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So Robert is asking, is confidence a very attractive factor of a Christian?
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This is a good question and actually a lot of people.
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Should themselves study.
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This and hear it because we often in society see superheroes, right, and people in the media as being confident and they look charismatic and we are drawn to that.
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We think, oh, this person is really confident.
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That must be because they are an.
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Expert, they know what they are doing.
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They are accomplished, whatever, or they have a plan and know it’s going to succeed.
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But the Bible is much less favorable to confidence.
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There is a good confidence that we’ll.
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Talk about, but there’s also usually bad confidence.
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I think Samson, right, he was very.
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Confident in his own strength and his own savvy and did that work out well for him?
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And then there’s story, for example of King Ahab, very wicked king.
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And even up to the last moment.
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God was telling him, hey, if you go into this battle you’re going to die.
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He was like through you, I’m not.
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Going to listen to that.
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And off he went and was killed, just as God had predicted. And the disciple Peter is very known.
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For being kind of confident and speaking.
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Before thinking and putting his foot in his mouth. So it’s very common in the Bible.
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Lots of confident people and it rarely.
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Ever goes well for them.
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And let’s see, it’s interesting. In even the Old Testament there’s a very interesting contrast between a very confident.
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Person and a very humble person. And this is the Pharaoh versus Moses.
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And in Exodus ten three we see it said this is Moses speaking.
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It says Moses.
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And Aaron came to Pharaoh and said to him, thus says the Lord God.
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Of the Hebrews, how long will you.
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Refuse to humble yourself before me?
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Let my people go that they may serve me.
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And we know the story, right?
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Plague after plague after plague.
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The Pharaoh ignores what’s going on. He thinks, I can outsmart this. My gods or me personally is stronger than this Jehovah.
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And that confidence ultimately leads to his demise.
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But then we flash forward to numbers twelve three.
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It says now the man Moses. Numbers twelve three. Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the mean. I love mean.
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If we talk about superheroes, right, the.
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Smartest person in the Bible was Solomon and then the strongest was Samson.
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What was Moses’superpower? We’re told here that Moses was the.
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Most humble person who ever lived.
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He’s also known as one of the greatest prophets, right? He was leading God’s people through the.
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Plagues, through with Sinai, across the rivers.
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All these things, amazing things, but he.
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Didn’T let it go to his head. He stayed humble through all of it.
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Was he always panicky and concerned and worried about what was going to happen? No, he always had a type of confidence, the right type of confidence, but it wasn’t confidence in himself. In fact, God got angry at him when he appeared to Moses at the bush because Moses was saying, god, I have a lisp, I can’t talk right, I’m not good at public speaking, I can’t do all these things. Go find somebody else to work for you. And God says, no, Moses, you’re the man I want. And there’s of course lots of Proverbs warning against things like confidence. We see proverbs 1416. It says, a wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages.
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And is self confident. Proverbs 1618.
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It says, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. That’s a very famous one. A lot of people might not know.
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That’S even in the Bible. There’s also a special type of sin called presumption.
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It’s a complicated sin for a lot of people to figure out, but that’s.
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Basically I use the example where you.
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Are at a street, let’s say, and you tell yourself, god says he’s going to protect me. So I’m just going to close my eyes and I’m going to run out.
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Into the middle of the street without looking both ways. That would be presumption because you are.
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Putting yourself in harm in a situation that God has never promised he would protect you from.
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God will protect you from the sins.
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Of others, will protect you from things that are outside your control. But God isn’t going to protect you.
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From doing something foolish like mean he.
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Might still, but that is presumption. That is a sin that is testing.
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God, which we’re told is a sin.
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Then we come to Lucifer, for example, who was the most confident, the most.
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Proud of all, right?
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And Isaiah 14, starting at verse twelve.
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It says how you have fallen, fallen.
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Verse 13, it says, for you have.
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Said in your heart I will ascend to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation, on the furthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.
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I will be like the most high. I mean, it goes on and on, right? Do we see any humbleness there?
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Do we see any concern?
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No.
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I mean, it’s just like loss of.
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Confidence there mixed with pride.
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And in terms of science, it’s actually a thing that people are studying and.
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It’S called the Dunning Cougar effect.
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And it turns out that people, for example, when it comes to knowledge, skills.
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Things like that, if they know nothing.
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On the topic, they recognize that, they realize, I don’t know much, there’s no confidence. But what happens is if people get fed even just a little bit of.
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Information, they spend just a little bit of time learning something, they can get.
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Lots of confidence real fast, even though.
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They still barely know the subject. It’s a well recognized phenomena.
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And it’s very important that we always.
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Stay humble and not fall victim to the Dunning Kruger effect. So let’s end with a verse I think is spot on.
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It sums up the issues.
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It’s Habakkuk two four, Habakkuk two, verse four.
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It says, behold the proud.
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His soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith.
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This is very famous verse where we.
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Get the just shall live by faith.
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And the person who lives by faith is being contrasted with the proud.
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So there’s a difference then between pride and confidence in having faith. Faith is what we are supposed to have, what we are told by the Bible. We need to live according to. And where do we place our faith? Is it in ourselves? Is it in others? Or is it in God? And if you say God, it is.
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And before I go a little further, I see robert, we have some comments from you said like I know pride is a bad thing, but I’ve always.
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Thought that there was a bad pride and a good pride. I know Paul a couple times uses.
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The word pride very loosely, but it’s.
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Kind of tongue in know you could have pride in Christ in a like.
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But usually I just say steer a.
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Little clear of those things. It’s faith.
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You’re living in faith.
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The faith is confidence that you are.
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In good hands, that God loves you, that he is always going to be there for you, that God fulfills his.
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Promises that we have and that we can confidently go to God.
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Hebrews 416 let us therefore come boldly.
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To the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace. So in that sense, yes, God wants us to be confident and go to Him.
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And we have ephesians 311 says according to the eternal purposes which he accomplished in Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom.
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We have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.
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So whatever we have, if it’s confidence.
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If it’s faith, and if it’s a.
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Good type of pride, if that thing.
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Exists, it all comes in sources from Christ and is not within us.
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It is how Christ is working through.
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Us and what Christ is giving us and doing for us and promises to be there. And so we can have confidence.
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He will always be faithful, he will always be there, he will always deliver.
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That we’re going to be fine if.
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We’Re in his hands and we don’t.
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Need to worry, we don’t have to.
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Be there for ourselves, we don’t have.
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To at all think about what we’re capable of.
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We just have to keep our mindset.
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On what he is capable of. So I hope that is helpful there.
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And he has another question there is, is there a degree from confidence to being prideful? Some people say it’s a good thing and this is a different Robert that’s.
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Some of the other questions.
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Okay, interesting.
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So I do have another question. Yeah. Can you break down pride? Is there a degree from confidence to being tribal? Yeah.
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This is where I think the difference.
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Between good confidence and pride is going to be living by faith, which is actually dependence on God and trusting in his promises and not thinking about what you can do, but what God can do.
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