Break. Confidence. 

In what do we place our confidence? In what do we place our trust? It is fairly mainstream to say “confidence is key.” and as far as the world is concerned that is perfectly right. Those who are more confident tend to succeed, as with everything too much confidence can lead to disaster but a proper understanding of the self and its limitations will allow for a good successful life. However, we are not in the mainstream, the road to destruction is wide, yet the path to eternal life is narrow. ( matthew 7:13-14) 

The thoughts and proverbs of the world are all well and good as long as they align with scripture. So then is confidence key? Should we, as christians have confidence? Undoubtedly, We must, who can look at the wonders of creation, the glory of Christ, the riches of his mercy and not have confidence.  Let us first start with a question. What is Confidence? The googled definition goes like this.

 The feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust. One of the secondary definitions is

 A feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities. 

These are very different things, though they are sometimes conflated. The latter is often called self-confidence. When someone says “ You need more confidence!” They often mean self-confidence. With so many other things we often become confused, pop psychology begins to invade our language and our interpretations of the scriptures. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Becomes twisted back upon itself. The irony is lost on those who take a verse about how we should treat others and turn it into a verse about how we treat ourselves. Thus we must combat this mindset. However we must not swing too far the other direction. There is no place for self hatred or self pity. The whole path of self is littered with places to become lost, neither the right nor left is any help in the area of self. The only way to go is up. 

Confidence. 

Confidence as described by the bible  is tricky because there is no exact word for it though many different words could be translated as confidence. Their meanings are closer to that of trust In Ps 118:8,9 we have “It is better to take refuge in Yahweh than to put confidence in princes,” this is the hebrew in the new testament there are several words that are more often translated as boldness, or hope, rather than confidence. (Acts 28:31; Heb 3:6; 4:16; 10:35; 1 John 2:28; 3:21; 5:14). With these several varying definitions of the word rather than address trust, hope and boldness I will use the google definition of confidence and see if scripture supports such a virtue. 

Confidence in what? 

When we say we have confidence we often mean we have confidence in something. I have confidence in the goodness of God. I have confidence that I could run a mile if I really needed to. I do not have confidence that I could run a mile in under six minutes. It is an assurance of belief based on our understanding of the topic at hand leading to confidence. If I had said “ I am confident I can run a mile in under six minutes.” You might say I was over confident. I had an improper view of my capabilities. I had trust in my athletic ability yet not a proper understanding of my abilities. In this essay we speak of confidence as it refers to our understanding of ourselves and God. This easily falls into the church doctrines on God, Man, and sin. 

God. 

The doctrine of God could go on forever, there are many aspects we could discuss here. The trinity, the separate parts of the trinity, Father, Son, Spirit. The attributes of God. Infinite, good, righteous, holy, all powerful, all knowing, full of mercy and grace, Perfect, Just. I will not go into these attributes directly, from a short summary one can already see that God is far above any man. How far? Infinitely.  He is beyond our understanding, his righteousness exceeds our own, his justice is truly just. His wrath is perfect and rightly exercised. Because of our understanding of these characters of God we can trust him. Despite a world filled with gratuitous evil we have faith that God is good. When events turn against us and we are left destitute through no wrong doing of our own we can have confidence in God, Because our hope is not in the things of this world but in Him. He has promised that whoever suffers as Christ suffered will also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:17) That we will be adopted as sons, that his kingdom is not of this world. (18:36

Man. The doctrine of mankind is pleasant to observe. It does not shake you to the core, as looking, even partially, at our great and wondrous God does. It is more comfortable, we are made, Gloriously, image bears of the almighty God.(Genesis 1:27)  We are Fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14) and so we praise him for his creation. Yet with this doctrine we must also look into the doctrine of sin, for man’s nature has shifted from what it once was to total depravity. 

Sin/The nature of man

The nature of man, far from being good, righteous, just, loving, merciful, is instead deceived, disobedient, enslaved to various passions and lusts, envious, malicious, and hateful. ( Titus 3:3) it is only due to the washing and regeneration of his spirit whom he poured out upon us richly that we made heirs with Christ. (Titus 3:5-7). The mind and nature of man has been corrupted by sin. So what trust can we place in ourselves? None. Romans eight speaks clearly of two sides of a coin, the flesh and the spirit. We know from roman’s seven that the flesh is still active in a believer as Paul states. “ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” and also “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” We are being renewed and sanctified by his spirit who lives in us, yet there still dwells in us a sin nature. We can put no confidence in ourselves or our flesh. But as Romans 8 speaks we must “By the spirit put to death the deeds of the body.” In that context what do we have confidence in? Surely it is God’s spirit. 

Regeneration = confidence in ourselves. 

The argument might be made that when we were lost, unbelievers we could have no confidence in ourselves. Yet now that his spirit lives in us, and is actively washing and regenerating and renewing us, we can have confidence in his work, and also in ourselves.  This is an assumption unsupported by scripture. When we are called to take confidence, or hope, or be bold, there is also a reason given to do so. In Hebrews 4:16 we are to draw near to the throne with confidence. Why? Because of the work of Christ, because he has suffered as we suffer, because he can sympathize with our struggles. We act in confidence because of Christ. In Romans 8:38-39 Paul takes confidence in the love of Christ. Why? Because he has seen the character of God. We do not see examples of regenerated believers having confidence in themselves, but throwing their hopes on Christ, and rightfully so. 

Self confidence in the bible. 

When I said we do not see regenerated believers taking confidence in themselves I meant of course we do not see examples where that is considered good. There are several examples in the bible of men having confidence in themselves. Peter makes for the best example. Peter confidently rebuked Christ when he said He would be killed. (Matthew 16:21-23) Christ responds with “ Get behind me satan.” What seemed right to Peter was contrary to what Christ declared. When he trusted in his own discernment he was rebuked harshly by his Lord. Again as Peter declares, confidently, that he will die with Christ, he is humbled. Was it evil of Peter to declare his loyalty?  No, yet in this declaration he was not relying on God, he was confident in his own flesh, that he would not flee. He set himself against what Christ had just spoken. Instead of trusting in his lord he trusted in his own discernment.  (Matthew 26:33-35) Is the example of peter and John preaching in the temple after pentecost (acts 3) an example of self-confidence. I would argue that it was not. They had no formal training in speaking or teaching or preachign or interpreting the law. Where did their confidence come from? Their confidence was not in themselves but in the resurrection of Jesus. 

Conclusion. 

In our culture today there is a pervasive idea that to succeed we must have confidence. We must believe that we can do something, trust in our abilities, be sure of ourselves, and we will find success. This is backed up by countless success stories of people who despite the odds succeeded through perseverance and a confidence in their dream/vision/self. Yet this is an idea from the world, not from scripture. Our confidence is in Christ, not in ourselves. There is no place for dwelling on our wretched state before regeneration, other than to give glory to christ. There is no place to dwell on our current failures other than to say “ Thanks be to God through Christ jesus.” (Romans 7:25) all confidence must be derived from Him. For when we recognize that we are nothing before this Mighty Awesome God our eyes cannot stay fixed upon ourselves for long but are drawn to him. That is how it should be. To him be glory and praise forever and ever, Amen.