Confidence in God Amidst Cultural Chaos

In these times, we can find ourselves feeling a certain uncertainty. We can even sense we're in a chaotic moment, and the question is, how do we respond? How do we live in this moment that we find ourselves in? And so I wanted to make it very clear from the title that this is a time for confidence. This is not a time to compromise. Certainly, it's not a time to cower and just simply go off in a cave somewhere and hide out, but this moment calls us to be bold, calls us to be courageous. [00:02:16]

If we just have our current horizon, right, if we're just seeing what's in front of us, we're just seeing what we watch on the news, we could be discouraged. We could feel defeated even, and we can even wonder what is God doing in this moment. And if we take this off of a level of culture and just put it on a level of an individual, so you're dealing with some tragedy in your life or you're dealing with some piece of suffering that comes into your life or even just something that's confusing to you, it's very easy to get discouraged at those times. [00:08:07]

We need to focus on God. We need not be turned aside or turned upside down by the present horizon. We need to focus on God. I think the second thing, and this ties into these attacks we were talking about, the attack on scripture from the sciences or social is we sometimes can sort of, we never come out and say it, oh, the Bible is no longer authoritative, but we might begin to doubt its authority. We might begin to wonder, is it sufficient for life in the 21st century? [00:09:14]

We must put our confidence in God. He alone is the only one worthy of our confidence and our trust, and he is a faithful promise-keeping God. To help correct those sort of that misplaced confidence, when you outline this book, you touch on five areas or five things we should be putting our confidence in, the first one being God. Just before I get to you explicitly calling out the other four that you write about, I'm just wondering for Christians out there that wouldn't call themselves reformed Christians that don't have a robust understanding of God and his sovereignty. [00:23:08]

We need a robust, full picture of who God is. This is exactly what Isaiah does, and when Isaiah says, behold your God, then Isaiah says, and you know what, the nations are a drop in the bucket. Now, how huge was Babylon, and not only is it a bucket, it's a drop in the bucket, right? The gulf between us and God in his true biblical character is infinite. It's truly infinite, and so that's the object of our confidence. [00:26:28]

In these times of cultural change, it's not just the temptation to cower, it's also the temptation to compromise, and we begin to say, well, maybe God's word is not so authoritative, right? And that's where we have to recognize, first of all, the Bible is God's word, and because it's his word, it's true. You know, the debate that Dr. Sproul was involved in back in the 70s was the inherency debate, and he led the team of scholars that produced the Chicago statement on inherency. [00:28:01]

We have to reflect on this. You know, it's very easy to not only be overtly affected by our times, and we see this, we see evangelicals left and right saying, oh, we need to think differently about same-sex relationships because of the moment in which we live. Do you know what they're saying at that point? What they're saying is we know better than the Bible, and now the Bible submits to our collective wisdom. That's effectively what's being said at that point. [00:29:34]

We have confidence in Christ and who Christ is, and this is kind of interesting too, Nathan. You know, Paul says that I may know Christ, the power of his resurrection. Now, that's a place for confidence, but there's before that he says the fellowship of his sufferings. So even in our sufferings, we know that we can have confidence because, as Hebrews says again and again, our sympathetic high priest. So there's reason for confidence in Christ both in terms of the fellowship of his sufferings and the power of his resurrection. [00:30:34]

We frequently need that kind of surge to soar like an eagle. We occasionally need that sort of power to run, but we constantly need the ability to walk. That's the mundane, and so the order is exactly right. So we don't end on a low note. This isn't some anticlimactic walk and not faint. That is the high note, that in the ordinary, in the mundane, God is a... I pass that along. [00:47:54]

We are helpless, and we are hopeless, and we are in the enemy's camp, and along comes Christ, right, and he rescues us, and he gives us back our identity. She had her identity. She lost her identity, and they gave it back to her in that symbol of giving her the American flag. We had our identity in the garden. We lost it, and Christ gave it back to us and restored us to be God's children. It's a beautiful picture, I think, of the gospel. [00:43:49]

We need to endure. The second thing I would say, and I find this really fascinating, I always have in Isaiah chapter 40, if I were writing Isaiah chapter 40 at the very end, I'd reverse the order, you know, but it says, mount up with wings of eagles. That's super cool. That's, you know, we have eagles here in Florida, and I watch them every once in a while out my window, and they're amazing how they can soar. Who doesn't want to do that? [00:46:56]

We have Eagles here in Florida, and I watch them every once in a while out my window, and they're amazing how they can soar. Who doesn't want to do that? Then the author says we will run, right? Okay, it's exciting, not as exciting as soaring with eagles, but running, and then he ends with we walk and not faint. Now, let's just be honest, it's a little boring. How mundane is walking, right? But you could look at it this way. [00:47:41]