Steven Furtick - Borrowed Confidence
You never want to miss a Sunday at Elevation, because you never know what God is going to do. He's just amazing. I think you picked a good Sunday to join us too, or if you're watching this on a Tuesday or listening to this on the treadmill… A lot of people tell me they listen to a sermon I preached while they run or something like that. So that's good. You do my cardio; I build your faith. This is a great arrangement. Seriously, though. Y'all go get some rest. It's my turn to work now. How many are excited for the Word of God? Thank you, Jesus.
Okay. I couldn't stop thinking about last week's message, Get to the Good Part. I got home, and I felt like I didn't even get to give you the best part of my sermon, so the Lord said, "Part two". Let's get to the good part. Be seated. Relax. Enjoy this time. This is the time that God gave you not to worry about stuff you can't do anything about right now anyway. Whoever is texting you can text you back. Leave them on red in the name of the Lord and listen to this word. In Philippians, chapter 1, verse 6… Actually, let me do this. Let me stair-step you through three verses. That'll be good. Let's do Psalm 27 first. This is what David said. Verse 13: "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living".
Paul said something similar in Philippians. I'll read you that too. This is the verse I ended on last week. He said in Philippians 1:6: "…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of [a global pandemic]". No. Of course he said that God has a plan even beyond our human surprises. "…until the day of Christ Jesus". Until it's over, basically. He said, "Being confident of this…" Then, if you move down to verse 14, he's describing his prison sentence, and he said, "Because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear". I just noticed kind of a similarity: the word confident. Then I noticed a little distinction. David said, "I will remain confident in this". Paul said, "Being confident in this…" Then Paul also says there are some who are becoming confident.
I want to teach on the principle today of Borrowed Confidence. I want you to pray for us, because our family is experiencing something very difficult. My oldest son is now the same size as me, and he's in my closet all the time. We have beef, and I hate to work it out like this on a worldwide global ministry platform, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. But for the purposes of group therapy, pray for me. I'm not mad at him because he comes in my closet and steals my clothes. That doesn't make me mad. It would be stupid to be mad about that. That's actually cheaper than me having to buy him his own. To me, that's just good stewardship. He was in my closet today. I can tell. He has my… What are those called? I don't even know what those are. I know they're mine. They used to be mine. They were mine at one time. The Turbo Greens. Yeah. I'm not mad at him because he wears my stuff. I'm mad because he makes it look better than I do.
He'll just rock something in the back of my closet that I have had back there and haven't had the confidence to put on in years. I remember somebody gave me this jacket one time, and I wouldn't wear it. I would put it on every Saturday night before I came to preach, and then I'd take it back off and put something else on, because it was just too something. He walked out wearing it just looking amazing in it. So, I'm not mad that you borrow my stuff; I'm mad that you make it look better than I do, for the record. It's kind of cool, though, to see him in there trying on the old man's shoes. It makes me think if he wants to wear my stuff, I must have some kind of swag. I told him when all this nonsense started, "You can borrow my shoes, but you can't steal my swag".
I have a very particular kind of swag. It's dad swag. I have dad swag. I'm just trying to get you thinking about how there are different kinds of confidence. Confidence, while being a word we all know is important to get a date… "If you can't be cute, be confident". That's what one guy told me. He really did. He said, "You're not especially good-looking. Just be confident". He said, "It'll put like three points on your scale just to be confident". But there are different kinds of confidence. Of course, as you get into the book of Philippians, the letter I was reading from, where Paul is writing this church of Christians who have apparently lost their confidence… I mentioned last week that if he's saying he is confident in what God is doing, it suggests that maybe they're not anymore. There are a bunch of reasons for that. There's fighting in the church. Euodia and Syntyche aren't getting along, so he's begging them to stop fighting. Not only that. There are all kinds of reasons for the Philippian church not to be confident, not the least of which is that their leader is in prison. He's giving them… It's like this impartation of faith that is so powerful.
Let me read you a little bit more of the passage so you can get a sense. Verse 3: "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus". There's a sequence here I want to talk about, but there's also a substance. Let me talk about the substance of it. He's talking about a kind of confidence that is not cosmetic, the kind of swag that whether you have a Nike swoosh on your shoes or whether you… I know we teach all kinds of things about confidence these days culturally. Body confidence. That's a good thing. I think that's great.
Come on, man. I'm not sitting here in the gym just so I can have a healthy cardio. I want to look good too. I'm not lying to you. But at the same time, body confidence or confidence in your career… "I'm really good at this. I've been doing this all my life". Well, the thing about the last year is that everything that can be shaken is being shaken. A lot of us found what we were good at stripped away, and all we were left with was who we are. When we're forced to deal with our core… Kind of like Paul is. He's just in prison. He has lost his pulpit. His church building is empty. He can't go on tour or anything like that. All of the things apostles do, he can't do it, and he's still confident. "Being confident…" It's a state of mind for him. It doesn't even seem to be something he's getting from the outside, because all he has with him in prison that can come visit him is Epaphroditus.
Epaphroditus is kind of sickly. The occasion of writing Philippians is that he is sending Epaphroditus back to the Philippians. He's like, "He's good. He's going through a lot. He's kind of nervous. I'm going to send him back". Now watch this. I told you I wanted to preach about borrowed confidence. The Philippians, the church that was started while Paul was in jail… That church has supported him. When he left Macedonia and went to Thessalonica, they were the only church that sponsored him. He's writing back to them. "…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it to the day of Christ". They sent him a gift. They loaned him a person. He borrowed Epaphroditus for the season that he needed him and sent him back, and he said, "I'm still confident". Make this confession by faith if you can: "I'm still confident".
The principle I want us to come around today is that where your confidence comes from determines when it runs out. While body confidence is awesome, news flash: your body goes through different versions, states. If my confidence is in my body, then I'd better never get 40. If my confidence is in my career, then my employer has the ability to strip me of my faith. I know this sounds weird to say, but if your confidence is in your pastor… What if I mess up? God is still with you. I don't want to mess up, but the fact is if I dropped dead in this pulpit right now… I know that's kind of morbid. Hopefully they'd call an ambulance and try to fix me, but by next Sunday, God would send you somebody else to preach his Word. He loves you that much. It's weird to imagine that, but, I mean… That's true of everything in your life.
As the letter progresses, Paul gets heavier. He starts out, "I thank God for you. Every time I think about you, I thank God for you. You're on my prayer list. You make me happy". The Philippians were that church for Paul. When he saw them on his phone come up on the contact screen, he wanted to hit them back. He liked to hear from them…unlike the other churches, like the Corinthian church. They were a different situation. When the Corinthians came on his phone, he knew that was probably drama. They had incest in the church. They were getting drunk off the Communion wine. But the Philippian church… He's like, "Y'all make me happy. We have this partnership. Y'all have been with me for a minute". He knew the power of partnership. When I preached last week, I said we all have a dark part…a dark part of our personality, a dark part of our behavioral patterns. "Whoa. Where did that come from"?
We all have a dark part, but if you get through the dark part, you get to the good part. Paul refuses to leave the Philippians in the dark. He wants to let them know God is still working in his life and God is still working in their life and God hasn't stopped being God. God hasn't stopped being good, and God hasn't forgotten your name or your address. God sees everything that's going down in your life and everything that's going up in your life. Like, your blood pressure is going up. Your bank account is going… God sees all of that. My confidence is not tied to either one of those that are going up or down. We all hit seasons where it gets dark. "I don't know how to do this. I don't think I can do this. I can't do this". I hit it every time before I preach. Every time. I just know, "This is the dark part. Here it comes. Okay. I don't feel saved. I don't feel sanctified. I don't feel filled with the Holy Spirit. I don't feel intelligent. I don't feel like I have a triple-digit IQ. I don't feel any of that. What are these words? Oh, this is that part".
I've learned something I want to share with you today. I've been excited to share it. Some of us can't get through the dark part because we don't have the right partners. You will never get through the dark part if you have partners who drag you down more. Pretend you're a 15-year-old for a minute, like my son Elijah or like many of the youth… By the way, Elevation YTH on YouTube. Go subscribe right now so we can help you get through the dark part. How many of you, your teenage years were kind of a dark part of your life? So, imagine you're there again. You're going back in that. Now, when you're young, you have a commodity that can help you have more confidence: ignorance. Just ignorance, the blessing of dumb. When they were showing a video for 15 years of ministry the other day, they had early videos of me preaching, and somebody said, "You were so bold back then". I'm like, "I was so dumb back then".
You know what? Ignorance looks like confidence from a distance. A lot of the times that God can do the most through somebody is when they know the least. But let me mess around and live for a little while, and I build a file of everything that can go wrong, things I didn't know I was supposed to be scared of when I was 17, things I didn't know I was supposed to be scared of the first two years of church. The benefit of ignorance is that it gives you this kind of confidence. Paul is not writing about that kind of confidence, though. He knows how much it costs to serve Christ. He knows how uncertain it is. He knows how hard it can be sometimes when you feel completely abandoned by the people you help. "No other churches? No other partners? Nobody is going to stand with me"? He knows all of that, but he's confident.
Like David in Psalm 27. "I will remain confident…" That's not a feeling; that's a decision. Do you know the difference? The feeling of confidence and the decision? The feeling can be stripped so quickly, but the decision can be made any moment. "I will remain confident". Being confident. Becoming confident. If we build the right kind of confidence… Paul calls this the righteousness that comes by faith. It's not the confidence in the flesh. It's not anything you can buy. It's not anything you can achieve. It's not anything a human committee has to give to you. It's none of those things. I guess you could say it's a kind of confidence that comes from above, so it never runs out.
If you go back over to Psalm 27… I want to marry these two Scriptures, because they're interesting together. You'll notice that David must have been fighting something in Psalm 27 that threatened his sense of stability. I don't want to leave this in the text so long you think this is a history lesson. There are so many people I'm talking to these days that life has taken on some new dimensions for them, and they no longer feel competent for the challenges of this season. They have experienced some things (I'm not talking about you; I'm talking about somebody you know) that made them bitter, that made them apprehensive, that made them timid about believing God. They prayed for somebody; they died. They loved somebody; that person took advantage of their love. All of these things that happen. If your confidence comes from that place, then it runs out when that ends.
When David starts Psalm 27… I love the whole psalm. "The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid"? He gets all the way to verse 13, and he says, "I will remain confident in this…" Go to 1 Samuel 17. I have to show you something. This is amazing. I'll show you what I'm talking about. So, David shows up. Remember that any given day, God is doing more in your life than you can imagine. He's delivering cheese and bread, but he's really going down to meet Goliath so he can kill him so the nation can move on, just like God is doing great things in your life. David didn't know what he was going to do, because probably if he had known what he was going to do he might have second-guessed whether he would go or not. Ignorance is sometimes to your advantage in trusting God.
All right. I know you know this story pretty well, but I want to show you something. In 1 Samuel, chapter 17, he goes down to the battle lines. He hears Goliath intimidating God's people, and it freaks him out. "How can y'all be passive about something God promised to give you victory over"? Remember, these are the experienced soldiers, and three of them are his own brothers. I want to show you a difference between Paul and David and see which one you feel more like right now in your life. Paul had some partners who believed in him enough to support him in his hard time, his dark time. Watch what happened to David when he went down to help his brothers. "When Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men [asking, 'Who is this giant that defies the armies of the living God?'], he burned with anger at him and asked, 'Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness?'"
This is the person David came to feed. The person he came to feed is fighting him. Have you ever felt that way? If they're sitting next to you right now, we can just have an unspoken, tacit agreement. I feel you. It's hard to raise your hand on something like that when they are right next to you or in the other room. You're scared they might hear. No, this is crazy, because Paul is saying, "Your partnership in the gospel encourages me". Have you ever had somebody step up and believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself? Have you ever had somebody just see something in you that had gotten buried? They don't even realize they're doing it. They just say something in passing, and you're like, "Really"? And your chest sticks out, and you walk a little bit different for the rest of the day, just because they saw something in you. I think Paul felt that way about the Philippians.
I think when he went back, he said, "I remember when we started. I didn't have authority in this province. I didn't have the resources. You helped me with that. I didn't have a big brand or a big ministry. You believed in me like that". There is nothing like people who believe in you when there is nothing to see to prove what they believe. If God gives you somebody like that, do not let them go. Hold on to those "day ones" who had nothing to gain from loving you, people who gave you a shot, people who gave you a chance, people who said, "Come on and do this". That's awesome.
I'll always honor Pastor Mickey, because he said God had his hand on my life when I was 16. I'll always honor him. You need people like that when you get in one of these passages where you're like, "I never did this before. I've never been a mom before. I've never been through a divorce before. I haven't been unemployed in my adult life before. I've never been to college before. I never tried to quit smoking before. I never tried to get my drinking under control before. I don't know how to do this". God will send you a partner, somebody who sees potential in you that your pain has blocked from your own visibility. That's why I called you over the other day when we were in the middle of the project. I was dealing with uncertainty. "Is this the right thing"?
I was so in the middle of it I needed you to come over, because you've been there with me since…well, let's be honest…since we were doing the dumbest stuff that two teenagers can do, since riding around in your Jeep. I needed that first-day faith. When you saw what I was creating, you said, "This is it"! He was so excited. He said, "This is it! This is what we were doing. This is what you were doing". He helped me connect the dots of what God was doing, because I couldn't in the moment. I was in the dark. I needed that first-day faith, like Paul had from the Philippians. He was like, "Oh man. I don't know what God is going to do, but I'm going to choose what I remember".
Instead of calling to mind all of the people who didn't support him, he remembered the church that did. Isn't that hard to do? You thought I was going to say, "Isn't that great"? No, isn't that difficult? A lot of what we call believing is really just remembering right. He said, "Every time I remember you, I get joy in this prison cell". Or like the prophet Jeremiah said in Lamentations 3:21. "This I recall to my mind…" What? The calamity? The ruins? The desolation? The betrayal? The feelings of forsaken? No, no, no. "This I recall to my mind; therefore, I have hope. It's because of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They're new every morning. Great is your faithfulness". "This I recall to mind".
So, imagine right now. A million things are going through your mind. Right? Like, "Should I be mad about this? Should I be upset about that? Should I be worried about that? Should I fear about that? Should I forget about that? That, that, that, that, that…" Then that one God thought comes through. When it comes by in your mind, it comes by fast. It moves along. Here comes doubt. Here comes hatred. Here comes envy. Here comes comparison. Here comes jealousy. Here comes all of that, and then here comes that one thought, that contentment. This. Grab it. This right here. David is actually in the opposite situation that Paul is in. Paul is preaching to people who support him, but they can only do so much for him because he's in prison. He's saying, "I am confident for you in what you can't even believe about you right now because we've never been through this before". He's saying, "Borrow my confidence".
Did you know you can do that? I don't know what your philosophies are on borrowing money. It's fine. I don't care. We all think different things. So, you're Dave Ramsey. You don't borrow or you do, or whatever. I don't care. Rich Dad Poor Dad, Dave Ramsey… I'm not a money man; I'm a preacher. All right? I'm not talking about borrowing money. I'm talking about a different currency called confidence and what you believe about what you can be and what you believe about what you have inside of you and what you believe about what God called you to do and what you believe about what you're going through. That's what I'm talking аbout: the currency of confidence. When you're young, you start borrowing confidence from the wrong places. You borrow confidence from sexual attractiveness. Ooh, did you hear the decibel levels sink down beneath the floor?
"Oh my god! He's preaching like it's 2021". It's like people really run around to different sexual partners, partner after partner after partner after partner after partner, and rather than ever being in a real relationship…the good part where you have to love somebody for who they are, not what they look like…you take this feeling of "Oh, I have somebody," and you borrow the confidence of having somebody. But when you borrow confidence from the wrong places, the interest rate is ridiculous. That hit me right there. I'm talking about when you get in a relationship where you have to compromise your values to get your needs met. Y'all, that's worse than the check cashing place. It's an interest rate…
Let me tell you another thing, while I have you fired up, about all of the people you've kept going to because you wanted them to validate you, but they can't because they're not God and they didn't make you and they don't know you like that. They have their own insecurities, so leave them alone and get it from God. Hey, you keep trying to borrow confidence from people who have insufficient funds. They can't do it. They can't! They want to; they just can't. They're flesh and bone and blood and dirt and snot and spit and human and stuff like you. That's why Paul wouldn't go into self-pity. "Nobody helped me. Nobody prayed for me". He's like, "No, I've got a partner". Say it right now. "I've got a partner".
Wow. God gave me some people who were with me at first. God gave me some people who have been where I've never been before. Did you know when you go through something challenging you can read a book? You are not the first one in history who went through that. Do you know how many times I borrowed Tom Laymon's knowledge, confidence, wisdom? Lisa, every 9:30 that y'all would be at, he would text me before the 11:30. I would be back there in the back trying to rewrite my message, because I would think, "That was horrible. That's awful". He would text me. "My pastor, preach it just like that again at 11:30". I'd be like, "Huh? That was good"? How many times, Kari…? It's a little melody in a songwriting session, and somebody goes, "Oh, that's good," and you're like, "It is"? That's why you need partners.
Are you always the needy one or can somebody else hold a little bit of your faith for a while? Are you always Epaphroditus or can you be Paul sometimes too? I hope more than Elijah borrows my Boosts… If he borrows my shoes… I hope more than he borrows what's in my closet… I hope God will help me get to a point kind of where Paul was in my life, where it's like… Becoming confident. That's great. To borrow confidence…you have to sometimes. Then there's being confident. It's where, "This is what God has called me to do. This is how God made me to do it. This is what he has given me to get the job done. This". I keep hearing that: this, this, this. All of the clothes in the world, all the money in the world… I know that sounds really abstract and spiritual, but I promise you, all of that cannot compare with one word from this. "You forgot about David, Pastor". No, no, I didn't. The people who should have been his partners, the people who should have been his comrades, the people who should have believed in him…
Isn't that awful when the people who should have said, "You've got something, man. Keep going. Hey, I know that's all right. You don't fit in, but that's for a reason. You're too big for that small place. Just keep growing. You don't have to fit in. That's all right right now". David, the future king of Israel, comes down to bring bread to his brothers, and his brother burned with anger and said, "Why have you come down here"? David didn't exactly know that yet. He thought he came to feed his brothers. He really came to fight for his nation. So, his confidence is not in what he's doing; his confidence is something different. "I will remain confident in this…" That's what he said in Psalm 27.
Now look at this incident. It's not necessarily connected, but maybe this is where he started becoming confident. Be building that confidence. Building the skill to walk into a room and have enough confidence that you don't need to be the center of attention; building enough confidence to have people who criticize the way you choose to live your life and just keep on being true to what God has put in your heart. Yeah, I'm going to adjust and change, but that's a process. This event in his life is really indicative of the integrity of what God was creating in David. When Eliab said, "You left those few sheep in the wilderness," he's demeaning David. Do you see it? "Little shepherd, you're not a soldier. You're too young for this. You're too small for this. You're too little for this. You have bad motives". All of the things people may say. He's saying all of that, and he accuses him and belittles him. He says, "You're down there keeping a few sheep. You don't belong here". "I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle".
David is a little bit confused, frustrated for sure. "'Now what have I done? Can't I even speak?' He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before". Watch this. His confidence didn't come from his big brother, so his big brother can't take it away. There needs to be a part in you that knows, "I appreciate everybody and everything God sends me". But if they walk away, he won't. If they fall short, he won't. If this brook dries up, there will be a bird in the sky an hour from now. David is young, but he's confident. It's not about the shoes. It's not about the swag. It's not about the beliefs of other people. When will you stop borrowing other people's bad beliefs? It wasn't that Eliab didn't believe in David. Eliab didn't believe in himself. I don't have to carry things others believe. I don't have to carry things that culture believes. I don't have to feel how culture feels about things. I don't have to pay the interest rate on a broken world system of thought. I don't have to pay a generational tax on what happened in my great…
I can break it in my bloodline if I can believe it in my spirit. God says some of you are built to break it. What they said is not your limitation. Don't let their limitation become your insecurity. Just because they can't see it doesn't mean you can't see it. Just because they can't believe it doesn't mean you can't believe it. You're like, "You sound kind of cocky up here right now, Pastor. I thought we were supposed to be humble as Christians". Imagine what it took for Jesus, for the joy set before him to endure the cross, despising its shame, with everybody telling him, "Come down and prove that you're God. Call the angels. Call your Father". He stayed up there, confident, on that cross. Paul said, "I learned from the master. I want to be in the fellowship of his sufferings to participate in his resurrection power". It's a partnership.
David said, "I don't need to be partners with Eliab; I'm partners with God. I have the name of the Lord". Things start getting really weird after that, because Saul, who is the king God is replacing, hears that David wants to go fight Goliath. He calls him over in verse 33 and says, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine…" This Philistine. What's the Philistine's name? Goliath. This Philistine. "…you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth". His inexperience was his greatest benefit. Everybody else knew too much. David was dumb enough to defeat the enemy they were running from. So, stop saying, "Oh, I can't do this. I don't know enough". I have to show you something. David said to Saul (verse 34), "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep". He starts reading his résumé to the insecure king. Isn't it funny? David put the same thing on his résumé that his brother used to insult him.
The things you use to disqualify you… God is like, "That's exactly what I want to use. That's exactly why I want to use you". Isn't that crazy? "I've been keeping sheep. Didn't you hear my brother"? Watch this. "When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it". Confident. "Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them [because I have a partner]". So, what do you do when your big brother doesn't believe in you and neither does your leader? When you go to get help and encouragement and love and support…
Some of you are there. You're like, "I don't have anybody. I'm not like Paul. I don't have the Philippians. I'm not an apostle. That's great, Pastor Steven. I don't have Holly on the front row. She's an encouraging angel, and she loves you". And she does, and that's great. But since David couldn't get it from Eliab and he couldn't get it from Saul, he borrowed it from a bear. He said, "Now wait a minute. I never did this before, but one time…" "One time I was out doing my job, and there was an attack that came against what I was responsible for. No, it wasn't some big giant, some Philistine army". "No, I've never been on this level before. No, I've never been in this season before. No, I've never dealt with this challenge before. I've never pastored through a pandemic before, but one time…" I'm talking about first-day faith. One time. Come on, bring it all the way back. I know you never did this before, but you did that. "I held on to God when I had no job. I held on to God when I had…"
This is for somebody who's up under a threat of intimidation right now for something that you've never traveled this way before. But you did that. The most anointed thing I read in a long time is verse 36: "This will be like one of them". This. God has given you a this for every them…every enemy, every insecurity, every question. God has given you a this. Now, if you start getting distracted by them, what they're doing, where their life is, how they're progressing, what they've accomplished… Your power is not in them; it's in this. Your confidence will follow your focus. You will start believing the fear report, like the spies who kept the whole nation from going into the Promised Land, because they had a good land, but they had a bad report. This. It's an amazing thing to realize the power of your this.
"I never did this before". I begged my kids one day… They were all fighting, and I was mad. I was like, "Y'all, stop! I never did this before as a dad. Mercy! Mercy! Mercy"! I'm a really good dad, I promise, but I just have moments of weakness. Have you been saying that to God lately? "I never did this before. This is new to me. I've never been on Monster.com". Do they still have that website? "I've never been doing a résumé. I've never been on LinkedIn looking for a job. I'm 52. I never did this before". "I never had to impart wisdom to somebody else, and I don't feel very wise myself". David said, "This will be like one of them". The key to all of this will be: Where does your confidence come from? If it comes from Epaphroditus, he gets sick. If it comes from Eliab, he has his own issues. If it comes from Saul…
Do you remember what Saul did to try to help David? He said, "Here. Take my armor". David is like, "Um, I could, but you've been wearing it for 40 days, and it's not really working for you". Why do you keep wearing what's not even working for the people you're copying? Why do we keep doing what the world is doing? Why do we keep participating in the same stuff? David said, "I can't wear your armor. I've got my own swag". In David's case, his swag was his sling. It was what he killed the bear with. It was what he killed the lion with. So, when you're standing in front of something you've never seen before… "I've never seen this stage. I've never seen these challenges, never seen this environment, never seen this uncertainty, never seen this instability". Borrow it from what's already in your bag. There is a this for every that. All you need to believe is to remember.
I call you to remembrance today of what God gave you, who he has been to you, what he did for you. I declare prophetically over your life, whatever Goliath you're standing in front of (because we all have one): this Philistine will be like one of them. Do you see those dead lions behind you? Do you see those dead bears behind you? Do you see those seasons you survived, and you didn't feel like you had enough, but God stretched it out? "I don't have it right now". God said, "You can borrow mine. You can come up in my closet". Why would you wear Saul's armor when you have the shield of faith? Why would you wear Saul's armor when you have the shoes of the gospel? Why would you wear Saul's armor when you have the sword of the Spirit?
David said, "Why would I borrow the armor of somebody whose faith is smaller than mine"? You have your own sling. You have your own personality. You have your own gift. Some of the most confident people are the most quiet people, because I know what I have. I don't have to broadcast it. I don't have to compare mine to yours. This. The power of this. For every insecurity in your life, God has given you a this. So, when it comes to your faith, remain confident. Before you can remain confident, you have to be confident, and before you can be confident, you have to become confident. Paul said, "I don't think you feel very confident right now. I don't think you see how it's going to work out".
Just remember certainty is knowing how; confidence is knowing who. "I am confident of this…" This. Paul knows the Philippian church has limited faith. God knows you have limited resource. God knows you have limited experience. He didn't say, "I'm confident about you". He said, "I'm confident in this: he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion to the day of Christ". This. "I will remain confident in this…" I can't think 10 years ahead right now. I can't even think 10 minutes ahead. I have to reach back to the last bear I killed, the last challenge I overcame, the last way God made, and stay confident in this. You might be like Moses standing there at a burning bush, asking God, "What do I do if they don't believe me"? Exodus 4:1. "What do I do if they…" They, they, they. "…they don't believe me"?
Remember, God has given you a this for every they…for whoever doesn't like you, for whoever doesn't support you. They may not believe you, but watch what God did with Moses. Next verse. The Lord said, "What's in your hand"? Moses said, "A staff". Like David has a sling, Moses has a staff. You have something too. Just put it in the chat right now. "I have a this". Moses is like, "I have a shepherd's instrument. I have something that's very common and very ordinary". How can confidence come from a shepherd's staff? He doesn't know what the staff is capable of yet. Neither do you. He doesn't know it's going to split waters. Neither do you. He doesn't know it's going to produce water from rocks, hydration from impossibilities, and neither do you. But in his hand was a staff.
Verse 3: "The Lord said, 'Throw it on the ground.' Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it". He's running from the thing God is going to use, but that's not the point. The point is this. Verse 4: "The Lord said to him, 'Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.' So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand". Now you have it in your hand. Watch what the Lord says. Verse 5: "This…" "You mean my staff"? "Yeah, this". "You mean the symbol of my mistake? I wouldn't even be a shepherd if I hadn't killed the Egyptian". God said, "Yeah, this". "This is so that they may believe…" God gave you a this. This moment. Give us this day our daily bread. This. Yeah, this. This is the day the Lord has made. I will remain confident in this. No, I can't do what you can do. I don't have to. But I can do this. No, I can't do next Wednesday's work in my head, but I can do this.
Father, we release our staff. We release the thing that was good for us in one season but needs to become something else in this season. I thank you, Lord, that you showed me while I was studying the power of this…not them, not that, but this. All across the world right now, I believe in your ability to interpret this word. It will be custom-made for the exact situation that each person is hearing it. They will hear this message when they need to hear it. They will receive it when they're ready to take it in. Our confidence has been shaken. The entire world has been rocking and reeling nearly for a year now. What we used to absolutely assume now we can hardly predict. We thank you for that, because in a lot of cases, our confidence was coming from a bad bank that was charging us too much interest. So, we're coming back to you today. We confess that sometimes we've trusted in the wrong things. I have. I trusted in my own wisdom. I didn't ask you. I trusted in my hustle. I didn't know I could rest and be strong.
Sometimes, Lord, I assumed that when something left my hand it left my life, but it didn't. You were just changing it. We thank you for this. When the next thing comes, we thank you for that too. We're looking back over slain lions and dead bears, and we're walking right past Eliab, and we're shaking off Saul's armor today. We have our sling. We have our swag. It comes from coming in the name of the Lord. Particularly, Lord, for those who don't have a partner right now, I want to stand in the gap and believe with them. You know my faith fails. You know that so well, Lord, but in this moment, you've given me great faith to preach this message. So, from the overflow of your Word that you put inside of me, the engrafted Word that produces faith… Faith comes by hearing, hearing the Word of God. So, as we step into this Word, we borrow confidence. We borrow confidence, not in what we see but in what you say; not in what we've experienced but in what you predestined.
We're coming into this moment in this season with uncertainty, but we're coming in with confidence. I stand with every brother and every sister who has been wondering, "Can I do this"? I agree with heaven that what you've put in their hand is more than enough, be it a sling, be it a staff, be it five loaves and two fish. I will remain confident that I will see the goodness of the Lord. Help them see it, God. Help them see it, to walk right past every other thing and see the power of this. We believe you for breakthroughs because this word was preached. We believe you that people who have been unable to sleep are going to find rest in your presence this week.
I thank you, Lord, that there is nothing the Enemy can put in front of us that is greater than what you put inside of us. I believe that. I decided to believe. I choose to believe it. This Philistine will be like one of them, and this battle will be like one of those past victories. God, we're not reaching into tomorrow to borrow worry; we're reaching into our past to borrow faith. Now we touch heaven, and we agree that whatever we do in your name, it shall be established. It shall be done! We come into covenant with your Word. We come into covenant with your Son Jesus, and we declare, "Yes and amen"! Your promise is true. In Jesus' name. Lift up a great shout of praise, you giant killer, you bear slayer, you lion killer! Thank you, Lord!
Sometimes, Lord, I assumed that when something left my hand it left my life, but it didn't. You were just changing it. We thank you for this. When the next thing comes, we thank you for that too. We're looking back over slain lions and dead bears, and we're walking right past Eliab, and we're shaking off Saul's armor today. We have our sling. We have our swag. It comes from coming in the name of the Lord. Particularly, Lord, for those who don't have a partner right now, I want to stand in the gap and believe with them. You know my faith fails. You know that so well, Lord, but in this moment, you've given me great faith to preach this message. So, from the overflow of your Word that you put inside of me, the engrafted Word that produces faith… Faith comes by hearing, hearing the Word of God. So, as we step into this Word, we borrow confidence. We borrow confidence, not in what we see but in what you say; not in what we've experienced but in what you predestined.
We're coming into this moment in this season with uncertainty, but we're coming in with confidence. I stand with every brother and every sister who has been wondering, "Can I do this"? I agree with heaven that what you've put in their hand is more than enough, be it a sling, be it a staff, be it five loaves and two fish. I will remain confident that I will see the goodness of the Lord. Help them see it, God. Help them see it, to walk right past every other thing and see the power of this. We believe you for breakthroughs because this word was preached. We believe you that people who have been unable to sleep are going to find rest in your presence this week.
I thank you, Lord, that there is nothing the Enemy can put in front of us that is greater than what you put inside of us. I believe that. I decided to believe. I choose to believe it. This Philistine will be like one of them, and this battle will be like one of those past victories. God, we're not reaching into tomorrow to borrow worry; we're reaching into our past to borrow faith. Now we touch heaven, and we agree that whatever we do in your name, it shall be established. It shall be done! We come into covenant with your Word. We come into covenant with your Son Jesus, and we declare, "Yes and amen"! Your promise is true. In Jesus' name. Lift up a great shout of praise, you giant killer, you bear slayer, you lion killer! Thank you, Lord!