The Christian Confidence is: 1. Found in Eternal Structures 2. Found in the Spirit s Deposit

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1 The Christian Confidence is: 1. Found in Eternal Structures 2. Found in the Spirit s Deposit Confidence is a state of mind that seems rock solid in one moment and fleeting in the next. Confidence is something that affects athletes, students, parents, spouses and anyone else who is given any chance to make a decision and live with the decision. If a person is confident they made the right choice they normally are calm and collected about themselves. However if an athlete or student, a coach or a parent makes a call that he is not too confident about, it s safe to say that a fair amount of worrying and stewing on the decision is done. You hear about this all of the time in sports. Just this last week when I was watching the NBA finals, I couldn t keep up with the announcer s advice about shooting with confidence. If there was any doubt or hesitation in the shooter s shooting motion, sure enough the shooter missed the majority of those shots. Shoot with confidence the announcer would yell over the telecast! Confidence is huge! Think about some of the decisions you made as a parent. Should we have grounded her for that long? Should we have taken away his video game privileges? Should we have made her sit there and eat all her food? Should we have had him sit in the corner for that offense? Confidence! The neat thing about confidence is that it doesn t come from just anywhere. Much of the confidence that individuals display is by their experience. Parents are confident they made the right decision because their parents made a similar decision. Athletes are confident they can make a certain shot because they have taken it thousands of times. Coaches are confident in a play call they make because it has worked hundreds of times. Students are confident in taking a test because this isn t the first test of their life. They studied, they are confident, they are ready! In our continuing study of 2 Corinthians for these 6 weeks, we have an opportunity to talk about Christian confidence. Much like confidence elsewhere in our lives, sometimes our confidence is high sometimes it dwindles. Paul gives us two solid reasons which give us Christians confidence. Paul explains to us that Christian Confidence is found in eternal structures, and the Spirit s deposit.

2 Chapter five, following on what Paul just said about fixing our eyes on things that are unseen and not seen, builds on that idea now by showing us his confidence about all of the things that he knows is there albeit he cannot see it. Our lesson for today begins: Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. The Christian confidence is found in eternal structures. Paul again building on what he has said before, admits difficulty, persecution, but hey? What can the world do to me? I have confidence that even if my earthly tent is destroyed I have a building from God. Notice the contrast there. Here on earth I would say that many of us live in pretty nice homes, apartments, and condos. But yet even though the homes might be nice to us here, they are mere tents in comparison to the eternal structures of heaven made not by man but by God. And there is even more comfort right? How many times have we seen buildings on TV where the building wasn t exactly square, the foundation wasn t poured correctly, the siding was put on haphazardly, and the windows leak like a sieve? This would be the case because these are all human errors. Miscalculations. But not in God s House! In God s house there is nothing to worry about because the eternal structures are perfect. Now it takes Christian confidence to think like this doesn t it? Christian confidence has us yearning to be with God in our heavenly dwelling. So we must have the attitude that whatever I have in this world is temporary. If I lose something in this world, or I wreck something, or it s taken from me, so be it. This world is temporary, and when I am taken to be with God I am confident in the eternal structures he has built for me. More and more though, we see people holding onto the things of this world.

3 Worrying about things in this world, even trying to keep up with all of the trinkets and doodads that are around us. Why? Why do we envelope ourselves in such temporary things? Why do we worry about the temporary status of the tent that we live in here? Why do we find ourselves wanting more and more, even though we don t need it? This is an epidemic! And it is a sinful condition that we all have over possessions and things of this world. We begin to look to these possessions as thing which bring meaning and happiness into our lives. Do they? You buy a boat or a snowmobile or a lake home. Do those things give you happiness? Absolutely NOT! God does use the things that he blesses us with as means to find true happiness in him. The boat, the recreational vehicle of one kind or another, they don t bring you happiness in and of themselves. The opportunities that you have with these things however do bring you happiness. Seeing these things as wonderful blessings from a Loving Father in heaven brings you true happiness. But even still, the blessings that we understand are given to us by our Lord are still temporary. They are still tents. They can be wiped away at any moment. And if we go through such hardship in this world, we know it is for one reason. That is to put our eyes on Jesus and his righteousness. To refocus our life on the things that matter. God doesn t want anything to interfere with the relationship he has with you. That s why Jesus came into this world. He came to forgive all mankind of their sins that all who believe in him have eternal life. He came to wash away our sins of greed and our sins of idolatry. He came to forgive us of every single sin that is in our hearts today. These sins and all sins are washed away in the flood of Jesus blood which was poured out for you. It s through this sacrifice that we are Christians who are confidently looking to the Cross for the strength we need to go every day on this earth. We know that we are striving to be with Jesus in our heavenly dwelling! Now as we talked about earlier, confidence is usually derived from experience. So what experience can we call upon to display such confidence as a Christian? This confidence is found in the experience when the Holy Spirit was given us as a deposit.

4 5 Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 We live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. Do you see where the Christian confidence comes from? From the Spirit s deposit! Now if you are anything like me the next question is key. When did the Holy Spirit deposit anything with me? Think about it? It was when you were baptized, or when you were exposed to the Gospel being preached. Either way, the Holy Spirit worked faith in the believing heart and since that time, the Christian can say that we are always confident! That we live by faith and not by sight! We are Christians who are confident in the promises that the Lord blesses us with as his believing children. So confident that we can along with Paul declare, I would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Some people look at this statement as Paul being a bit suicidal perhaps, or at the very least wimping out of the persecutions that he was facing. NOT TRUE, NOT EVEN A LITTLE! The apostle Paul is not hoping or praying or even expediting his way into heaven. He is merely stating the obvious fact that being with the Lord is where home is. The tent we live in now is nice, but ever since receiving the deposit from the Holy Spirit, we are confident to say, this is nice, but with the Lord is where I want to be. That s why we need to fight the temptations every single day. The life that we live is something that we should not take lightly. There is a clear light at the end of the tunnel. We have in our hearts the Holy Spirit, so let s not allow our sinful natures to yuck it up for us. We did not choose to believe in God, but our human will has the power to reject God. Paul knew that whatever we did on earth would be something we would have answer for in front of Christ. Judgment day will come! You can bet on that! So make it your goal to please God.

5 This is a hard thing to do because to please God means to not please my sinful flesh. All too often I think we view our lives as a challenge to see how much sinful activity we can do without being caught by God. We look at our own pet sins, or the fun sins that we may get involved with and we haplessly go about committing them. I don t know why we think it s ok to do, but it s not. The sins we commit and especially the pet sins that we continue to commit and even enjoy committing are dangerous to our soul. The more we find ourselves doing things and sinning against what God has told us to do the easier it is to reject and lose what God has given us in our deposit. Much like a poor tenant who rents an apartment and trashes the place, then losing his security deposit; Christians when we forsake the way of the Lord we lose the Spirit s deposit. Thank God that he has put some safety nets into this world. God gives us our consciences. God gives us his Word. God gives us Christian friends who care for our well being. God gives us pastors as well to remind us of our sins and the consequence of sin, but also to see the blessings and confidence that is found in Jesus. When we are struggling with our sins, turn to our Lord in prayer and ask him to help you fight temptation. Ask him to restore all of your confidence that was given you in the Spirit s deposit. Ask him to be with you to fight with you every step of the way. And he will be there for us. He tells us that he will not leave us. That he is with us. That he will never forsake us. And there is no reason why he would! Through Jesus death and resurrection we have been given our ultimate confidence. We know our sins are forgiven! We know that we are but strangers on this world and heaven is our home. We long to be with our Savior who gave himself for us. We long to see our Lord who saved us from our sins. We long to be rid of this sinful world and live forevermore with Jesus. But for now, it is for us to remain a Christian. Yet, God has given us the tools to be a Christian with confidence. We look to heaven and the eternal structures for our confidence and we long to be with Jesus. Our confidence is found firmly planted

6 on the foundation of the Gospel. The Spirit is there keeping us confident in all of God s promises. So let s keep strong! Let s stay confident! God is with us! AMEN