believe, but I’m not absolutely sure I’m right on it.

I would not have admitted that in the car, by the way, but I can admit it to you now when I have to be truthful. I know what I believe. I’m not absolutely sure that I’m right in what I believe.

And so at some point I just have to decide, okay, I’m going to let it go because I’m really not sure that I should press this any further because I don’t know that I know. There are a lot of things that we believe because it’s our best guess. Folks, the things involved in our Christian life should not be based on just a best guess.

God gives us the ability to know things for sure. And when you know something for a fact, you not only know it, but you know that you know it. You’re absolutely and firmly convinced that something is true.

It should create in you a courage of your convictions to be able to stand for that regardless of what anybody else says. That is the confidence that the Bible talks about. I heard a story this week, I was at a meeting in Moore on Thursday about these paintings at OU that were, okay, I’m going to use the word the news uses, allegedly looted by the Nazis, allegedly meaning almost certainly based on the evidence that I saw on Thursday.

But I was at a meeting about these artworks at OU and heard a story that I’ve heard before, but it gets me every time I hear it. But it’s a story that for me really illustrates very well this idea of confidence before we get into this passage about Paul. In 1942, there was a group of students at the University of Munich in Germany who were bothered by what was going on in their country, living of course in Nazi Germany.

The people knew what was going on with the Holocaust. If they didn’t know, they weren’t paying attention. They weren’t paying attention. Hitler had been very clear about what his intentions were, and the evidence was all around them.

A small group of students got together. They had to be very careful about it. But a small group of students at the University of Munich got together.

These are people just a few years younger than I am. These are basically kids. Got together, and they were discussing how they were bothered by what was going on.

The group was led by a brother and sister named Hans and Sophie Scholl. and it was because of their Christian upbringing, because of their Christian teaching, and their understanding of not only God’s love for mankind, but also God’s special relationship with the Jewish people, that they became convicted, this is not right. This is, that what our country is doing is a violation of God’s law.

It’s an abomination. This is a horrible thing that has got to be stopped. And they organized a small group of students that was called the White Rose Society.

And this small group of students began writing pamphlets. Now, I know today we’re free to write just about whatever we want. That doesn’t seem like a big deal. They were looking at a death sentence.

They wrote a series of pamphlets outlining for the people of Germany the crimes of their government, the crimes against humanity, and the crimes against God that were being perpetrated by their own government with their silent consent, and said, we have got to stop this. They wrote them anonymously. They left them to be found at the University of Munich.

They left them to be found around town. I’ve read some of these pamphlets before. They’ve been translated into English.

And one of the most haunting lines of them is that one of them says, We are your guilty conscience. They were so sure. They knew that what they were standing for was right.

And it gave them the courage that it would be hard to summon up otherwise to stand against Hitler and the entire Nazi state. And for nine months, from June of 1942 to February of 1943, they passed out pamphlet after pamphlet after pamphlet anonymously, trying to get the people of Munich to rise up against the Nazi state, against the tyranny, against the Holocaust, until they were eventually found out. And they were so dangerous, this group was so dangerous because of the courage of their convictions, was so dangerous to the Nazi regime that they were tried and they were sent not to be hung, not to be shot.

They were sent to the guillotine, which I’m sure happened other times, but as far as what I know, that’s the only high-profile case I know of where that was used by the Nazis, where that particular man. They sent them to be beheaded. And their words were so dangerous to the Nazi state that their last, their final pamphlet, was smuggled out of Germany and was given to the British who made a million copies of it and dropped them over Germany from airplanes.

How hard, I want you to think about how hard it would be to summon up the courage. We’re not just born with the courage to say, yeah, I’m going to go stand up to Hitler. He’s already in power.

And you’re going to die if you’re caught doing this. That’s not just something we just decide one morning, I’m going to get up and I’m going to stand up to Hitler today. Folks, it was the courage of their convictions, it was the realization from their Christian teaching that this is wrong.

And we’re not just guessing it’s wrong. We don’t just feel it’s wrong. We know that this is wrong.

And we’ve got to do something about it. Folks, I’m telling you this story because when you hear the word confidence, when we read the scriptures and see it talking about confidence and how I am confident of this, we should go confidently to that. We need to have confidence in this.

I don’t want you to think of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. I want you to think of confidence as being exemplified by Hans and Sophie Scholl. That it’s not an idea, I can do no wrong or I’m the best there ever was.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s an unnatural courage that God gives us when we become convinced that what we believe really is true. And there are six things over the next few weeks that I’m going to talk to you about that the Bible says that we are supposed to have confidence in, that we are supposed to be confident about. And the first of those things that we’re going to talk about today in Acts chapter 28 is the gospel.

The first thing that we’re supposed to be confident about as Christians is the gospel. Now let’s look at the passage for just a moment, and then I want to explain some things to you very briefly. But Acts chapter 28, starting in verse 23, says, And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him, to his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets, from morning until evening.

What is taking place here is that Paul has been taken to Rome. He will eventually be martyred in Rome. He’ll eventually be beheaded by the Romans.

He has been tried in Israel and has appealed his sentence to Caesar. And so they’ve sent him to Rome. He’s now basically imprisoned under house arrest in Rome.

But while he’s there, he continues to teach. And it says that people would continue to come to see him at his home. and he would go and he would teach them about Jesus from the Scriptures from morning until evening.

And when it says he would teach them about Jesus from the Scriptures, it’s not like today where I could open up to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John and tell you about Jesus. He’s going back to the law of Moses, and he’s going back to the words of the prophets in the Old Testament and using the Old Testament to show them who God said Jesus was going to be. And he’s saying this Messiah that we’ve been looking for for all these years has come, and it’s Jesus Christ. and he began to teach them about Jesus.

And it says in verse 24, And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. And we see that happening still today. We talk about Jesus.

We tell people what Jesus Christ has done. We spread the gospel. Some people believe.

Some people don’t. Now, why do some believe and some don’t? I don’t have a great answer for you.

Except that I believe God gives everybody who hears the same opportunity to respond. And some respond and some don’t. Some respond more quickly than others.

Some respond the first time they hear the gospel. Some it takes a little longer. And some never respond.

And when they agree, so if you worry about, well, what if I share the gospel and people don’t respond, you’re in great company. Not everybody responded when Paul, not everybody believed when Paul preached the gospel either. And when they agreed, verse 25, among themselves they departed after that Paul had spoken one word, well spake the Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive.

For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I shall heal them. Okay, so Paul had referenced Isaiah and told them these things that basically those who were listening to his message that day, many of them were just not in a position where they even wanted to hear the gospel. They were curious about Jesus, but when it came to the truth of the gospel, they didn’t want to hear it.

And so it says their hearts were fattened, they waxed gross, and their ears dull of hearing, their eyes were closed. What I think right here is after Thanksgiving, after you eat that meal, I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m just waxed gross, like a big tick, and I don’t want to hear anything. I can barely keep my eyes open.

Just leave me alone. I’m just going to be right here on the couch. And spiritually, that’s where they were.

They were heavy, and they were laden down with all the things. They were loaded down with all the things, their teachings, and their beliefs, and they were just too weary even to try to hear the truth. And he says in verse 28, Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles and that they will hear it.

He says, you need to know that God sent the gospel first to the Jews, but when the Jews weren’t willing to respond, he now sends it to the Gentiles. Jesus is for everybody. Jew, Gentile, it doesn’t matter.

The message of the gospel is for everybody. And if the Jews don’t accept it, there are others who will. And when he had said these words, the Jews departed and had great reasoning among themselves.

they continued to talk about what they had heard. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding them. So what we see in the end of the book of Acts, just before Paul’s martyrdom, he knows he’s probably going to be killed for his faith.

He’s at least suffering for his faith at this point because he’s under house arrest, and yet he continues to preach and teach Jesus Christ, it says, with all confidence. It’s a courage that comes only from God when we are firmly convinced that what we teach, what we believe, is the truth. And Paul was firmly convinced.

Guys, this wasn’t just, I’m firmly convinced because that’s what my parents taught me. Remember back, Paul started out hating Christ and hating the gospel. Paul was one who carried with him letters of authority that allowed him to arrest Christians so that they could be tried and put to death.

And it wasn’t until Jesus came and met him on the road to Damascus that his eyes, spiritually, his eyes were opened. And he realized that what he had been fighting against in the name of God really was the message of God. That the one he had been persecuting on behalf of God, he thought, was actually God in human flesh.

and Paul was utterly and completely convinced and we know this because his life was completely transformed he was utterly convinced and it was for that reason he was willing to suffer for the cause of the gospel it gave him the courage guys the first time I’m in Damascus as a new Christian and I’m preaching about Christ and find out that people want to have me stoned and I have to be snuck out of the city and lowered down the walls of the city at night in a basket so that they don’t kill me when I go through the gate. I don’t know about you, but I might be rethinking this whole preaching the gospel thing. I mean, there’s a chance I’m rethinking that.

But Paul had seen Christ and he was utterly convinced of the truth of the gospel. And so he had this courage, he had this confidence of his convictions. And we see from his example here that even after they’ve thrown him in prison, even as he’s there for two years awaiting this trial that very likely is going to lead to his death, and we know the rest of the story that it did lead to his death, even as he’s sitting there under penalty of death, he continues to preach the gospel and does it with all confidence.

And the scriptures indicate to us that if there’s anything that we’re supposed to be confident about as Christians, it’s the gospel. Not confident in my own greatness, not confident in my own abilities to turn people around, but folks, confident in the gospel, in the gospel that God has given. And I want to stop here for just a second because we throw this word gospel out a lot of times as churches and don’t really clearly define it.

And I’ve known people who’ve been in church for 40 years who have believed the gospel but don’t realize what we’re talking about when we say the word gospel. Oh, you mean that’s what that is? Yes, that’s what it is.

The gospel, ladies and gentlemen, is very simple and has two parts. Part one is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. If you want to turn there with me, you’re more than welcome to.

1 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 3 and 4 tell us about the first part which is Jesus’ provision for salvation. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, this is Paul speaking, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. So the first part of the gospel is what Jesus did.

He died for our sins. He didn’t just die. He died for our sins.

he was buried and he rose again the third day according to the scriptures he rose from the dead just like the scripture said he would that’s the first part of the gospel is what jesus did and the second part is what jesus now offers here’s what he did and because of what he did here’s what he now offers turn with me to ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 through 10 we talk about this one a lot but it says for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of god not of works lest any man should boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them and the message of that passage is that not one of us are good enough for God not one of us are good enough for salvation but God gives us salvation as a free gift that word grace means something we don’t earn for by grace are you saved through faith God offers salvation freely to us even though we don’t deserve it but because of what He did.

He offers salvation to us. And the only thing necessary for us is to believe, is to accept by faith what he says is true. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not by works, lest any man should boast. There’s a reminder in there, we can’t earn it, we can’t deserve it. And then as a result, God saves us and then begins to change us from the inside out. We do not have to get our lives together, get our act clean up, get our sins behind us, deal with them on our own, and then come to Christ in hopes that he’ll love us and forgive us.

That’s completely backwards. We come to Christ and we humble ourselves and ask his forgiveness because we know we are rotten sinners. If that sounds too harsh, let me put it this way.

I come to him and ask his forgiveness because I know that I’m a rotten sinner and cannot save myself. And then he begins to change me from the inside out. Folks, those two passages right there sum up for us the gospel.

It’s what Jesus did in his death, burial, and resurrection and what he now offers, which is the forgiveness of sins that we can’t earn or deserve, but that God gives freely by faith because of what Jesus Christ did. That’s a very simple message. Folks, it’s a very simple message and man likes to complicate things.

That’s why there are so many religions and denominations out there. Surely it couldn’t be just what Jesus did. Let’s add something to it.

Surely I’ve got to be nice to other people. Well, it’s a good thing to be nice to other people. As my mom says all the time, and I think she heard this on Nash maybe, it’s nice to be nice to the nice.

She says that all the time. It’s nice to be nice. That doesn’t earn us salvation.

Well, maybe we’ve got to be circumcised and keep Passover. Fine, go do that if that’s what you want to do, but it doesn’t cut any ice with God. It doesn’t get you anywhere with God.

It’s just Jesus Christ. Well, shouldn’t I be baptized? Shouldn’t I go through all these rituals? Shouldn’t I do this?

No. Jesus died to pay for our sins according to the scriptures and rose again the third day according to the scriptures. And now by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not by works, lest any man should boast. He offers it as a free gift.

You don’t have to earn it or deserve it, you can’t earn it or deserve it. Just take it. Just believe his offer and take it and say thank you.

That’s the gospel. You don’t have to add anything to it. You don’t have to complicate it.

The gospel is a simple story. And here Paul illustrates that if there’s anything that we’re supposed to have confidence in as Christians, it’s supposed to be the gospel. If you’re not confident in the gospel this morning, there’s a problem.

Now I’d have to talk with you a little more or know a little bit more about why you’re not confident in it to know what the problem is, but there’s a problem. Either a problem of not taking God at his word or maybe not really having experienced God’s salvation. I don’t know, but there’s a problem somewhere.

If you this morning are a believer, professed to be a Christian, and you’re not confident in the gospel. If you’re saying, well, I believe it because that’s what I’ve been taught. Oh, no, no, no. No, God wants us to be confident in the gospel.

I can believe something because you told me that. It takes a little more than that for me to be confident in the answer I give. So there are three things that I see in the passage.

Let’s look at Romans chapter 1 just very briefly before we get into the points. Romans chapter 1, we’re just going to look at three verses. This is Paul speaking again in verses 15, 16 and 17.

So as much as in me is, verse 15, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. And this verse 16 is one of my favorite passages, one of my favorite verses of scripture. And it doesn’t use the word confidence, but there’s confidence in this verse.

He says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith he says everything in me wants to come and preach the gospel to you I am not ashamed of this message he says because it is the message is the power of god unto salvation the gospel is the paul’s preaching now just because paul said it doesn’t mean anybody’s going to be saved paul is not convincing people to be saved because we’ve got a great church no that’s not going to make people get saved he says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It’s the gospel that saves.

It’s the power of the message that compels people to trust Christ. And so Paul, you know, you read elsewhere and he talks about his own shortcomings. He talks about his own sinfulness. Paul strikes me as somebody who could have been very confident in himself in the arrogant sense.

I’m great, I’m wonderful, maybe early on. But later on in his life, we see him as a Christian fighting against that and saying, you know, I’m really not as great as I probably at one time thought. And we see in his later writings, we don’t see someone who’s looking saying, I am the best. I can do whatever.

We don’t see someone who’s confident in himself the way we think of confidence. But we read Romans chapter 1 and folks, he was supremely confident in the gospel. This is not a Joel Osteen message where I’m asking you to go home and believe in yourself.

Go home and be confident and believe in yourself and have your best life. You may just be like me. I’m shy, but I’ve got to fight it.

But you know what? Even if we don’t have confidence in ourselves, that’s not what matters. We need to have confidence in the gospel.

Now between these passages, three reasons, I think, for having confidence in the gospel. Because it is an important message. It matters more, you know, you may not believe it to live in Oklahoma and hear what’s the topic of discussion from day to day.

It matters more than the football game last night. I was not confident in that debate. I was not confident that I was right about the fourth downs.

I am confident in the gospel, and you know what? It matters so much more that I’m confident about the gospel than being confident about anything else. First of all, we can be confident about the gospel because the Word of God provides the proof for the Gospel.

Now I realize if you’re a skeptic or if you’re a non-believer, that doesn’t really mean anything to you. If you’re someone who believes that the Bible is the Word of God, then that should mean everything to us. God’s Word says the Gospel is true.

Folks, it’s not just an idea that I or somebody else made up that Jesus Christ died to save sinners. It was God’s idea. God says it’s true.

God is the one who came up with it. I promise you, if somebody else invented this idea, if a human being invented the idea that Jesus Christ died to save us from our sins, it would be a whole lot more complicated. That’s why every time you see a new religious teaching, a new religious guru, a cult developer, there are all these steps you’ve got to go through in order to be saved or reach heaven or nirvana or whatever it is.

It’s complicated. We think it’s got to be complicated. This was God’s idea.

God made it up, and God says it’s true. And if this morning you are somebody who says, I believe in God and I believe this is His Word, then you’ve got to accept the Gospel as being true or stop accepting the Bible as being true. You can’t believe the Bible is the Word of God and not believe that the Gospel is true.

You can’t separate them. And Paul himself appealed to the Bible, to the Word of God, when it says in verse 23 that he expounded and testified the kingdom of God Okay, that’s him teaching about Jesus Christ, but it says persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets. He wasn’t just, he could have very easily just on h