GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

Confidence and Heroes

This morning, I want each of you to think back over the course of your lives and consider your own personal heroes or heroines. Who is the person you respect the most? In my own life, I can list at least five heroes, one of whom is an Englishman named Major Ian Thomas. Ian Thomas was a British officer who fought in World War II. When I first met him at the age of ten, he spoke words of absolute confidence in Jesus Christ living inside him. I was riveted: so much so that he is still a hero to me 23 years later. Over the years that I knew him, by listening to him in person, by listening to him on tape, by eating with him and watching him with others, by talking with him when he stayed at our house, I watched his contagious confidence rub off on everyone he met. When I went through a major crisis of doubt in my own faith at one point in college, I asked myself this question: Who are the men I want to be like? Major Ian Thomas topped the list for me. His confidence in his Christ inside greatly impacted my life. As I think of all five of my heroes, I see a common thread. They are men of unshakable confidence in Christ inside. Your own Christian heroes or heroines probably share that same characteristic.

When I look back over the course of Christian history, I see heroes from all strata of society whose unflinching confidence shook their complacent world. Joshua boldly crossed into the Promised Land, despite floods, giants, and even a command to be circumcized and recuperate a week in total vulnerability in the heart of enemy territory. Peter the former master of denial spoke with unshakable confidence before the very council that killed Jesus Christ, shaking that council to its foundations. Paul composed words of absolute confidence that undergird my soul. The incredible singing and the calm confidence of the Christians standing before the ravening beasts in the Roman Coliseum was the scandal of Nero's day. Luther's confidence in the Scriptures alone led him to proclaim before the excommunicators, "Here I stand ... I can do no other." When I think of these men, I can almost taste how much I want to be like them. Even today, in China, thousands of Christians are being persecuted and martyred, yet the growing remnant stands together in total confidence that there is a power far greater than communism. I remember Major Ian Thomas' resolute confidence in our indwelling Christ better than anything else I can recall about him; and Ray used to calmy say, "Fear not," when the young asked him about living in our increasingly dark world.

And our world is darkening quickly. Judge Robert Bork has just written a book entitled Slouching Toward Gomorrah, in which he traces the alarming moral slide of our culture. On James Dobson's Focus on the Family program recently, a Jew was on the radio stating his solidarity with the persecuted Christians in this country, because he understands that today it is the Christians who are pilloried and reviled, but tomorrow it may be the Jews. Our political processes are becoming ever more corrupted. The American people have rolled over and accepted a level of immorality from our nation's leaders that would have boggled minds even one short generation ago. Moral relativism has crushed our spirits, and it seems that any bold statement about truth is quickly equivocated into nothingness. Our nation waffles constantly on the edge of uncertainty: how long can we exist with such a high deficit? How long will God withhold judgment on our slaughter of millions of babies annually? What kind of world will our children inherit? How long before the liberals finally strangle our constitutional freedoms? Why is God allowing all this? We live in a darkening world, a world of uncertainties, a world where confidence is a rare commodity.

But if we are Christians indwelled by the Holy Spirit, Paul tells us in our passage today about the unshakable confidence you and I already have. It is our possession; it is our sound basis of boasting amid the growing darkness. It is our inheritance in the family of God, yet all too often we waffle under our circumstances, or stand wringing our hands as the shadows of evil grow longer. It may be that Christians have lost our witness in this culture entirely because we have lost the unshakable confidence our fathers had. Nobody wants to follow a man who hems and haws, or a woman who seems confused. But everyone wants to follow men and women, boys and girls whose words and deeds arise from an undaunted confidence. We need to rediscover our confidence, that we Christians might lead boldly and lovingly in our neighborhoods and cities, in our states and in our nation. Paul tells us in Rom. 5:1-11 that we have three bases of confidence that cannot be shaken, on which we can boldly take our stand as confident Christians in this gray and hazy age.

Paul's Theology of Confidence: The Abolition of Self-Confidence

But before Paul shows us the "X" that marks the spot where true confidence can be found, he hangs some "Dead End" signs on the wrong roads we might take to find confidence. The key to finding that "X" lies in tracing the term "boast" and its cognates throughout Romans. A boast is the vocalization of our confidence; we boast about where our confidence lies. In Rom. 1:30, the immoral man was "boastful" in his evil. Such boasting is indeed a dead end, because the end of such things is death. But then a subtler form of false boasting emerges when the Jew steps forward to "boast in God" in Rom. 2:17. This boasting in God was a veiled form of boasting in the self: the real boast was in being a Jew and bearing the name of God's chosen. The Jew not only boasts in being called a Jew, but in being given the Law in Rom. 2:23, as though there was some merit in being the receiver of a divine message. But Paul unmasks this false boasting by showing the hypocrisy it spawns: the self-righteousness and arrogance of those who seem to boast in the right things but are boasting in themselves is also marked "Dead End."

Paul then reveals God's divine way of eradicating all self-confidence: by the supreme selflessness of Christ dying on the cross. At the foot of the cross, all self-confident "boasting" is excluded in Rom. 3:27. It is shamed into silence in the face of pure love and genuine sacrifice. In Rom. 4:2, 3, Paul claims that even Abraham, whom the Jews touted as the supreme example of righteousness by works, could not boast before God, because God had accredited him with righteousness based on faith alone. Works or merit had nothing to do with it, thus Abraham had no basis for boasting in himself or developing a false self-confidence. Thus, down the many roads we take to find confidence in our selves, to boast in our own achievements, Paul sets up a "Dead End" sign at each turn-off. The self is too broken a vessel to hold our confidence for long. Our culture is so high on self-confidence that many of us balk at this truth, but Paul plays fair with the truth: self-confidence passes away. It is too shaky a foundation. Self-confidence is never unshakable confidence, because the self is just too unstable. But if self-confidence is a dead end, where is the "X" that marks the spot?

CONFIDENT in Jesus Christ Alive in You: 5:1,2

But we can find the "X" that marks the spot by tracing the word "boast" in Rom. 5:1-11. In most of your Bibles, the word "exult" or "rejoice" at the end of vs. 2, and the beginning of vs. 3 and vs. 11, is actually the Greek term "boast." The passage revolves around this word. At the end of vs. 2, Paul says "we boast in the hope of the glory of God," which is boasting in Christ inside, by whom the glory of God inhabits our bodies. But then, in vs. 3, Paul says, "And not only this, but we also boast in our tribulations ..." Using the exact same introductory phrase in vs. 11, Paul concludes the passage by saying, "And not only this, but we also boast in God ..." Thus, Paul tells us the RIGHT things to boast in, now that we are Christians justified by faith in Jesus Christ. There is nothing wrong inherently with boasting, as long as the object of your boasting is worthy of all your bold confidence. And Paul gives us three sure things to boast in throughout this passage.

Paul begins in Rom. 5:1, 2 by stating three objective, unchanging treasures we possess as Christians who believe in Jesus Christ and are indwelled by the Spirit. We spoke of these in our most recent study. First, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, who Himself is our peace. Second, we have our introduction by faith into an eternal standing of grace. This "introduction" is when Jesus Christ introduces us to our heavenly Father, who lovingly accepts us unconditionally as adult children and full inheritors of His estate. Our third treasure is a certain, sure expectation of Christ's life infused into our life. He Himself is our greatest treasure. In His life inside us we find the "X" that marks the spot of true confidence. We can be confident in our indwelling Jesus Christ, who makes the glory of God resident in each of us right where we are today. The cornerstone of our confidence is "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

We were in our Kids' Time several Tuesdays ago, when one of the children asked a great question: why does God not do miracles any more, like He did in the days of Moses and Jesus? This is a classic question: where is God now, when He was so visible before? In Moses' day, He was seen in the column of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. In Jesus' day, He was seen in Jesus Himself walking and teaching and healing. With that question, the teacher was on the spot ... how would you have answered that question? What about today?

Today God's miracle is far greater. We live in a time that Moses yearned to see, and Jesus died to introduce. When the Spirit of God came upon the 70 chosen elders in Num. 11, two remained behind in the camp and prophesied before the people. Only Moses had had the Spirit up to that time, and he had been their unquestioned leader. What about these two who also had the Spirit? Joshua thought they should be restrained. But Moses said, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!" Moses yearned for a day when the Spirit came upon all God's people. Likewise, Jesus promised His disciples that they would do greater things than He did once He went to be with the Father and sent the Spirit to indwell them. Jesus rejoiced at the prospect of God's Spirit filling all believers. That was the joy set before Him, the reason He endured the cross. The amazing miracle of God today is that God lives in every man, woman, boy and girl who believes in Jesus Christ. His Spirit has been poured out like a flood, defining a whole new company of believers; He no longer limits Himself to just one or two prophets or leaders. The prophet Joel saw these days, marveled, and wrote about the vision. Peter quoted Joel on the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out. We must remember that Biblically speaking, we live in the greatest days in history, days to be confident about, not darkening days. This is the chief reason we can be confident in the twilight of this world: because in the kingdom of our God, we live in the best days in all of human history. OUR JESUS CHRIST LIVES INSIDE US, right where we are, 24-hours-a-day.

And we can be certain of that, as Paul says at the end of Rom. 5:2: "we boast in the hope of the glory of God." We express confident rejoicing in the certainty (remember that "hope" in the NT is a certainty, not a vague wish) of God's glory in Christ who now lives in us. Paul stated this grand mystery slightly differently in Col. 1:27: "... Christ in you, the hope of glory." Our cornerstone of confidence is not self-confidence, a sandy stone which breaks apart when weight is placed on it. Rather, our cornerstone of confidence is the greatest fact in human history: that my Christ Jesus of the Bible lives in me today. It is a certain fact, not a theory. It is reality from God's perspective, and His is the only perspective that counts in the long run. We can be absolutely confident, not in the self, not in our circumstances, not in these darkening days, but in our Christ inside. Our cornerstone of confidence is the diamond of divinity inside us in Jesus Christ.

All this is true about you if you are a Christian, but sometimes it just doesn't feel that way. You and I spend much of our lives sweating under the pile of daily worries, grunting out our daily gripes, bulldozing through over-burdened schedules that leave us too wrung out to talk with or listen to our God within. I have to admit I been burdened the past three weeks by the ongoing transition in our lives. We have been in transition for nine months this year. We prepared, marketed, sold and packed up a household of seven; we drove across country to a land we had never known; we moved into a house whose main operating principle is Murphy's Law; we are now adding a room to that house which will prove to be a huge blessing, but is very much in process right now; our children are trying to adjust to a school system that for better or worse is the polar opposite of the system they have been in all their lives. Transition, uncertainty, change, and constant adjustments have defined this year for us.

Yet that is just the set of issues under our roof; as I pray for all my beloved brothers and sisters here in our church each week, I know each household has a myriad of tough issues plaguing it. What happens when our job responsibilities go haywire, requiring bone-crushing 100 hour work weeks just to keep your head above water? What happens when month after month expenses exceed income, and your worry grows with your debt? What about when teachers or bosses are never satisfied with your work? What about when all the little problems add up so that you feel like life is one long exercise of trying to wade against an increasing current. It seems there is never enough time, never enough money, never enough energy, never enough, never enough, never enough. How can we be excited about Christ within, sharing His life abroad, when we are plagued with such pressures?

CONFIDENT Even Under Pressure, Because We Are Perfectly Loved: 5:3-10

Simply put, we can remain unshakably confident under adverse circumstances when in Christ we honestly face the bad circumstances, and plunge right through the middle of them and out the other side. In Him we walk through them all, come what may. And bad circumstances will always come our way. Bad circumstances are guaranteed to come and go, but Christ inside is guaranteed to stay and see us through. He is with us to wade through the rushing current of bad circumstances. We outlast every bad circumstance through Him.

I have seen a powerful illustration of this in the life of a friend I know back in California. My former elder, Craig Duncan, is a prince of a man. He and his wife have two twin daughters in their mid-twenties. Two months ago, one of them was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. They found a mass in her chest five inches in diameter. Their family was rocked to its core. The first four days were terrible for them all, with much crying, questioning God, and legitimate fear for her life. But then they got the prayer warriors going, even our prayer warriors here in South Carolina. They sought and found aggressive treatment for her. She has gone through six weeks of chemotherapy, and they just reported last week that the five-inch mass has disappeared. They are relieved and rejoicing. But at the same time, during this family catastrophe, I have been hearing numerous reports about what our God is doing through this man. He has been taking on a leadership role in the church that has been his destiny. Through many changes at the church, he has been a steady rock and a strong leader through it all. This is the agony and ecstasy of being a Christian: through the pressures shines our Christ inside, and as He shines, our confidence in Him grows.

God set things up this way. He brings the heat not to burn us to death, but to show us how He stands in the furnace with us, just like He did when He was the fourth man in the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. The heat He brings is meant for His Son to withstand, that in intimacy with Him we may become more like Him while the furnace is heated, even up to seven times the normal heat. Our circumstances are always pressured and intense because God has placed us in a mighty furnace whereby He is baking our raw and dusty coal into the strong and sure brilliance of a diamond. We better learn to expect pressure, embrace Christ through it, and expect Him to shine amid the darkness. The pressures will never go away, but neither will He. He will outlast all our bad circumstances within us, until He carries us home.

This strikes at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. Being a Christian means you want Jesus Christ to be seen in your life. But that happens best when we are weakest, when we are under intense pressure and have to rely absolutely on Him. But every time we so rely on Him, He is clearly seen in us, and He sees us through our circumstances. This is why Paul boasts in his weakness in II Cor. 12, and in his tribulations here in Rom. 5:3-5.

In Rom. 5:3-5, Paul describes this basic process underlying the Christian life. Paul explains this process at the beginning of Rom. 5:3 when he says, "And not only this [boasting in the hope of the glory of God, placing our confidence in Christ within], we "boast in the tribulation." In Greek, it is "the tribulation," in other words the general experience of pressure we all come under as Christians. The word "tribulation" actually means "pressure, hardship, suffering."

Now, think of your own life for a moment. What are your main pressures? List them out in your mind or on paper. This is "the tribulation" for you at this time. Look at that list. Is Paul serious? How can we boast in this? How can this be an "X" marking the spot where we find confidence? We can all agree with Mark Twain, who wrote, "By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean." But what about agreeing with Paul? I weary myself when I hear my self-pitying questions repeated yet again, "When will I get a break? When will things ease up a bit?" The point is simple: things won't ease up. Christ will be sufficient, and I will be conformed to the diamond He is. Our God has great confidence in His Son within us to carry us through everything we face.

Thus, we can boast confidently in this pressure because our God who brings the heat lives within us to withstand the heat. And we need to remember the heat always has a purpose. It is not the capricious and malicious pressure brought on by the moody Fates, as Paul's Roman audience might have seen it. God's purpose is to produce His character in us, so that our hope in the glory of God will be realized as the life and character of Jesus Christ shines through us. This is the defining process of the Christian life: pressure mounts up, God works within us to patiently endure the pressure. This is the perseverance that comes from pressure when we walk right through it with Christ.

Then from this perseverance comes proven character. This is literally "approved character," which in this case means the approved character of Jesus Christ shining through us. Then, as His character shines through us, we find our hope fully realized, our sure expectation that He lives in us and through us come to full fruition. This hope will not disappoint us, or leave us ashamed, because our hope in having Christ shine through us is being realized. We can see through all this process the love of God at work in us, standing with us in the pressure, whispering His love to us while the heat goes up, that His perfect love will cast out our fears. Thus, the pressures we experience come into our lives for the purpose of forging the character of Christ in us. His character is indeed forged within us, and our hope in Him living through us is certainly realized in the midst of our pressures. This is the defining process of the Christian life the world over.

Recently I read a story about one of the leading pastors of the underground church movement in the southern provinces of China. His name in Pastor Lin, and unless he has been martyred, he is still leading clandestine church services. In 1955, he was jailed by the Communists for sixteen months, released briefly, then sent to work in an oppressive coal mine in northern China for 20 years. In this mine, he held the most dangerous job: linking coal cars together. If he slipped once, he would lose a limb for sure. For 20 years, he kept his sanity only by reciting Bible verses over and over to himself and by praying. God strengthened him to patiently endure this ultimate pressure. After his release from the mine, he was again interrogated by the officials once he resumed his preaching. He simply told them, "I have spent 20 years in your prisons. I fear nothing anymore." Here is a man of unshakable confidence, forged under severe pressure: a diamond walking out of a coal mine.

But what about the pressures we feel here in the crazy society of the U.S. in the 1990s? Let me share with you about the most intense week of pressure I have ever experienced. The pressure came right after our son Ethan was born, in the week following the delivery. We had not been home for 24 hours before my wife Blythe started to get severe aches, pains and chills. On Tuesady afternoon at about 5:30 PM, our doctor happened to call and check on Ethan. He then asked about Blythe, and she told him she thought she might have a little temperature. He told us to take her temperature and get back to him immediately if she had a fever. She had a low-grade fever, so I called him back. He jumped all over this, and phoned in a prescription for antibiotics at once. By 8:30 PM, Blythe's fever had shot up to over 103 degrees, and the doctor wanted to see her at his office. He said she had the beginning of a bacterial infection in her uterus area. She was so sick she could barely walk: I almost had to carry her to the car. When we got to the doctor's office, he gave her three huge 500 milligram "horse" pills of antibiotics and a huge shot of antibiotics in her arm. I have never seen so many drugs pumped into one person at one time in all my life. He told us she had the black fever.

Blythe's fever did not abate at all the next day, even after all the antibiotics. It was then that the real pressure hit me: I had four daughters ages 6 and under, a brand new baby at home for his first week, and a very sick wife confined to her bed. The pressure was on me to be there for everyone. And I also knew that infections such as these can sometimes lead to death. I was the one everyone in my family was looking to. The heat was turned up higher than it had ever been. So, I had a very basic talk with the Lord: "Lord, this is when I need your power that I always talk about. I need you to give me enormous strength and emotional patience, and I want to serve everyone with a sense of joy and real stability. The pressure is on, and I can't overcome it without You. You have got to kick in for me." And kick in He did!! For the next three days, while Blythe was still sick, she was amazed at how everything was getting done for everyone and I was so cheerful. Now, I know my grumpy self when the pressure is on, so I know the character and glory of Christ in me was shining through me in the middle of the pressure.

That is why we experience pressure: to discover confidence in Him living His life through us despite the pressure. We can have unshakable confidence in our Christ inside, even when the furnace is heated seven times. In fact, the greater the pressure and the more intense my need, the greater my Christ shines. Over the years, when I have needed Him most is when He has shown Himself strongest on my behalf. That is why I hope in Him, and why my hope is never disappointed, no matter how high the pressure gauge goes.

CONFIDENT Under Pressure, Because of the Safety Net of God's Love

Now in verse 5, the text says this hope for His life to be lived through us will not disappoint, or leave us ashamed, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts. Beneath this whole curriculum of pressure to perseverance to proven character to hope is a safety netting of God's love for us. In verses 5-8, Paul tells us about that love, explaining why we can count on it no matter what.

There are basically two aspects of God's love revealed in these verses. In verse 5, God's love literally floods our heart. It is poured out in our heart like the rains that come to end our drought, bringing relief to a dry and weary land. God does not take out a little eye dropper and give us a measly three drop allotment of His love; instead, He opens up our hearts to let Niagara Falls flood in with the vastness of His love. This is the love of God poured out in our heart in the person of the Holy Spirit, who sustains us and waters us with God's love for us when we are parched by the relentless pressure in our lives. The amazing thing here is that God didn't give us just a little help, a sympathetic nod, or a support group, He gave us Himself. He gives us a living person, the Holy Spirit. This same Spirit lives out the life of Christ in us and is God's personal messenger of His love for us. This is our subjective experience of God's love for us that enables us to persevere under pressure. His love will never leave us ashamed because it has such volume His well will never run dry. Our cup truly runneth over, and it always will.

The aspect of God's love in verse 5 is subjective, rooted firmly in our personal experience. That is entirely valid. Never let anyone tell you your subjective experience is not valid. But in verses 6-8, His love is entirely objective, having invaded history when Jesus died on the cross. Paul tells us in verse 6 that when we were absolutely helpless, having no power to help ourselves out of our sickness of sin, it was at this strategic time that Jesus Christ died for us on the cross. He paid our penalty, when all we had was insufficient funds.

Paul wants us to understand the full spectrum of this love as it compares with human love in verses 7, 8. In verse 7, Paul muses that a man or woman might under the right circumstances die for a good person. He has probably heard stories of a man in battle giving his life for one of his buddies by taking a spear that was intended for his friend. That is the sublime height of human love, "the supreme sacrifice." But God's love scales far greater heights, because He demonstrated His love for us in a public display on the cross when all humanity was terribly ugly with sin. Judas was a traitor of the worst kind, kissing the one he sold into death. Some of us are like Judas. Pilate was a political animal, always calculating how the Jewish leaders and the Roman Emperor would perceive his actions. Many of us are like Pilate. The crowd was just going along with the trend, but they all ended up screaming like homicidal maniacs for Jesus to be executed. All the rest of us are in the crowd. See how ugly humanity was, and how ugly we are when we follow the same motives today? It makes me shudder. But at this height of human ugliness, when all our sin was laid bare and we beat Him and pounded nails in the healing hands of our loving Savior, at this supreme moment of our ugliness God demonstrated His love most openly for all to see as Jesus hung there, surrounded by a crowd representing all humanity, some leering and jeering, some silently crying.

That is the depth of God's love for us. What I love about Paul is that in this passage and in a similar one in Eph. 2, Paul tells us that God's greatest act of love for us came at the point of our greatest ugliness in sin. Here in this passage, it came when we were unable to help ourselves, because we were sinners in the deepest sense. In Eph. 2, we were dead in our sins, as unable to respond to God as a corpse in a morgue. The great objective truth from verses 6-8, which is made real in our subjective experience by the eternal presence of the Holy Spirit, is this: God loved us the most when we were at our worst.

This is how our hope cannot be disappointed, and this is why we can be confident that God is at work in us and will live through us even under the severest pressures. If He loved us the most when we were at our ugliest, He will certainly love us now that we are His children and are suffering under pressure.

In fact, that is exactly the line of argument Paul takes in verses 9 and 10. He begins by saying "much more then," which simply is a phrase saying "If God's love on the cross was indeed this great, and it was, and His blood saved us, it is an easy thing for God to ensure our continued salvation from His wrath." His wrath refers to God taking His hands off us and letting us go our own way into destruction. But now that we have been saved by His love on the cross through faith, we cannot be afflicted with this wrath. Can His wrath be greater than His love on the cross as far as we are concerned? Of course not. This is a form of argument where he proceeds from the greatest example to a lesser example. The cross is the greatest example of God's love and salvation. His continued salvation from His wrath is still great, but it follows much more easily and simply after the great salvation of the cross.

Paul reiterates this idea in verse 10. If God put Jesus on the cross, and mysteriously enough it was God the Father who ultimately put Jesus on the cross, for the purpose of reconciling a bunch of enemies to Himself, then it follows naturally and easily that God will save us now and in the future by the life of His Son in us. He proceeds from the greatest example of His reconciling love, the love of the cross with its cataclysmic salvation for us, to show that God's continued salvation of us is guaranteed because it flows out of the great work already done on the cross.

Verse 10 also brings into full circle the confidence we can have even under pressure. We can be completely confident under pressure because His perfect love saved us eternally on the cross and continues to save us each day from God's wrath by the power and vibrance of His life in us. So, since God loves us with a perfect love which always saves us no matter what we face, we can rest with absolute confidence, even under pressure.

My wife has been a wonderful picture of this to me. She has endured a lot of pressure and intensity in our eleven years of marriage: the births of five children, 12 moves, the death of her beloved mother, countless nights with very little sleep, the daily caring for five growing children with all the meal fixing and cleaning up, and the piles of laundry that seem to reproduce at night. But despite all the pressure and intensity, I find her continually excited about how we are "saved by the living life of Jesus Christ in us." In fact, I have listened to Blythe many times refer to the secret of this life: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." That is the theme of the symphony of her life. I am blessed beyond words to have married such a woman.

In fact, this process of pressure producing the greatest good in us is illustrated in the very heart of the great classical music of the Western world. All classical music is built on the dynamic of dissonance and resolution, where notes that are discordant are played together in a moment of extreme tension, only to be relieved when harmony is restored as the notes resolve in piercing beauty. Dissonance to resolution, pressure to proven character. God has designed life this way, and He tells us this through the music of the Western world. He tells us this because He loves us, and because He loves us absolutely, we can be unshakably confident no matter what "the tribulation" is. We may feel like we are walking a tightrope above a yawning chasm, but His love is a safety netting that is always there.

CONFIDENT in God's Saving Character: 5:11

Now we have two unshakable stones as a foundation for our confidence as believers in Jesus Christ: a sure expectation that Jesus Christ is alive in us, and confidence that His love will see us through all our pressures. In verse 11, Paul shows us the final place we rest our confidence: we ultimately rest our confidence on God Himself, on His character that never changes. His unchangeable character gives us unshakable confidence.

Verse 11 begins with a phrase that is a repeat of how verse three began, which is why the passage is broken up this way. Just as verse three introduced the second area of confidence, so verse 11 introduces our third area of confidence. Paul says we also "boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." This ties our confidence in God back to verses 9 and 10. In both verses 9 and 10, the key verb is that "we shall be saved." In verse 9, "we shall be saved" from God's wrath, as a natural result of His ultimate salvation for us through the cross. In verse 10, "we shall be saved" by His life in us every day as we ask Him to live His life out through us. Thus, when we boast in the character of God, we are boasting confidently in the saving character of God. We trust a God whose business is saving us, because He has loved us on the cross and He intends to continue to save us from everything we face from now on as He lives out His life in us. Thus, our ultimate confidence lies in a God who saves, who overflows in love for us, and whose love is infinitely greater than any problems we have ever faced or ever will face.

I have a cherished letter here from Blythe's mother, written a scant ten days after her conversion. Her letter speaks of a deep confidence in God, borne by her experience and the new Spirit inside her. It is a thank you note to her half-sister, who had sent her a book extolling the New Age movement:

Dec. 30, 1988

My dear Cyndie,

Thank you for your thoughtful note and gift. I appreciate your wanting to share your ideals with me, but since I'm a Christian and believe Jesus Christ is the go between myself and God, I do not care to read or listen to anything or anyone who doesn't share my ideals. This may be close-minded to your way of thinking, but I've read enough to know I only want what Christianity offers.

Love, Nancylee

Now that is confidence in a God who saves, because Nancylee was sitting there dying with cancer when that letter was written. Nancylee had not walked long with her God, but she was absolutely confident in His saving power. She needed nothing else.

So, we can be confident in our sure expectation that Jesus lives in us and will live through us, we can be confident of this even under pressure because His love ensures it, and ultimately we can rest our confidence on our Father God who always saves those who are His, no matter what. This is our unshakable foundation of confidence.

Conclusion -- Praying for Confident Christian Heroes and Heroines

One of my favorite things to do is read biographies of Christian heroes and heroines down through the ages. Who can help but be compelled by the life story of Fannie Crosby, the blind poet who saw heavenly realities far more clearly than any of the rest of us? Who can read C. S. Lewis' story and not rejoice that God raised up the consummate intellectual into a living faith in Jesus Christ, in an age when intellectualism is worshiped? A collection of short Christian biographies I reach for time and again is entitled More Than Conquerors. The man compiling the biographies, John Woodbridge, noted the thread of confidence in their lives, despite their circumstances. He wrote in the introduction: "Many [of these heroes and heroines] experienced rounds of truly enervating self-doubt and despair before seeing the Lord work in power in their particular difficult circumstances. A great number took on challenges that from a human point of view were simply impossible. Their confidence in the Lord's power and grace was so strong that they brushed off criticisms of naysayers." There it is again: unshakable confidence in Jesus Christ is the stuff of which heroes and heroines are made.

And if there was ever a time in our nation's history where everyday heroes and heroines are needed, it is today. Every man, woman, boy and girl in this room can be somebody's hero. What it takes to be a hero or heroine is to live with absolute confidence in Christ inside amid a very shaky age. And we are privileged to have both: a shaky age, and an unshakable confidence in Christ inside. Let us not fear the darkness, because one little match casts a brilliant light in the darkness.

When Blythe and I were living in Ireland, we visited Blarney Castle, where you kiss the Blarney Stone in order to get the Irish gift of gab. We kissed the stone like all the other tourists, then we decided to get off the beaten track and go exploring around the castle. We found underneath the castle the original dungeon, and it was classic: dark and dank, with sweating walls and a hollow dripping sound. Once we went about fifteen feet into the dungeons, it was almost completely dark. Blythe said, "Dorm, light a match!" So, I reached into my pocket and lit a match. And that one single match illuminated the darkness of that dungeon. Shadows fled, our faces came into view, and our hearts were warmed. May we be like those matches, and shine the light of confidence in our Christ inside, smiling brightly in the darkness!

Oh Lord, may You engender this confidence in us, building us into a confident community. And for the sake of our nation we love, may you raise us up to be men and women who will stand against the tide of relativism and pessimism, fear and loathing, with unflinching confidence in Jesus Christ. May we Christians carry Your great Name before our nation, that our nation may watch and yearn for the confidence we so easily and joyfully possess, and come to You. Amen.

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