Philippians chapter 1. And our text is going to be the same this hour as it was the first hour, verse 21 through 26. But this hour we're going to be looking at the believer's confidence. In all false religion, Their confidence, regardless of the false religion, is about what they have done or what they are not doing, what they used to do. So it's things that they can see physically, changes that they can see physically. And really that's just morality is all that that is. Moral change doesn't equal a spiritual change.

But Paul says this, we preach Christ and him crucified and ourselves servants for his sake, for his sake. We have no confidence in the flesh. Paul said, oh wretched man that I am, not that I was, but that I am. So our confidence can't be in what we do or what we don't do that we used to do or any work whatsoever. That can't be our confidence. Paul said, I have no confidence in the flesh. Paul said, in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. So what is our confidence?

Well, why do you think, first of all, why do you think the Lord shortened the days of men? You know, Adam and Methuselah, they were over 900 years old. Why did the Lord shorten the days? What do you say now? It's three score and 10. And if by reason of strength, four score, that's 80, 70 and 80. And if you're over 80, you're on borrowed time. That's what I've been told. I don't know. The point I'm making is this. What I'm making is this, is the Lord shortened the days of man because our pride grows more and more. The lust of the flesh grows more and more. We don't get better over time. It gets worse and it gets worse and it gets worse.

So the Lord shortened the days of men out of mercy. You could view that as mercy. Men that live to be 70, 80 years old, they're men and women alike. Think of all the horrible things, don't think of all of them, but the horrible things that we know that's happened in history. That's long enough for men to live to do horrible things. You imagine 1,000 years almost. So the Lord shortened man's days in mercy.

Otherwise, we would just continually grow worse and worse and worse. So all that being said, that's why we have no confidence in the flesh. 70 years is plenty for a man with a desperately wicked heart, which is what we're all born with, to deceive him all the way to hell. That's the truth of it. The Lord leads us to ourself. That'll be the case.

So we cannot have confidence in this flesh. It's not about what we do. That can't be our confidence. I can't make that any more clearer. It can't be because if our confidence is in what we do, then that means we had part in salvation. That means salvation's not of the Lord. Salvation's of me. It's not of God's will, but it's of my will. It's not his purpose, but it's my purpose. It can't be, because he's God. Now let's read this together.

Philippians one, verse 21 through 26. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor. Yet what shall I choose? I want not. For I am in a straight betwixt two, having the desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.

And having this confidence, that's what I've titled this message, having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith. that your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again. Paul's confidence was in Christ completely. Paul's confidence was as if he were to die, he would wake in the likeness of Christ. He knew that the Lord had called him out of darkness into light, made him an apostle. He had a lot of evidences, didn't he? Physical evidences. The Lord shined a great light from glory and called his name, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

So his relationship with the Lord was a little different than ours. The Lord don't speak through signs and wonders anymore like he used to. He speaks through his gospel. He speaks through his word only. So Paul's confidence was what the Lord had done, not what he had done.

He was betwixt two because he knew that the work was finished. He knew that he had confirmation that his name was written in the Lamb's book of life. So he was ready to go meet his savior. He was ready to go to the Lord, but he said, it's needful for you that I remain here.

But he tells us that he has confidence. He has confidence in verse 25, in having this confidence. What is the confidence? Well, look at verse 27. Only let your conversation be as it become of the gospel. of Christ. There's the confidence. There's the confidence. You want to talk? Talk about that. That's what he's saying. That's what he was confident in.

Not in himself. He's very clear throughout all of scripture, the New Testament. He's not confident in his flesh. He's not confident in what he does. He's confident in the one who died in his room instead. He's confident in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. This was Paul's confidence. Paul's hope was that when Christ died, he died.

And because the finished work that Christ had performed, he said, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there, you may be also. A lot of people talk, well, he actually says in that same thought, he says, in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. And people get hung up on the mansion, that the more work that they do, then the bigger the mansion's gonna be when we get there. They missed the point.

Christ is the reward. Christ is the reward. I go to prepare a place, the place is in him. The place is in him. That's he is heaven. Somebody says, well, I'm going to the streets of gold walls, a Jasper gate of one pearl, all that. It's going to be beautiful. Gold's going to look like pavement because it's streets. It's not going to be, it's not gonna be valuable. Everything is focused on him. Everything's he is heaven. He is heaven. This was Paul's hope is that he would wake in the presence of the Lord, which brings us. To our first point, our confidence is not in our word, our confidence is in the Lord's word, in the Lord's word.

I can give you my word on something, but that may or may not come true, depending on if there's unforeseen circumstances. Now, I would do my very best to make sure to follow through with my word, but if I tell you I'm gonna meet you at five o'clock somewhere, you have my word, I'll be there, I may get there at 5.05 because of something I couldn't see. Unforeseen traffic, you know, you never know. Sometimes alarms don't go off. There's many, many things that can cause us to be distracted, to be prevented from doing something that we say we're going to do.

But when God says something, it can't be prevented. He doesn't get distracted. It can't be stopped. It can't be dictated or changed in any way. When God does something, it's finished. It's finished. He does it by his determinate counsel, according to his will, according to his purpose. This is who he is, and this is how he operates.

He's God. The word God's been thrown around so much that it kind of has lost, we've become desensitized to it's what's happened, really. But the awesomeness of our Lord, him being the one and only God, the only potentate King of Kings and Lord of Lords, he's God. He's God.

When you're giving someone, oh, well, first of all, there's three. So we have, we have confidence, not in the flesh, we have confidence in the word of God. Well, we have the written word of God. We have confidence in the written word. We have confidence in the physical word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have confidence in his spoken words, don't we? Our confidence is threefold. It's him, all about him.

That's our confidence, his written word, his spoken word and physically because he is the word of God. Now, when you give someone your word, you're giving them your covenant, you're giving them your promise, you're giving them your oath. When God made a covenant, it was sure because of the covenant maker. If you and I make a covenant, It may or may not come to pass what we say that we're going to do. And a good example of that is a false religion.

You have people that get rededicated. You got people that get rebaptized. You got people that re, um, I think Bobby and I were talking and I think ended up, she said something along the lines, the free will Baptist believe that you actually lose your salvation. So she had to get resaved. Um, Why am I saying all that?

Because that's their confidence. It's what they are doing. It makes it their confidence. We don't have confidence in ourself or what we do. And we don't have confidence in our covenant to God. That's what all that represents is a covenant to God. We have confidence in His covenant, His covenant.

He said, I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob are not consumed. I have loved you with an everlasting love. He told Israel, he said, whenever you pass through the fire, it won't take you. When you pass through the waters, it won't overthrow you.

He said, I'm the Lord. I redeemed you. I bought you. You're mine. This is our God. This is what he said. That's his word. I can have confidence in that. If our Lord, the God of this universe, the creator and sustainer of all life, He is life, the scripture tells us. If he says it, I can have confidence in that. I can have confidence in that.

Who can alter the Lord's purpose? His will, he's higher than the heavens. He's seated on the throne of eternity. None can stop him or contradict him. None can stay his hand. You know, he can't even be threatened. Think about it. Can't even be threatened. I mean, even if the devil wanted to threaten, he wouldn't do any good. He has all power. He can't be threatened. He can't be stopped. This is the God we believe in. This is the God we preach. The one that we have confidence in. The one that speaks and it happens. The one that speaks truth.

It's not just truth because he speaks it. It's truth. He speaks it. Well, it's not, I said it backwards. It's not just that he speaks truth. It's truth because he speaks it. That's what I'm trying to say. It's truth because he speaks it. Whatever proceeds out of his mouth is true. That's his name. Faithful and true. I can have confidence in that. His truth. I can have confidence knowing that everything that he ever said is perfect and right and good. because everything I've ever said has always been wrong and bad, sinful, because it came out of my lips, not him. Not him, in him is the word of life.

Remember the servant came to the Lord, said, my child's sick unto death, but you don't have to even come to the house, just speak the word, and it'll be made whole. And the Lord said, I've not seen this much faith in all of Israel. And he said, be it unto thee, as you want, as you wish. In that same hour, the child was made whole.

He just spoke the word. Isn't that amazing? He spoke to the wind and the wind obeyed. He spoke to the sea and the sea stopped moving. Have you ever been on, have you ever been in the ocean or a body of water in general and you see waves and winds at all? You can't control that. And yet man believes that he can control his eternal destiny.

I can't even will away a cold. How am I gonna will salvation? That'd be great, wouldn't it, if we could will away a cold? We wouldn't get sick. We'd be like, no, I'm just gonna will this away, so it just goes, no. Why? Because we're bound to our nature. Our nature's sinful. The sickness that we get is a result of a bacteria or a virus that we catch, and we can't control that.

But you know who does? God. He controls that. He's the one that spoke to the lame, said, get up and walk, and they walked. Spoke to the dumb, he said, speak, and they spoke. The deaf, he said, hear, and they heard. He opened the eyes of the blind with his word, with his word.

And his word says, call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. I can have confidence in that. I can have confidence in that. He doesn't just speak it because it's the truth. It's the truth because he speaks it. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. No man come to the father, but by him. Ezekiel chapter 12 says, for I am the Lord.

I will speak in the word that I shall speak, shall come to pass. I am the Lord. I shall speak in the word that I shall speak, shall come to pass. It shall be no more prolonged for in your days or rebellious house. Will I say the word and we'll perform it. Sayeth the Lord. You love that word shall. Now I can say, I shall do something. We don't use that word typically, or I will do something. I will do this. I will do that.

If God says it, it's going to happen. It's going to happen. And it will come to pass according to his will and purpose. It will happen when he wants it to happen, when he wills it to happen, according to his purpose. When can we ever say, this shall come to pass, period? If I'm going to do something, this shall come to pass. We're going to have, we're going to do this next Sunday. We're going to do this. This shall come to pass. And I guarantee it. Can I do that?

That's why James said, marvel not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and vanishes away. But right before that, he said, we ought not say tomorrow we're gonna do this or tomorrow we're gonna do that.

We should say if the Lord wills it, the Lord hath purposed it, then we will. See, we bow to his will, whether we want to or not. It's not an option. Every knee's gonna bow and every tongue is gonna confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Our confidence is His word. It's His word. We can say without a doubt that everything that He says will come to pass will come to pass. There's two things, I guess, that we can say shall come to pass. One's death. The other one's taxes. But taxes are still mutable because they're always giving us more taxes. So that's always changing. What we can say is gonna come to pass is it's appointed unto men once to dine after this judgment.

So what's my confidence? Confidence is in the Lord Jesus Christ. My confidence is in his word, his written word, his physical word, his spoken word. Everything around us may be mutable, but God, our God's immutable. He's immutable. 1 Timothy 6 says, which in his times he shall show who the blessed and only potentate is, King of kings and Lord of lords. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God. Scripture says Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. He changes not. I guess that could have been another point. What's our confidence? Our God can't change. Another one would be our God can't lie. I can trust his word because he cannot lie. It's impossible, scripture says, for God to lie.

Does that comfort you? If I'm telling you a story, I may put a little, I may sprinkle it with a little falseness to make it look better. Is that right? I may zhuzh it up a little bit and try to make it more palatable. If it's a bad story, I don't want to look bad. I might make myself look better.

God speaks nothing but the truth, the whole truth. The truth, nothing but the truth. That's it. That's what he speaks. He doesn't change the wording. He doesn't add to or take away. His word is truth. I can rest in his word. I can rest in his word. We are confident in His word, His purpose, His work, and His salvation, which brings us to our second point. I can be confident, and you can be confident, in His salvation, in His finished work, what He accomplished.

If salvation is dependent upon me in any way, shape, or form, I cannot be confident in that. But if the Lord's revealed unto me that the work is completely finished, I can be confident. in a salvation that was wrought by God and given freely by his grace to his people. Our confidence is not of this world, it's an eternal confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said this, if we had hope in this world only, we'd be of all men most miserable. Our confidence is in a salvation that is the result of an everlasting covenant, never had a beginning, never had an end.

It's the result of the Lord loving his people in eternity past, in eternity present, eternity future. forever and it can't change. Paul said it this way, who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ? So tribulations, shall famine, shall distress, shall peril. He names a bunch of things. He said, I'm persuaded that neither height nor depth nor any other creature, nothing is what he was saying. Nothing shall separate us from the love of God that's in Christ. Why? He's loved us and he always will love his people. That's something else I could have wrote down. His love doesn't change. I can be confident in his love. I can't be confident in my love. My love can be cold. My love can be selfish. Most loves are selfish, aren't they? But oh brethren, his love is perfect.

I can be confident in his love towards me. David said, I quoted this first hour, although it be not so with my house, yet the Lord hath made with me an everlasting covenant. I can be confident in that everlasting covenant. I only wrote down three points, but I've already named about six.

Because we have great confidence in our savior, don't we? And the more we delve into his word and hear about his gospel, the more confident we become in him and the less confident we become in ourself, don't we? Because what he does is he shows us exactly what we are. He shows us that we're wretched and vile and that we need a savior. Then he shows us the perfect salvation that he wrought all by himself, given to his people freely by grace.

We have confidence in his everlasting covenant that God would choose to save. He chose to save. That was his choice. Chose to save some of those vile sinners that I just mentioned. Chose to elect them to eternal life. He chose to predestinate them to be conformed to the image of his son.

You know what predestinate means? We use that word sometimes, but just if you break it down and you look at it, that means your destination has already been predetermined. Glory is already, you're there, predestinated. My destiny has already been accomplished. Everything's been purposed. It's been arranged. It's already taken care of.

If I'm the Lord's, then he predestinated me to be conformed to the image of his son. He gave that word. Who's gonna change that? The good news is, is you can't change it and I can't change it. That's the good news. Because I'd mess it up for both of us if I could.

But the Lord says no. No, it's salvations of the Lord. I could have confidence in his salvation. Our confidence is in his covenant. And as I said earlier, most religious people believe in the covenant that they've made with God, but the Lord told us clearly, you've made a covenant with death and with hell you're in agreement, but whenever the overwhelming scourge comes, he said, there won't be a hiding place.

I'll disannul your covenant. Your covenant will not stand. We need His covenant. I don't need to make better promises. I don't need to try a little bit harder. I don't need to clean up my life from my backsliding. I need the everlasting covenant. I need the Lord to say, fear not, I've put away your sin. You shall not die. I don't need to look at myself because the only hope I have is in His salvation, His finished work. Men, believe in their recompense or their penance.

Recompense is paying back what's owed, trying to pay off. Catholics do that a lot. They pay a lot of money in to try to get their family out of purgatory and things like that. What a terrible trick of Satan that is. They also penance is another one that's self punishment. People do that too. They have confidence in their self punishment. You know what, what was that that they just lent? Is that what they just did?

You can't eat any good food or something like that. I don't know. I didn't look into it too much. I'm not making fun of people. I'm just telling you that's what they're doing. They're, they're building a righteousness based upon themselves and then they can see it and they think that they're pleasing God and they're not. Can't be confident in that.

No, the Lord said there's one that pleases him, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not me that's gonna please him. If Christ didn't please God on my behalf, I will never have favor with God. But if he did, then he did everything necessary for the salvation of his people. He did everything God required for the salvation of his people.

I can have confidence in that. I can have confidence in that. We have hope in our, Salvation, we have hope in a covenant, not of our own design, not of our choosing, but of God. Another one is we have confidence in His power. Not my power, His will, not my will. And the last point I was going to make is that was that he's the author of salvation. But, and I've already pretty much said this, but he's also the finisher of salvation. So that's what we mean whenever we say alpha and omega, he's the beginning and the end. Meaning some people believe that they have to do the first thing in order to be saved.

You take the first step, God will take the rest. I've heard that many times in false churches. Um, But the problem with that is, is the Lord's not, you come to Christ by faith, not physically. Nobody's ever been saved by coming to an altar, I promise. And it's not in scripture. It's not in scripture. We don't come to an altar, we come to a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and you don't move a muscle. Forgot the point I was making now.

But he's the finisher of salvation. He's the author, Alpha and Omega, that was it. So as Alpha, he started it, he's the one that, In eternity past, before the world ever was, he chose to save the people. He's the start of salvation. And he's the finisher.

And that's important because if it's a finished work, I can have confidence in it. But if there's one thing left for me to do, I can't have confidence in it. Because what if I didn't do it good enough? What if I didn't, what if I did it wrong? What if I didn't do it exactly right? What if I did, what if I thought I was doing the right thing, but was really doing the wrong thing? There's too many gray areas that I don't need to, I don't need to work. No, I need to rest on the Sabbath as the father did, the scripture says. Enter into his rest. What's his rest?

The Sabbath, Jesus Christ. Why? Because he's the finisher, the finisher of salvation. He's the finisher of this great work. If God has all the power to save because he's the author and finisher, if he's the Alpha and Omega, what power do I have? None. I could have confidence in that. You have no control over your eternal destiny. Truth, Lord. because you're God, truth. And that doesn't make me angry a bit. Matter of fact, I love it that way. But usually you tell somebody that they have, they have no control over their salvation whatsoever.

That's the point. That's the time they usually end up leaving. That's when they get upset because you've taken everything away from them that they were holding in righteousness. They look at all their things that people that were looking at themselves is what I'm referring to.

But the Lord's people love the fact that we don't have control over it. I can't, I've been either, either I've been predestinated or I have it. By the way, the Lord purposes all things. Salvation is of the Lord. I could have confidence in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He chose to preserve some people. And we often make it sound like it's a small number, the elect, but that's not true.

He told Noah it's gonna be the stars of the heaven and the sands of the sea. What did, who was it? John said it was an innumerable number. No man can number it. That's a pretty, that's a lot of people. That's how, that's what's so glorious about this. He said it'd be every tribe, every nation, every kindred, every tongue. So it's not about anything about you and I, it's all about him. It's all about what he accomplished and it's an innumerable number.

I could have confidence in the mercy that our Lord showed in saving an innumerable number of people. I could have confidence in his election and his choice, him choosing to redeem. Because if I would have chose him, I would have just been talked into it by a man. I could be talked out of it by a man. But if he chose me and he chose you, I could have confidence in that because he don't change. He can't change. That choice is, he's never going to be, you know, people get divorces all the time.

We were talking about that a little bit earlier in the back. They choose a spouse. And they commit, that's a great example of the covenant that we make. They make a covenant saying, I'm going to love you for better, for worse, for richer, for poor, till death do us part.

Well, what does that mean to you and I? It means for better, for worse, things can get bad, for richer, for poor. I might be broke, sickness and in health. I might get sick. You don't know what the future holds. Till death do us part. Well, that's pretty cut and dry. Till death do us part. And yet, divorce rate's at an all-time high right now, isn't it? Why? Because men can't keep their covenants. I have no confidence in my covenant. I have confidence in His covenant. His covenant wherewith He chose a bride.

And He says, I'm going to redeem you. You're mine. And He did just that. We have confidence in what our precious Redeemer has said. and done by the sacrifice of himself, putting away the sin of his people." Whenever he said, it is finished. This could have been another point. When he said, it is finished, I can have confidence because he cannot lie.

It is finished. The work is done. The work is done. It is finished. What's finished? Everything that the Father entrusted Jesus Christ to do for the redemption of His elected people was finished on the cross of Calvary. There's nothing left to be done.

When He lived, we lived in Him. When He died, we died in Him. When He was buried, we were buried with Him. who were risen again, were now seated at the right hand of the Father in Him in the heavenlies. The bride has been presented to the Father and is seen as perfectly righteous. I can have confidence in that. You know why?

I didn't have anything to do with it. You know that story I tell sometimes, I bring it out every once in a while, where my wife was canning. I touched the lid. Didn't know you weren't supposed to touch the lid. I went around poking all of them. I thought I was really helping. I was like, these things ain't sealing right. Poke, poke, poke, poke. Not one of them sealed. She was mad. She was very frustrated with me that day.

But what an example of salvation. Don't touch it. No, it's already, you're sealed to the day of redemption. Don't touch it. Isn't that glorious? You're sealed. I can have confidence in the Lord sealing his people to the day of redemption. I got confidence in being kept by his power. I don't even keep myself. I'm kept by his power. Through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. It's his power. I can have confidence in his works, because I can't be confident in my works.

It's not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy. His mercy he saved us, not our works. He by himself purged the sin of his people. Our contribution, brethren, this is so important, our contribution to anything Christ has done makes it null and void for us. Do we see that? He will not accept sinful offering. And that's what we are by nature. But everything He offered the Father, the Father was satisfied with. And the Lord causes His people to look to Christ alone as all their wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

I can have confidence knowing He keeps me. I don't keep myself. I can have confidence knowing that He will keep me if I'm His all the way to the very end. On my dying, on my deathbed, my dying last breath, I have confidence that He can keep me all the way to the end. I have confidence he could receive me up into glory. That was Paul's confidence. This gospel that we've been speaking of and knowing that if he was to die right then he would awake in the presence of God because of what thus saith the Lord.

Do you know the blessing that we have that we forget so many times? In laying our head on our pillow at night, having a finished salvation to be confident in. To be confident in a savior. We don't think to remember that. I don't think to remember that all the time, We rejoice when we hear it, don't we? But what a glorious gift we have been given in this great salvation, our Lord Raalt, to have peace with God. Peace with God.

I deserve eternal darkness. I deserve eternal, I deserve hell. I deserve to be cast for eternity. And yet God committed his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I can have confidence in him. We can have confidence that it's finished, and that we will be experiencing his glory one day after a while. We're in him. His perfect work accomplished all of this, so we can have confidence in that.

What Paul is saying, what Paul is desiring, brethren, that's all of our desire, because that's all of our confidence. that we might be with him, that we might see him face to face. But we say with Paul, it's more needful for us to be with you for the furtherance of the gospel. And that's, uh, we look to the Lord for his time one day, very soon, very soon, whether by way of the grave or by trumpet, Lord's going to receive his people. Let's pray.

Father, we can be confident knowing that you are gonna come back for your people and you're gonna call us to you one day. We can be confident because you said so. Thank you for letting us be confident in your word. Thank you for letting us be confident in who you are. Thank you for letting us be confident, causing us to be confident in you being that alpha and omega, the altar and finisher. Bless this to our understanding, Father, in Christ's name, amen. Let's turn to number two.