Leading From Conviction

Stand on God’s Word for Godly Confidence

So we stand on the Word of the Lord for confidence. The scriptures tell us:

Psalm 119:105 (ESV)

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Get the picture… You’re surrounded by darkness… But you have a light. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I have to stumble around to get where I’m going, feeling around to make sure I don’t bump into any walls or closed doors. But when I have a light, I can step in confidence. This is what the Word of God does for us. It reduces the guesswork.

A great little book on this is “Just Do Something” by Kevin DeYoung. Many Christians get caught up in the fretting of “What does God want me to do next? What is God’s Will for my life?” And we fret so much about whether to live here or there, take this job or that job, but we neglect the more important formational question of, “Who does God want me to be?” and allow “What does God want me to do?” be hitched to that question, rather than the other way around.

And when we ask, “Who does God want me to be” we can go a lot further in pursuing God’s plan for our lives. I venture to guess that if more Christians would focus on searching the scriptures rather than searching for symbols in the sky and signs in our soups, we might just have a stronger, healthier bunch of disciples here in our church. We might just have a more confident young people. Let’s focus more on the Word and promises of God rather than the unknowable.

Jesus said

Luke 11:28 (ESV)

But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

That word, “blessed” is happy. I don’t know about you, but when I’m happy, I’m boosted in my confidence. I have more pep in my step. I feel like I can go forth unhindered. Jesus tells us that when we hear the word of God and keep it, we are blessed, we are truly happy! Believer, find your happiness in obedience to God! It’s this obedience to God that pleases Him anyway, right?

Brothers and sisters, if we want to find God’s will for our lives, let us seek to be obedient to the Scriptures first, and let the other things fall into place. Isn’t that what we’re looking at when Jesus says,

Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

What are “all these things?”

Matthew 6:34 (ESV)

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

In other words… be, Christian…Find your confidence in what you are afforded to know by God. You can find all of that in the Scriptures. What else would be meant by

2 Timothy 3:16–17 (ESV)

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

EVERY good work. You can find what you need in the Scriptures. And trust that God will accomplish with your life what He intends through your simple obedience.

In fact, when we are confident in God’s Word, we don’t even need self-esteem or inner confidence to tackle life’s challenges. Instead, we depend upon the truths of God to get us through the day. The confidence we receive from the right interpretation of God’s Word is not arrogance but Christian confidence.

What turns into arrogance is when we take debatable issues and make them either primary or of higher importance than they ought to be. There’s a way to hold confidently to Christian conviction without the appearance of arrogance. At the same rate, don’t let the world make you second guess whether your confidence is arrogance. To the world, all Christian conviction is arrogance.

If we believe God’s Word to be fully true, then let us live as if we depend on the Word of the Lord more than bread itself.

Matthew 4:4 (ESV)

But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

Conviction to Do Good

Love for God Results in a Pursuit of Righteousness

Psalm 37:4 (ESV)

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

2 Timothy 2:22 (ESV)

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

There’s a direct correlation between our love for God and the pursuit of righteousness. It follows that if we love God, we will obey Him. We will pursue the things of Him because we want to be like Him and in His company.

It’s like the friends we surround ourselves with, right? We become like those we experience fellowship with.

Approval. You ever think about the role of approval in our lives? I think most everyone wants approval from somebody. We are dying and crying for approval. Our world cries out for approval. Why is that? Think on that for a moment. Why does everyone want approval? I would submit the idea that perhaps the reason we seek approval so much is because we know, deep down, that our behavior does not always merit approval. We can all point to times in our own lives where we don’t even approve of ourselves. And we find ourselves struggling with self-approval, so we look for approval from outside of ourselves.

This is one of the reasons middle school and high school can be so weird for students. There’s a currency in high school, and it’s called peer-approval. How many and which peers approve of you determine your social class in high school. Some call them cliques, but it’s really not about cliques. It’s about social status. And that social status is determined by whom you receive approval and inclusion from.

And sooner, rather than later, as you continue to hang around those folks and grow accustomed to their approval, you pick up their habits, their clothing styles, their choices.

Here’s the simple truth that sits behind that… You will become like those whose approval you seek.

So if we find ourselves wanting God’s approval…

Galatians 1:10 (ESV)

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

And hear me clearly: This is pleasing talk, not appeasing talk…

God’s wrath has already been appeased… We are now free to please Him. Why? The same way we want to please the people in our lives that we love. I want to make my wife and children happy. It’s a good thing. I seek to give them a good model of a loving husband and father and Christian man.

This comes because I love them. So I pursue being the type of man that makes them happy. When we love God and want to please Him, we will seek to be the type of people to bring Him great pleasure. That is righteousness. It’s not out of fear, but love. That’s a good thing.

Disgust for Sin Results in a Pursuit of Righteousness

1 Timothy 6:11 (ESV)

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.

When we consider the destructive force of sin, if you are a Christian, you should find yourself disgusted by sin. It’s when we fail to consider the destructiveness of sin that we fall into sin. But if you find yourself unbothered by the destructiveness of sin, I fear your conscience may be seared, and you may need salvation altogether.

But this disgust for sin should push us to a pursuit of righteousness! This disgust should have an equal-and-opposite reaction in pursuing the things of God.

Now, I’m a dog person. I love dogs. We have two. They are very well house-trained. However, there comes a certain point when even the best of house-trained dogs can’t hold it anymore, and they’ve been inside too long, and they have to go. It’s disgusting. And when that happens, out of disgust, I clean it up. And in cleaning it up, I don’t just wipe up the mess. I come back after disposing of the mess, and I get some cleaner after the mess!

Sometimes after falling in sin, we wipe up the mess and don’t clean afterward. Bacteria and stench are left to fester in our lives because we’re not disgusted enough with our sin. We leave just enough of our sin so that the festering rot rears its ugly head again. When we pursue righteousness in place of our sin, it’s like that act of putting cleaner on the mess.

The Theological Pyramid - Conviction and Relationships