GOD-CONFIDENCE
Are you a confident person? You might say “It depends.”
If we are doing something that we have done before and are sure that we know
how to do it correctly, we are confident in ourselves. Put yourself in a
totally unfamiliar situation and do what you have never done before and you
might not be so confident.
Some
people have an aura of confidence about them no matter what situation they are
in. They appear to know exactly what they are doing all the time. Either they
are faking it or they really believe they can do anything.
Confidence is generally described as a
state of being certain that either a hypothesis is correct or that a chosen
course of action is the best or most effective. Self-confidence is having confidence in oneself, even where others
doubt you. This does not necessarily mean “self-belief.” You can be inept at a
sport or other activity but still be confident as a person. When you are
self-confident in this way you are not worried about failure or the disapproval
of others if you do fail. Self-confidence actually allows you to enjoy what you
are doing no matter the outcome. Arrogance
though, is believing you are correct when it is obvious you are not correct at
all. And Overconfidence is excessive
belief in yourself without regard to failure and perhaps to your own detriment.
I want
to introduce a different term this morning regarding confidence. Have you heard
of God-confidence?
Self-confidence is good, but being confident in God is
better. When we put our trust in God and His revealed Word, our lives take on a
new stability, focus, and poise. God-confidence is really confidence in God’s
promises and power.
David
exemplified God-confidence in the situation that Psalm 57 celebrates. And we
can know God-confidence in our own lives if we choose to adopt David’s
attitude. David teaches us what it means to be confident in God even if we are
holed up in a cave.
I want to look with you at five principles in Psalm 57
that teach us something about the God-confidence that David possessed. As we
read in 1 Samuel 24, David was once again being pursued by Saul. King Saul was
jealous of David, the giant-killer and knew that David was next in line to sit
on the throne of Israel. People sang the praises of Saul, “Saul has killed
thousands,” but they really exalted David who “killed tens of thousands.” So
Saul set out to kill David, that young upstart. Now he’s got David trapped in a
cave, though he does not know it. And David is face with a dilemma: kill Saul
or…
1. David’s Confidence began with God’s Mercy
Psalm 57 is called a miktam. There is some controversy as
to what this means. Derek Kidner says that it is a silent prayer. As David
fears discovery while Saul “uses the John” in the cave, David prays, “Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,
for in you I take refuge,” (1a).
Ironically,
David and his men fled into the bowels of the cave to find refuge. But their
refuge has become a trap. We learn two things from David’s predicament: First,
we cannot rely on human merit. Our intelligence or genius is limited. It seemed
like a good idea to run into the cave and hide but genius turned to folly.
Second, we cannot rely on human means. Our best methods and plans or programs
are sometimes not enough to “save us” from our problems.
David,
in the midst of the cave found his true refuge to be the mercy of God. The
picture of “refuge” David gives is of baby chicks nestling under their mother’s
wings as a predator flies over. For a chick this is the safest place to be.
Saul was
David’s predator. Pressed against the wall of the cave, a wave of fear must
have caught in David’s throat. On the cusp of discovery you almost want to yell
out and end the suspense, but the words won’t come. Instead, David prays
silently to his true refuge, to his God. He could kill Saul and end this, or
rest on God’s power to protect him.
2. David’s Confidence rested in God’s purposes for him
David’s prayer continues with the line, “I cry out to God Most High, to God, who
fulfills his purposes for me…” (2). Saul was a disappointment as Israel’s
king. This is why the Lord had Samuel anoint David as Israel’s next king.
David’s men saw this moment in the cave as a shortcut to the throne for David.
How does David answer, “The LORD forbid
that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, or lift my
hand against him…” (1 Sam. 24:6).
Saul may
have been a disappointment but God put him on the throne and David believed
that God would remove him in His time. David submitted to Saul as the rightful
king and vowed to serve him, even if he was insane. That’s how much David
trusted God and God’s purposes for him. He was confident that the Lord would
make him king of Israel just as God promised he would, but David was not going
to sin to make this a reality. God-confidence requires a patient trust in God’s
plans.
3. David’s Confidence allowed him to claim hope in the
midst of trouble
I found verse 4 perplexing. I wondered if the lions and
beasts, these men with spears and arrows for teeth and tongues like sharp
swords were Saul and his army, or David’s own men urging him to kill Saul. I
didn’t know – still don’t. Both are possible. David says, “They spread a net for my feet – I was bowed down in distress. They dug
a pit in my path – but they have fallen into it themselves,” (6). The net
or the pit may have been the temptation to take the shortcut. Or it may have
been Saul slandering David to the people of Israel.
Take
note of this: between v. 4 and 6 there is an insertion, an interlude if you
will. In the midst of trouble, David praises God. It’s like he’s saying, “This
is not good; this is gonna be real bad – Praise the LORD! – Oh, this is bad.”
But it’s not that way at all. As David considers the beasts and the traps, he
thinks to glorify God, “Be exalted, O
God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth,” (5).
What
does it mean to glorify God? The Hebrew word for glory has the idea of weight,
heaviness, worthiness, reputation, honor. We might say of someone, “He’s a
heavyweight in his field.” What we mean is, “This guy is a person of substance,
someone to be reckoned with.” When glory is applied to God, it means that we
consider God worthy of all honor because of who He is, perfect in all His ways.
So David
is looking at the heavy situation of pits, traps, and beasts, at the tight spot
he’s in, being between a rock and a hard place, and he suddenly remembers “God
is heavier.” God is greater than all my troubles.
4. David’s Confidence in God led to worship
David’s God-confidence leads him to continue worshiping
God, even in the cave. Praise is not our natural response in a time of trial.
We would sooner complain or get angry with God, or pout. But even though
David’s enemy had “fixed” a net to catch him (6, “spread”), David had “fixed”
his heart (7, same root word) to praise God. He said, “My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast…” (7).
That
word “steadfast” shows up in Isaiah 26:3 where the prophet said, “You will keep in perfect peace him whose
mind is steadfast because he trusts in you.” David had peace in his cave;
that peace caused him to worship God.
If you
don’t feel like praising God, does that make you a hypocrite if you raise your
hands and sing anyways? No, it’s obedience. Hypocrisy doesn’t mean doing things
you don’t feel like doing. If this is hypocrisy, then I’m a hypocrite every
morning, because I don’t feel like getting out of bed. Hypocrisy is trying to
present a false impression to others so that you look better than you are. Praising
God is obedience and an attitude of giving God what He deserves.
5. David’s Confidence glorified God to others
More than likely, David wrote the content of this Psalm
some time after the event occurred. His intention was that others would know
what it means to find their confidence in God. David said, “I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among
the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness
reaches to the skies,” (9-10).
Why
share this praise of God with others? Charles Spurgeon wrote, “I think I may
say to every person whom I am addressing, if you are yourself saved, the work
is but half done until you are employed to bring others to Christ. You are as
yet but half formed in the image of your Lord. You have not attained to the
full development of the Christ-life in you unless you have commenced in some
feeble way to tell others of the grace of God; and I trust that you will find
no rest to the sole of your foot till you have been the means of leading many
to that blessed Saviour who is your confidence and your hope?”[i]
David
wanted to tell others of his confidence in the glory of God so that they also
would glorify God. His love stretches to the heavens; His faithfulness is as
great as the sky is broad.
Application
I have focused exclusively on David in briefly examining
Psalm 57. What does God-confidence have to do with us? With you? Why do we need
this confidence in Christian living?
We know
that faith is the law of God’s kingdom, so as Christians we cannot be
spiritually successful if we don’t have faith. But confidence is like the match
that ignites the faith fuse. Confidence like this is developed as we spend more
time with God. We know that spending time with our spouses or friends develops
our confidence in them because we get to know their character through time
spent. By constantly fellowshipping with the Lord, meditating on His Word,
rehearsing the great things He has done in our lives, and remembering His
faithfulness, we develop ultimate trust and confidence in Him. The more
confident we become in Him, the more our faith will be activated.
So as we
consider the pattern of David in Psalm 57 we see a similar pattern of
God-confidence in the letter to the Philippians.
1. Paul puts
the first principle in negative terms: “Watch
out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. For
it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who
glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh…” (Phil. 3:2-3).
Paul goes on to say that if anyone had reason to put such confidence in oneself
it is him. But before God, what you have done, whatever degrees you have
earned, who your family is (your pedigree), your status before people, your
religious devotion, whatever prestige you think you have to be confident
in…it’s all rubbish. Paul counts it all a loss for the sake of Christ and so
should we.
The only
confidence that assures us of anything is the confidence that Christ has gained
our mercy before God.
2. When
we think of God’s purposes for us we need to beware the temptation of some
vainglory. What I mean is – don’t get all Jeremiah 29:11 on me. God
specifically called David to a special task, being the king of Israel. God had
a special purpose for Israel too as referenced in Jer. 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you…plans
to prosper you, etc.” That is not for you. If you look at the context you
will see clearly that you do not live in Babylon and so on. The principles of
this passage can be applied generally, but God does not have some special
assignment for you, as He did for David. Get over yourself.
Today,
many preachers speak of God having a purpose for your life. Unfortunately,
their teaching pushes that there is only one thing in life God wants you to do,
and somehow you have to find out what that is and do it or miss out.
But hear
Paul and know this, “…being confident of
this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until
the day of Christ Jesus,” (Phil. 1:6). That which was begun in you is the
work of salvation, and God will not stop working this out in you until Christ
comes again. In this you can be confident. You are not yet what you will be,
but neither are you what you were before.
3.
God-confidence that is built upon the foundation of knowing Christ Jesus, for
whose sake I have lost all things, allows us to do everything that God calls us
to do. Paul declared, “I can do
everything through him who gives me strength,” (Phil. 4:13). That is quite
a claim. Do you and I believe this? I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength?
I am
confident that what Paul means includes the prospect of failure. I can do all
things, and even if I fail, God can use it for His glory (Ro. 8:28). I can
confidently fail knowing that God can do more than I can imagine. I confess
that my God-confidence quotient has not risen to that challenge yet, but I’m
working on it.
4.
Finally, David rejoiced in God even while he lingered in the cave waiting for
deliverance. You know what Paul says, “Rejoice
in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4). This
requires God-confidence so that we rejoice even when we don’t yet see the
results.
Someone
asked me the other day how the ministry was going. My response surprised me, a
melancholy type, as I replied, “Can’t complain,” and then said, “God is good.”
I wondered who said that. Me? God is changing me. God can change you too if you
put your confidence in His work in you.
AMEN
I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is
not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in
the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence
than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for
breath--these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe
freely--these are my native air.[ii]
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