WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.880 Let me ask you a question. What would it take for you to have confidence in somebody? 00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:25.240 A 21-year-old music student got on board the cheapest ship she could find that was calling 00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:33.579 at as many different countries as she could possibly find. And she got on board this ship 00:00:33.579 --> 00:00:39.519 with a sense of confidence and conviction that God had told her to do just that. And 00:00:39.519 --> 00:00:46.659 when she got on board the ship, she simply prayed, God, tell me when we get to whatever 00:00:46.659 --> 00:00:56.099 port it is that you want me to disembark. With confidence she got on board that ship and 00:00:56.099 --> 00:01:04.659 with confidence she prayed that prayer until eventually she disembarked in Hong Kong and 00:01:04.659 --> 00:01:11.319 made her way to a place called the Walled City, a place basically controlled by gangs. 00:01:11.319 --> 00:01:23.959 And so it was that for over half a century, this woman lived, made her home with and served 00:01:23.959 --> 00:01:31.780 Christ in that place that was overrun by gang warfare, drugs and crime. 00:01:31.780 --> 00:01:35.519 She wrote this. 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:47.040 I loved this dark place. I hated what was happening in it, but I wanted to be nowhere else. 00:01:48.420 --> 00:01:56.340 It was almost as if I could already see another city in its place, and that city was ablaze with 00:01:56.340 --> 00:02:07.880 a light. It was my dream. There was no more crying, no more death or pain. The sick were healed. 00:02:09.780 --> 00:02:18.819 Addicts set free. The hungry filled. There were families for orphans, homes for the homeless, 00:02:18.819 --> 00:02:22.560 and new dignity for the homeless, and new dignity for those who lived in shame. 00:02:24.079 --> 00:02:31.319 I've no idea of how to bring this about, but with visionary zeal imagined introducing the 00:02:31.319 --> 00:02:37.979 walled city people to the one who could change it all. Jesus. 00:02:40.780 --> 00:02:47.319 So it was with confidence that this woman served in that place for such a long time. 00:02:47.319 --> 00:02:55.759 This woman's name, by the way, was Jackie Pullinger. And she famously said this. 00:02:57.259 --> 00:03:05.019 God wants us to have softened hearts and toughened feet. 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:15.340 The problem is, is that too often it's the other way around and we have hardened hearts and 00:03:15.340 --> 00:03:22.860 softened feet. But confidence in God is something mysteriously that can get hold of a person and 00:03:22.860 --> 00:03:28.140 send that person into those places of situations where it's dangerous, it's tough, it's not where 00:03:28.140 --> 00:03:35.640 we want to be. And yet it can melt the heart that would otherwise become cynical and harden 00:03:35.640 --> 00:03:40.539 those feet so that we dare to go into those places. Not staying where we're comfortable, 00:03:40.539 --> 00:03:50.359 but daring to go into those places where resilience is needed. Soften hearts and hardened feet. 00:03:51.939 --> 00:03:53.759 That's what confidence does. 00:03:55.859 --> 00:04:01.079 So let me ask you the question again, what is it that would give you confidence in someone? 00:04:01.719 --> 00:04:05.459 We're starting a series this week, which we're running right through the autumn here, 00:04:05.460 --> 00:04:11.760 looking at precisely that question. What does it mean to have confidence in Jesus Christ? 00:04:15.060 --> 00:04:20.600 And in our reading today, we see Jesus right at the end of Matthew's account of the life 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:25.860 of Jesus. Jesus has been raised from the dead. And before he returns to his Father in heaven, 00:04:25.939 --> 00:04:28.680 he sends his disciples out. It's called the Great Commission. 00:04:28.680 --> 00:04:37.519 And in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus is presented as the one who gives his disciples confidence. He says, 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:43.620 I want you to go and I want you to make disciples. Notice he doesn't say just go off and convert people. 00:04:45.100 --> 00:04:53.639 He says, I want you to make disciples in all nations, baptising them, teaching them everything 00:04:53.639 --> 00:05:03.439 that I've taught you. He says this, remember, I am with you always. 00:05:06.219 --> 00:05:14.180 That is vital to what Christian confidence is about, that Christ is with us always. We might not be conscious 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:19.500 of it at all times. We can't see him. We can't reach out and touch him. But that is at the heart of our 00:05:19.500 --> 00:05:26.899 Christian convictions and the basis of our confidence that Christ is there. He is with you. 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:33.339 It's interesting that it comes right at the end of Matthew's telling of the story of Jesus, 00:05:33.339 --> 00:05:42.620 because it also begins Matthew's Gospel right in the early part of Matthew's Gospel, where we see 00:05:42.620 --> 00:05:52.920 the angel visits Joseph and tells Joseph that the baby Jesus is going to be born. And Joseph is told 00:05:52.920 --> 00:06:02.040 that Jesus will be Emmanuel, which points us back to Old Testament prophecy. Emmanuel means God with us. 00:06:02.939 --> 00:06:09.759 And so Matthew's Gospel begins and ends with that statement that God in Jesus is with us. But of course, 00:06:09.759 --> 00:06:14.879 at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, before Jesus is even born, nobody has any idea what that 00:06:14.879 --> 00:06:21.079 means, what it looks like. It's only when we get to the end of Matthew's Gospel, in the reading that we 00:06:21.079 --> 00:06:28.000 had this morning, when Jesus has lived his life on earth, that then people know what that means, 00:06:28.099 --> 00:06:37.920 what that looks like, because they've seen what Jesus did, that he went to the cross. And that is what 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:44.439 it means when we know that we can be confident in God because he is with us, because he has shown us 00:06:44.439 --> 00:06:53.780 in Jesus what it means for him to be with us. He goes with us and goes ahead of us to those places 00:06:53.780 --> 00:07:02.200 we haven't been yet, even death. It's impossible to sum up in a few words what the death of Jesus means. 00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:07.599 It's perplexed theologians for centuries. And until we get to eternity, we will never, 00:07:07.719 --> 00:07:11.259 ever really be able to get our minds around this. 00:07:13.459 --> 00:07:20.599 But I think the best that I can kind of come up with my own human understanding is that although 00:07:20.599 --> 00:07:26.519 I don't pretend to understand exactly what the cross of Jesus means and why he died for us, 00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:33.479 for me, what I see in the death of Jesus and when I'm told that God is in that death, is that I see 00:07:33.479 --> 00:07:42.339 the God who knows what it is to die. The God who created us and gives us life has actually gone to 00:07:42.339 --> 00:07:49.259 the point of death himself. So that when Jesus dies on the cross, it is God's way of saying to us, 00:07:49.259 --> 00:07:57.860 you're not on your own. I've been even to the point of death and being buried and come out the 00:07:57.860 --> 00:08:04.300 other side. And you can look at that and therefore know that there is nothing, nothing in this life 00:08:04.300 --> 00:08:13.439 that you can face that you face without me. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15, that the sting of death, 00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:20.379 the sting of death has been removed. We still face challenges, we still face the reality of dying 00:08:20.379 --> 00:08:27.639 and indeed death, but somehow death is strangely not the same because its sting has been removed 00:08:27.639 --> 00:08:33.299 in Jesus. That is the God who is with us and that is the God in whom we can have confidence. 00:08:35.220 --> 00:08:42.200 Years ago, the evangelist, the late David Watson, told the story of how one day he looked out in the 00:08:42.200 --> 00:08:50.000 garden, saw his daughter who was in a panic. She was panicking because there was a bee buzzing around 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:58.000 her. She was frightened. And so he ran out to her, wrapped his arms around her. And after a few 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:08.980 moments, his daughter felt her father go stiff and then relaxed. And then he released her and he said, 00:09:08.980 --> 00:09:14.639 it's okay now darling, you don't need to worry. I've just been stung by the bee. 00:09:18.039 --> 00:09:26.100 And yet, apparently she still didn't seem that reassured by that. And I wonder if what we have 00:09:26.100 --> 00:09:31.639 there is something of a picture of what we can be like. We hear the story of Jesus, we read in 00:09:31.639 --> 00:09:40.679 Paul, that the sting of death has been removed and yet somehow we find it hard to lay hold of confidence 00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:52.799 in that. The Christian gospel says, God is with you. Look at Jesus and see that story that death was not 00:09:52.799 --> 00:10:00.759 the end. But it's been raised. Yes, we still face the reality of dying and death, but its sting has been removed. 00:10:02.599 --> 00:10:10.299 Now as David Watson looked at his little girl, and she still didn't seem reassured by the fact that he 00:10:10.299 --> 00:10:19.519 had just taken the sting, he said to her, you really don't need to worry. Bees don't sting twice. 00:10:26.059 --> 00:10:35.779 That is the God we see in Jesus Christ. This is the God who is with us. 00:10:35.779 --> 00:10:45.679 This is the God who can give us and wants us to have softened hearts and hardened feet. 00:10:47.699 --> 00:10:51.559 This is the God in whom we can have confidence. 00:10:54.360 --> 00:10:56.000 So let's pray together now. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:07.340 And as we come in prayer now, let's know that however lacking in confidence we might feel, 00:11:08.179 --> 00:11:14.519 however much we might be looking at our own lives right now and mindful of all the different 00:11:14.519 --> 00:11:25.980 challenges that we face, let's ask God to just remind us afresh and to fill us afresh 00:11:25.980 --> 00:11:29.580 with that sense of confidence in him. 00:11:32.860 --> 00:11:41.259 Lord God, we so often find it hard to trust in you and to lay hold of that confidence that you want us to have. 00:11:43.800 --> 00:11:51.600 Forgive us for when we have hardened, cynical hearts and softened feet that would keep us in a place of comfort. 00:11:51.600 --> 00:12:03.740 Help us instead to have those softened hearts that never give up trusting in you and seeking to reach out to others for you. 00:12:05.040 --> 00:12:13.779 And give us hardened feet that we may be resilient and strong, not in our own strength, but in simple trust in you. 00:12:13.779 --> 00:12:23.379 Lord, whatever we may be facing right now, whatever challenges and problems we've got going on in our lives, 00:12:23.799 --> 00:12:29.399 whatever things may be keeping us awake at night, whatever that might be, 00:12:31.299 --> 00:12:40.600 help us in the midst of it to rediscover that mysterious but very real confidence that can be had in you. 00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:44.440 Help us to know that now. 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:48.240 Help us to know that each day. 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:51.500 In Jesus' name. 00:12:53.460 --> 00:12:53.899 Amen.