The Bold and The Gentle Pt. 1

Boldness from God

Story of boldness – personal illustration – hiking in the dark down Mt. Yonah, thought I saw a bear

From where did my boldness come? Some of it came from my indifference towards death, some of it came from my knowledge of the local bears (thinking them not to be Grizzly) some of it came from my belief in God’s sovereignty in all things.

In the first two verses, Paul speaks about boldness. As a reminder, Paul is on his missionary journey when writing this, most likely in Corinth now. He just went through Philippi and endured hardship, then he stayed in Thessalonica and endured similar problems. He’s writing to encourage the believers to continue in faithfulness despite the hardships they now face. Part of this entails his own example of facing hardship.

1 Thess. 2:1-2 “For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.”

You can see here, Paul is appealing to what the Thessalonians already know. He is having them recall something they experienced to encourage their own faithfulness. He begins this with the phrase “you yourselves know” and even in the middle of verse two you can see the subordinate clause, “as you know.” The first thing these people are to know is that Paul and his fellow missionaries’ ministry was not in vain. It had purpose and it had results. Its purpose was to glorify God and its results was multiplying disciples who continue the mission.

Notice something about what happened to them in Philippi: they suffered and were shamefully treated. You can read about it in the second half of Acts 16. They were beaten publically, thrown into prison, and the governing officials tried to have them kicked out secretly. But after this, they don’t call a meeting and say, “well, we’ve really got to rethink our branding here. How our community receives us is not really positive. How can we re-brand to get a better following?” You’ve seen churches do this all the time, right? As if re-branding can solve anything.

But what does the Apostle Paul do when he arrives in the next town (which was Thessalonica)? The same exact thing. He proclaims the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. Why?

Because his

True boldness is from God

If we think of this in terms of location it can make sense for us. Just as their previous suffering was located in Philippi; their current boldness is located in God. It answers the question, from where does their boldness come? It comes from God.

In terms of application, we must be careful. I could say, “our application is BE BOLD!” and leave it at that. But you’ve probably recognized in your own experience that boldness can be a vice just as much as it can be a virtue.

Boldness is simply the confidence to act

This is why boldness can be a virtue or a vice. It depends on what you have confidence in and how you chose to act.

Worldly boldness has confidence in anything other than God and his wisdom and results in sin and destruction.

Let’s look at three Proverbs that illustrate this for us.

Prov. 7:11-14 “She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home; now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait. She seizes him and kisses him, and with bold face she says to him, “I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows;”

This woman, as you can see, is bold. She has confidence that she can get away unpunished for her illicit acts. And that confidence motivates her to action of sexual immorality.

Prov 21:29 “A wicked man puts on a bold face, but the upright gives thought to his ways.”

This is an example of faked boldness. Notice the antithetical parallelism. The wicked man in this case is not carefully thinking about his ways. This boldness come from a desire to appear to have everything together. The result is destruction because the ways are not carefully considered.

Boldness could result from confidence in a number of things. We could be confident that humanity is the supreme being. C. S. Lewis in one of his fictional works recounts has an antagonist who goes to another planet seeking to capitulate or destroy any being he finds there in order to secure the perpetuity of the human race. Valuing life is good, but denying God and his wisdom will embolden sin.

Furthermore, we may have some political or economic notions that we believe to be correct. We may even be emboldened to speak our political and economic opinions online. We may label ourselves as conservative, attempting to conserve that which our ancestors past down to us. Which all of these things are not inherently wrong. We can and should express our political opinions in the right manner. We should conserve certain God-honoring traditions passed down to us.

The problem occurs when we have our confidence placed in one political figure, or one political party, or one economic philosophy, or one critical theory, or one string of traditions rather than have confidence in God. Idolatry does not only occur when we bow down and worship something; idolatry happens when we place our confidence in something other than God.

We can place our confidence in several things that could embolden us. For years, our education system was teaching our kids to have self-confidence. I grew up in this time period. This led to a generation of self-discovery where people were emboldened to act according to their confidence in their athletic or intellectual ability, or their character traits, or whatever is unique about them.

I want to take a moment on this because I think it underlies much of what we do nowadays. I watched a video designed for kids to help them boost their confidence I’m going to take a moment to summarize it for you. (Video: “Wellbeing For Children: Confidence And Self-Esteem; created by ClickView; published on YouTube)

They define confidence as “Recognizing the things you are good at and ready to give new things a go.” Now, confidence, is actually supreme trust in something. So this definition is actually for “self-confidence” because the confidence is placed on the individual ability.

Next, they define self-esteem as “You accept yourself and feel positive about yourself just the way you are” They say this can be lacking when you start comparing yourself to others. Their advice is to ignore all this comparison and focus on yourself to be the best you!

They further advise: When we don’t do as well as we think, we start thinking negative about ourselves. Instead of listing to these negative thoughts, remind yourself of everything you are great at and your other achievements.

I want you to think critically about this for a moment. What are they encouraging kids to place their confidence in? Their ability. This video is based on a firm belief that everyone is good at something, you just have to discover what that thing is. Once you find it, that’s where you will get your boldness from. If you ever lack in your ability, just ignore it and think about what you’ve accomplished!

I hope you can see through this. How empty this is. Jer. 9:23-24 “Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.””

No wonder so many people suffer from depression! The world and its wisdom says you can be emboldened to act once you find confidence in your ability. It’s as if the world tell a group of kids who can’t swim, “You can do it, believe in yourself, ignore those negative thoughts,” and then throws them into a deep, shark-infested sea. “Just think positively!”

Worldly boldness has confidence in anything other than God and His wisdom and results in sin and destruction. But this is the way I think a lot of times! And I’m sure its the way you think sometimes, too! We believe the lie that we have to have confidence in our selves to operate in this world; in order to be able to do anything, we have to believe we can, like the little engine that could, “I think I can, I think I can.”

This lie certainly can cause us to be bold, and it can cause us to act, but we will only act for selfish reasons. There’s little room for selflessness in the world of “I think I can.” We don’t need “I think I can;” we need, in risk of being a little cheesy, “I think He can.”

Godly boldness has confidence in God and His wisdom which results in obedience.

Take for example Prov. 3:25-26 “Do not be afraid of sudden terror or of the ruin of the wicked, when it comes, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.”

This is the type of boldness we see from David when he faced Goliath. 1 Sam. 17:45-4 “Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.””

David did not have self-confidence, he had God-confidence.

This is the same type of confidence we see from Daniel’s friends. Daniel 3:16-17 “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.”

And you may think this presumptuous of them. How could these people presume to know God’s will; but they don’t: Dan. 3:18 “But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.””

These people don’t have confidence in themselves, they have their confidence in God. This is the type of confidence that Paul has. He does not rest on his eloquence or ability; he does not rest on his results; he does not rest on anything other than God himself.

Confidence in God rather than our abilities. Remember, confidence in our abilities said we shouldn’t compare ourselves to other people but should find what’s unique about us and celebrate it. Confidence in God says comparing ourselves to others is too low of a standard. Instead, we should compare our self to Christ.

Confidence in our abilities said we should ignore our faults (so we don’t get too depressed) and think about our positive accomplishments and abilities. Confidence in God says we should acknowledge our faults and move on trusting that God will equip us for what he wants us to accomplish.

And we need boldness from God today.

Think about Paul’s situation, he was being beat and thrown in jail. If you think that could never happen in America, just look past our Northern border. Pastors in Canada have been thrown in jail. The Christian faith and message are being increasingly maligned in the public square. I was told that if you work on base, you’re trained that having a Bible on your desk could be offensive, so just be aware. Recently a Christian organization lost their 501C-3 status because of their deeply held religious beliefs. The Bible was recently identified has hate speech in Finland. You could be kicked off social media for posting your own deeply held religious beliefs. And on and on the examples could go.

We need boldness from God more than ever. Notice too what the boldness from God results in for this particular text: proclaiming the gospel of God.

1 Thess. 2:2 “But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.”

The good news of God can only be fully understood if the bad news is known. The bad news is that our world is messed up. We as a group and as individuals are all hopelessly infected with sin. We can do nothing on our own to get rid of this sin, nor do we really want to get rid of it on our own. We enjoy it. We revel in the opportunity to rebel against God.

Sometimes preachers paint our condition as being cast into the ocean of sin, drowning hopelessly. That’s not how the Bible pictures our condition. The Bible pictures us a willful rebels, living in the king’s good land he provided for us, mustering all our forces to storm his castle and take his place. Rebellious man is confident in one thing “We don’t need God!” And rebellious man will do everything he can to reject the truth. Why do you think the education authorities are telling our children to be confident in themselves? Because there’s nothing higher to be confident in! Believe in your self, self-esteem, positive reinforcement, be the best you; all these modern proverbs are abject rejections of God. And the world and all its wicked rebellion against God, in the midst of us mustering our forces to place our flag of the ruins of God’s once great kingdom; when we joined the dark forces, the powers and principalities of this world to usurp the one who had a right to the throne, when we in utter rage stormed God’s castle to show him how the world ought to be governed, in this very moment of great darkness in our hearts, Christ died for us.

He was betrayed by one of his own. The soldiers of the high priest who worked so hard to keep the peace with Rome, took him. They questioned Jesus in front of the high priest unsuccessfully for hours. The high priest in utter rage finally asks Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus answers, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hadn of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

This scene was ripe with tension. The people ripped their tunic showing utter disgust at what they had just heard. They began to spit on him. They covered his face and striking him, mocking and demanding him to tell who hit him.

They led him to Pilate the Roman Governor, because they did not have the authority to put someone to death. Pilate saw no fault with him, he had broken no Roman laws. But he was worried at the insistence of the crowd, that if he did not kill this man, a riot would break out. He had him flogged severely. The soldiers whipped his back with cords interwoven with bits of pottery and spikes designed to rip off large hunks of flesh to expose the bones and sinews. They wove a crown out of thorns and jammed it on his head. This was the upside down enthronement of God’s king.

When Pilate was told this man claimed to be a Son of God he was even more worried.

John 19:9-13 “He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.” From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha.” (Archaeologists have actually discovered this very spot by the way)

John 19:14-15 “Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.””

John 19:16 “So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus,”

He bore his own cross to the hill where he was going to be crucified. They nailed him on the beam, lifted him up, the bloody mess he was, a mockery for all to see. But the physical pain he endured was nothing compared to the wrath of God which he endured on account of our sin, our self-confidence. We were so confident we could live life on our own that we killed the only holy man who ever lived. He suffered in agony until he lifted his final breath, “It is finished.”

For those nights it had seemed that the darkness had won. Our self-confidence had beaten God into the grave. But this was the very thing we got wrong. God will not let his holy one see corruption. Christ rose from the grave, vindicated as a righteous man. He defeated death, he defeated our sin, he defeated our self-confidence.

You want boldness? You want confidence? Look to the cross, not within! You abilities will fail. You political party will fail. Your country will fall. Your family will not last. Your heart will stop beating, but Christ never fails!

So what happens when you’re faced with your failure? I hope you realize how silly it is to give yourself a self-hug and think about how amazing you can be.

Yes! I may fail! I may falter! I’m weak, so weak in my faith! I’m struggling with the same sin over and over again. My mind wanders into the places it shouldn’t go. My heart finds it difficult to have joy in the Lord.

And on and on the devil whispers into your ear! Ignoring these thoughts will only numb you, saying they’re not true is only a lie that will deceive you. So what do you do?

Acknowledge them! Yes, I’m a failure sometimes, but so what?! because my confidence was never in me! The world does not revolve around me! It revolves around Him! I’m confident in Him! He will give me the strength to accomplish what he wants me to accomplish. And I will follow where he leads.

When you hear of what your Savior did for you, does it embolden you? If so, then rejoice! Christ laid down his life for you! What less could we give in return? Our boldness in the Lord will result in proclaiming his word.