I've Got Confidence

View the sermon here.TEXT: Romans 8:26-39TITLE: “I’ve Got Confidence”THESIS: We can live with confidence and without fear. Introduction

• The men in my family have been accused of being arrogant. 😊 For instance, my dad had a cap that said, “I’m not conceited, just convinced.”
• There can be a fine line between arrogance and confidence. The difference, for me, is whether I trust myself or God. Do I think that “I can do anything”? (I remember saying that.) Do I think my own hard work, intelligence, personality – any combination of who I am – is responsible for whatever success I’ve had?
• Or do I know that without God, none of it would be possible? Do I acknowledge my faults, weaknesses, shortcomings – sins – and turn to God for the help I need? And do I know that “my help comes from the Lord”?
• Andrae Crouch wrote a song about confidence:

I've got confidenceGod is gonna see me throughNo matter what the case may beI know He's gonna fix it for meListen to it.ScriptureThis scripture is familiar to many of us …

• The Spirit prays for us when we don’t know how.
• God works for our good in all things.
• God is for us – whatever we face in life – and will graciously give us all things. …. If God who did not spare his own Son and if Christ Jesus who died for us, loves us and is “for us” and does not condemn us … then what do we have to fear?
• Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. …. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Conclusion

• “I’ve got confidence.”-- I can live without fear, without anxiety. (I don’t always – but I can!) I can trust God rather than myself. Trust God’s love and power, strength and wisdom – and not my own – and live with confidence every day.
• For several years, early in my ministry, I was active in the Charismatic movement – people from all denominations who experienced “something more” as we opened up to the Spirit of God in our lives. …. What attracted me was the promise of being able to live with confidence that God could do far more in my life than I had ever experienced.
• I left the movement because of what I saw as excessive emotionalism and teachings which seemed to have no foundation in the Scriptures. …. But I never let go of what attracted me in the first place – the assurances of this scripture that God’s love will not let us go – that we can be “more than conquerors” – that we can live with full confidence and with fear in our lives.
• Listen once more to the closing words of the text:

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.