[0:00] Well, as I said to the children in our morning services, we are working our way through the short letters that are found in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, written to seven churches across locations in Asia Minor, or what we would call Turkey, today. This week we have come to the sixth letter, which is written to the church in Philadelphia. You can see the rough locations of the different churches there. John, who was exiled on the island of Patmos, starts in Ephesus and he works his way round clockwise. So we are nearly at the end, we have come to the church in Philadelphia. These letters are fascinating because they reveal the kind of struggles and difficulties that the early Christians were facing. But they are also wonderful for us today because they still teach lessons that are immensely relevant for us all. Throughout the series we have been saying that there are some important things to remember as we approach these letters. The first is that it is important to remember that these letters are written primarily to believers, they are to Christians. We know that from chapter 1, where we see that the book is written to those who Jesus loves and who he has freed from their sins. So it is written to believers.
[1:24] But it is also written to believers who are facing opposition. A big part of that opposition was persecution from the Roman Empire, all to do with the imperial cult, which we have been talking about, the fact that the Roman Emperor was expecting people in the Empire to worship him. Of course Christians couldn't do that. So it is written to believers who were facing opposition. So that means that these believers who were facing opposition were desperately in need of encouragement. And if there is one word that you have in your mind when you think of the bigger revelation, it is that one that I want you to have, the word encouragement. This letter is written to encourage Christians. Our series is called Getting the Basics Right. We are using that title because we are using each letter to highlight what we need to recognise as some of the key basics of being a disciple of Jesus.
[2:24] And I wanted to spend just a couple of minutes recapping what we have learned so far. We started by saying that we have got to get our first love right. That is what ethicists taught us. Love for God and for one another are the two most basic, two most important basics of all. And without them we are wasting our time. The letter to Smyrna told us that we need to get our attitude to suffering right. We must never think that following Jesus is just a guaranteed bed of roses and that it is always going to be easy. That is not true at all. And the Bible never gives that impression. The Bible is absolutely honest.
[2:59] The trials are going to come for us all as Christians. But the key issue is not whether or not we face challenges. The key issue is how we respond when we inevitably do. Because we are going to. And the key question is what is our attitude going to be when suffering does arise. And it is a great reminder that as we follow Jesus we do not need to be afraid.
[3:22] Or perhaps it is maybe better to think about the fact that we do not need to panic when things go wrong. Jesus is reminding these believers that if something rubbish happens they don't need to panic. And that is such an important basic. If you have a rubbish week this week which somebody in here is inevitably going to have. It does not mean for a second that your world is about to fall apart. Jesus knows your circumstances. You can lean on him at every moment. Pergamum taught us that we need to get our relationship with society right. So Pergamum was a Christian community in a very un-Christian city. And in that kind of circumstance it can be so tempting to hide. Either by locking ourselves away or just by blending in and being like everybody else. The letter reminded us that neither of those options honour God. He has placed the believers in Pergamum and he has placed us as believers here in an increasingly un-Christian society. And it is a basic that we have got to live in that society. And that as we do so we must be visible and clear as
[4:32] Jesus's followers. We do not want to deny him. We do not want to hide the fact that we follow him. We want to be seen. And one of the best ways to do that is to stay within the moral boundaries that Jesus gives us. We have got to get our relationship with society right. Thyatide, I told us that we have got to get our perspective on life right. And again that is so important. As Christians it is a fundamental basic that we take each day at a time and we live every day in light of eternity. Each day at a time every day in light of eternity. The two always go hand in hand. It is reminding us that today is the day we have got. This week is the week that we are going to live. What is in the past is in the past. What is way ahead. We do not know what that is going to bring. But we have got this week and we can live that week for him. We can serve and honour him.
[5:26] We want to make the most of it. But at the same time as we live today and as we live this week we are living it in the light of that day. The day when Jesus returns and when he calls every injustice to account and he brings us into his amazing new creation. And it is amazing. This is one of the many things that is amazing about being a Christian. It is reminding us that we can make the most of every single moment that we have and yet at the same time we know that we have got so much more to live for than just the moment.
[6:00] And then Sardis told us that we have got to get our pace right. That was in many ways a bit like when you are running or playing football you have got to get your pace right and not push too hard, not push too slow. It is reminding us that following Jesus is a marathon, not a sprint. We need to keep going every day. And it is a basic that as we do that we have to keep looking to Jesus, keep relying on him, keep following him. And it is a brilliant reminder that no one is expected to be a super Christian. No one is expected to be able to do everything because we can't be sprinting at 100 miles an hour all the way through our Christian's lives. No one can do that. But at the same time we have got to be very careful that we are not just sleeping our way through our Christian lives. We don't want our pace to be so fast that we are trying to just be something that we can't be but at the same time we don't want our pace to be so slow that we are just drifting along aimlessly. Christian discipleship is always a forward moving path, always following
[7:02] Jesus. And that is why every week when we come together to worship a brilliant question to ask yourself is what is the next step for me? What is the next step for me? Now the next step for you might be becoming a Christian and if it is just do it, please take that step. But you might have been a Christian for 50 years but there is still a next step to take because we are constantly moving forward following Jesus and serving him. These are some of the basics of life as a Christian. And for all of us as disciples of Jesus this is what we need to keep coming back to. And for anyone who is not yet a Christian or not sure where you stand this is what following Jesus is all about. And I guess it is up to you whether you take it or leave it. Today we come to the letter to Philadelphia and our title is Getting a Confidence Right. And so we can read again verses 7 and 8. To the angel of the church in Philadelphia, right, the words of the Holy One, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens,
[8:09] I know your works, behold I have set before you an open door which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power and yet you've kept my word, you've not denied my name. Confidence is a fascinating topic for us to think about. It's massively important because your confidence can be hugely influential in terms of your decision making. And that applies to big decisions. So our confidence can hugely determine whether or not we apply for a job, whether or not we leave home, whether we ask out a girl that we really like. Confidence though also affects the tiny decisions that we have to make. So what clothes you wear in the morning, your confidence can affect whether you choose to wear, whether or not you answer the phone, you might see a phone, you think unknown number, don't think I'll answer it, or whether you invite someone to your house for dinner or a coffee. These seem like tiny decisions but your confidence can make a huge difference as to whether or not you actually do them. Confidence is a massive factor in how we live our lives. And this is one of these areas where our thinking can often be binary or black and white as we might say, in the sense that we tend to think well some people are confident and some people aren't confident. You've got the confident people in life and you've got the unconfident people in life. And most of us probably put ourselves in this category as they're not very confident and we look at others and think oh they're way more confident than I am. But we should surely know by now that black and white binary categories are very rare in life.
[9:49] Because the truth is when it comes to confidence, it's not really the case that there's some people who are confident and some people who are not confident. The truth is we're all a mixture whereby there's some aspects of our lives where we're confident and there's some where we're not. So you might be really confident at maths and not very confident at spelling. You might be a really confident swimmer but you might be not confident at all about going on a plane. Sometimes people are confident in public speaking but they're not confident talking one to one. Other people are the other way around. Some people are confident at work. You know so they'll go to work and they'll deal with people and they feel quite confident. But when it comes to being at home, they don't feel so confident.
[10:37] They don't really want to invite anyone round or have people in their homes because they don't feel confident in that setting. Some people are confident at driving but they're not confident at using a computer. Loads of different ways. And confidence doesn't necessarily correspond to ability. And perhaps the best example of that is bagpipes. Because often the very best bagpipes won't play in front of anyone. They're just very shy even though they're outstanding. They don't want to be heard. And then you can also have the opposite problem where you have got people who are very willing to play but their confidence is not necessarily matched by their ability. And it's also true that confidence can easily be misread. So you can look at someone and you can conclude that they're confident but you can actually be misreading the situation. So a good example of that is me. Because I talk a lot. Everyone who knows me here will know that I love to talk. Talking is just something that I do a lot. And you might think well that makes Thomas look very confident.
[11:45] But one of the big reasons why I talk a lot is that I absolutely hate silence. And I don't have the confidence to just shut up. Social media is another great example of that. Sometimes you can see people who are super active on social media. Photos everywhere, videos, this that the next thing. Constantly on it. And you look at them and you think oh man they seem so confident. But it's always good to ask yourself you know if someone's putting up loads of posts, if someone is working really hard to draw attention to themselves, is that because they're confident or is it because they're insecure? Sometimes one of the strongest marks of confidence is to be quite happy to stay in the background. Key point is that we're all different. We're all going to have different areas where we're confident, different areas where we're insecure. That's perfectly normal. But in terms of our discipleship as followers of Jesus, there are some basic areas of confidence that we get and that we should have because of our relationship with Jesus. Some key areas of confidence that following
[12:59] Jesus gives us. And I want to highlight four of these and they come up one after the other in the letter to the church at Philadelphia. So number one, we can have confidence in Jesus' authority. We can have confidence in Jesus' authority. We've been saying that all of the letters begin by telling us something amazing about Jesus. In this letter we're told that these are the words of the Holy One, the true One, the one who has the keys of, the key of David who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. Now these words tell us some amazing things about Jesus. They emphasize how unique he is. That's highlighted by the word holy. When you see the word holy or the holy one, what should come to your mind is the idea of being set apart. That's what holiness refers to. And it's telling us that Jesus is in a category of his own. He's utterly unique. But holiness also speaks of purity, which is reinforced by the fact that he's the true one. He's the holy one. He's the true one. He alone is king. There's no other true king. And as king, he is morally pure. There's nothing false or deceitful about Jesus. So he's holy. He's set apart. He's true. He's unique. He's pure. And as the holy and true one, he has the keys of David. Now what does the keys of David mean? What's that, or the key of David? What's that referring to? Well, it seems to be an allusion to Isaiah 22, which I put on the screen where it says, in that day I'll call my servant, Eliachim the son of Hilkiah, and
[14:43] I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open and none shall shut and he shall shut and none shall open. Now those words in Isaiah were written at a time when Jerusalem was surrounded by enemies. The Assyrians had come and had laid siege to Jerusalem. And when a massive army came round the city, it usually meant one thing. You're finished. And so Jerusalem was under huge threat at this time. And if you think about being in that position, you're in the city. There's a wall around the city. There's a gate on that city and that gate has got to stay shut. Because if the enemy opens that gate, you are finished. And on the face of things, Jerusalem looked helpless. But part of Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 22 is to reassure Jerusalem that you might be surrounded, but they are not, these enemies are not going to conquer the city. They're not going to open the gate. They're not going to get in. And that's exactly what happened. The Assyrians who were surrounding them departed before they came into the city. And Jesus picks up that language in this letter and he applies it to himself. And he's doing so to show the believer in Philadelphia that no matter what is going on around them, Jesus is the one who's in charge. He's the one who has authority. He's the one who opens. No one's going to shut it. He's the one who shuts. No one's going to open. He is emphasizing his authority.
[16:18] And all of that combines to show us how utterly brilliant Jesus is. He's holy. So he's set apart from all the corrupt, power hungry rulers that the world has seen, whether in the first century or today. He's true. That means he's impeccably trustworthy and he has authority.
[16:39] And that's reminding us that the person who's in charge of every square inch of this universe is utterly good to his very core. And that should give us massive confidence. And this is very important for us as disciples today because very often we can feel a sense of fear or maybe even panic when we think that Jesus is under threat. So as Christianity becomes more marginalised in society, when you see schools pushing a kind of anti-Christian agenda, when Christian morality is seen as odd or even oppressive, that kind of thing can easily make us panic. And we think, you know, the Christian church is on the brink of disaster.
[17:31] Everything's about to fall apart. And we're just in days of doom and gloom for the gospel. It's so easy to think like that. But is that true? Is Christianity in Scotland finished?
[17:45] Are we done for with the way everything seems to be going? Well, it's easy to feel like that. But verse seven in Revelation three is telling us that panicking about Jesus's authority is probably the most ridiculous thing that we can ever do as Christians. There is never a single second when you cannot have the fullest confidence that Jesus is in charge.
[18:22] So supposing tomorrow morning the government announced that the name of Jesus must never be mentioned in our schools again. How should you react to that? What should our response be? Well, at one level, we could and we should lament because we want every single part of our society to be leavened by the gospel. We want Jesus to be included everywhere. So if that was to happen, we would lament and be sort of full and rightly so. But at another level, I think the most accurate theological response to any government's opposition to Christianity is in two words. Big deal. Because if you think for a second that a government can stop Jesus, then your basics are totally wrong. Nothing, no one can challenge Jesus's authority. Nothing and no one can shut a door that Jesus has opened or open one that he has shut. His authority is absolute and that's a massive reason for us to be confident. We can have confidence in Jesus's authority. Number two, we can have confidence for the opportunities given to us. If you look at verse eight, Jesus says to these believers,
[19:58] I've set before you an open door which no one is able to shut. Now, that language of open door, it speaks both of freedom and of opportunity. So if a door is open, it means that obviously you've got freedom to go out and come in. And it also speaks of the idea of opportunity and the open door language is used elsewhere in the New Testament to speak in those terms as well. In other words, there's opportunities to be seized for these Christians. And that's emphasized by the fact that what's been said here is in the confidence of their works. You can see it there. It says, I know your works in terms of the stuff that these believers are doing. There's an open door in front of them. Even though they're weak, they're working for Jesus. And there's some crucial lessons for us here again because even though these believers lacked power, they're still obeying Jesus. They're still refusing to deny his name. In other words, they are active. They're taking the opportunities that are being given to them. They're working for Jesus. And that's reminding us of two crucial things for us all to think about as Christians. First, it's teaching us that keeping Jesus's words doesn't mean standing still. Keeping Jesus's word does not mean standing still. We cannot obey Jesus by staying the same. The only way you can do that is if you're perfect. We've got to remember that Christian discipleship is never static. It's constantly moving forward. And sometimes I think we could have a misunderstanding where we can think that Christianity that becoming a Christian is like stepping to the other side of a road. So you can have one side of the road here where you're not a Christian, and then there's this road here in the middle and on the other side of the road is being a Christian. This side of the road is dead, that side of the road is light, this is darkness, that's light. And becoming a Christian, you cross over the road. And so you leave darkness behind and you come into the light. There's a tiny bit of truth in that, but it's not really that accurate because becoming a Christian is not about going to the other side of the road. Becoming a Christian is stepping onto the road and following Jesus forward. Living for Him, following Him, serving Him. If we are to keep Jesus' word, then we're going to keep moving forward, keep listening to Him, keep learning, keep repenting, keep changing, keep becoming more like Jesus. That's what makes me a Christian so excited because you're moving forward all the time. It's never standing still. We're pressing on every week a new opportunity to serve Him. We don't keep Jesus' words by standing still. The second key thing it reminds us of is that confidence in Jesus is not shown by waiting for Him to do something.
[22:59] Confidence in Jesus is shown by going for it. We don't show that we're confident by standing still and waiting. We show that we're confident by going for it. And that's incredibly important because it's so easy to think that the best way we can show our confidence in Jesus is just to wait for Him to do something. We just need to be patient. We just need to be faithful. We just need to wait. But that's not what's described here because it doesn't say Jesus opened the door, came in, grabbed them and pulled them through it. It doesn't say that Jesus pushed them through the door. It just says, I've opened the door. You've got to go for it. They had to seize the opportunities Jesus was giving them. And so do we. And that's so crucial for us in our lives, in our church together here in our lives as Christians.
[23:46] We've got to just go for it as we seek to serve Jesus. And this is one of the things that I think one of the biggest traps, one of the biggest pitfalls in the Christian life is to think that you've got to be ready. So you think, okay, I've got to be ready to become a Christian. I've got to be ready to profess faith. You think I've got to be ready to serve in the church. I've got to be ready to reach out to the community. We've got to be ready to renovate this building. We've got to be ready to step into leadership in the church.
[24:20] Whatever it may be, we can always think that we've got to be ready. And I think that that's a curse because we're never ready. We're never ready because to say I'm ready is just another way of saying I've got to be good enough. And Christianity is never about being good enough. And so if you're not quite ready, if you're not at all ready, that's the time to go for it, whatever stage you're at, just go for it. Was I ready to become a Christian?
[24:57] Was I ready to profess faith? Was I ready to become a minister? Was I heck? None of us are. But we have to just go for it. And so it's crucial for us. We've got our renovation to do. We don't have enough money. We've got a divided Christian family in our community that should not be separated. We've got a massive mission field on our doorstep full of people who don't even know that they're going to hell and who desperately need to hear about Jesus. There's a massive open door in front of us. Are we ever going to be ready?
[25:30] No. But how do we show that we're confident in Jesus? By sitting still and waiting for Him? Or do we show our confidence in Jesus by going for it? And whatever stage you're at, especially if you're maybe not yet a Christian, that is such a crucial thing to remember.
[25:58] You must not sit and wait for a bolt of lightning or writing in the sky or whatever it is. You've just got to go for it. That's how we show our confidence in Jesus. We can have confidence for the opportunities that are given to us. Thirdly, this letter teaches us that we can have confidence in the face of opposition. So like all the churches in these chapters, the believers in Philadelphia were facing opposition. But verse 9 tells us that they weren't just facing opposition from the Roman authorities. They were also facing opposition from people who claimed to be part of the Jewish community. The windows blown open a wee bit, so we'll just let them close it. They were facing opposition from people who were claiming to be part of the Jewish community in that city. And we know that Smyrna suffered in the same way. So you can see the repetition of language here for Philadelphia in Revelation 3, for Smyrna in Revelation 2. They're facing opposition from these people claiming to be
[27:05] Jews who are referred to as a synagogue of Satan. Now, what seems to be lying behind this is that these people were kind of pseudo-Jews pretending to be Jews, claiming to be God's people. And they were oppressing the Christians most likely by spreading lies about them.
[27:24] We know that definitely from chapter 2, verse 9, where we read that they were being slandered. You can see the word slander there. The word slander isn't repeated in Revelation 9, but this phrase, synagogue of Satan, is. And the word Satan means slander or adversary. So I think it's fair to say the same kind of thing is going on. People claiming to be Jews, spreading lies about these Christians, slandering them, people who thought that they were pleasing God by doing it. And they may well have been exposing these Christians to the Roman authorities.
[27:56] We don't know, but that seems like a fairly plausible suggestion. Whatever it was that was happening, it was clear that these Christians in Philadelphia were getting a hard time from people who actually thought that they were the ones whom God favored.
[28:14] I think that's a really important point to highlight. And it's a sad reminder that opposition that we face as Christians doesn't tend to happen so much from people who hate God. Very often it happens, it comes from people who think that they're impressing God by doing it. And it's a great reminder that we've got to guard our selves against that as well.
[28:39] It's so easy to fall into the temptation of kind of slandering people, thinking the worst of people, looking to highlight all their faults, giving people a hard time. It's easy to fall into that trap. These Philippine believers were getting grief from people who thought that they were impressing God, kind of pseudo Jews, but who were just slandering them. But what I want to focus on is that there's a really important point in this version, these versions, because these versions are telling us exactly what we need to do when people slander us and give us a hard time. And that's a key question that we've got to consider as disciples. It's a basic. If people oppose us and give us a hard time for being Christians, what should we do to them? The answer is absolutely nothing. Because if you look at verse nine, it's Jesus who sorts the situation out. Jesus doesn't say, you should do this, you should do that, you should respond to this, you should respond to that. He says, I will fix this.
[29:57] I will make them come and bow down before your feet. They will learn that I have loved you. That is that description entirely of action undertaken by Jesus, not by these believers.
[30:10] And this, this is maybe the greatest test of our confidence as Christians that we'll face in terms of day to day discipleship. Maybe that was too much. It's one of the greatest, anyway, one of the greatest tests of our confidence. When we're opposed, when things don't go the way we want them to go as Christians, when we get a hard time and people frustrate us or hurt us, in those situations, there is such a massive temptation to take things into our own hands. So we want to argue back. We want to go on the offensive. We want to vindicate ourselves. We want to get the last word. Sometimes we even want to get revenge.
[30:48] People frustrate us and you just want to kind of just get that last word in or just kind of get them back or just do something because you know that you've been wronged. And yet every time we do that, we're proving that we don't have much confidence in Jesus.
[31:04] Because if we have confidence in Jesus, then we will be completely content saying, Lord, you sorted out. Lord, I'm leaving this to you. And this is a massive issue in discipleship.
[31:25] Our confidence in Jesus has got to be big enough so that when we face a hard time from others, we're ready to turn the other cheek and leave it all to Jesus to sort out in his way and in his time. That's a key part of living today in the light of that day. Do you really think that if things, if you get heated badly today, do you really think that Jesus is not going to sort that out on the last day? Of course he is. He's never going to leave things unfixed or unsorted. And the only thing that we should do when people give us a hard time, the only thing that we should do is keep on loving our neighbor. Even if they're an enemy, we keep on loving them. And the key thing we need to recognize is that this isn't elite discipleship. This is a basic. And for anyone who's not yet a
[32:28] Christian, I want to emphasize that this is one of the things that makes following Jesus so utterly brilliant. Because it means that when we're following Jesus, we don't have to fight our corner all the time. We don't need to prove ourselves all the time. We don't need to show that we're right. We don't need to defend ourselves. When things go wrong, we can just leave it to Jesus. It means that you can have a head-doing day at work and you can just walk home and leave it there. Leave it to Jesus. You can cast your burdens on him. We can just bash on with following him and with making the most of the opportunities that he gives us. And we can focus on just being a blessing to the world around us.
[33:08] That is such a good way to live your life. That's what following Jesus gives us the liberty to do. So we're given confidence in terms of following Jesus. We're given confidence in terms of the opportunities, the confidence in terms of following Jesus, sorry, confidence in terms of Jesus' authority, confidence in terms of the opportunities that are given to us. Confidence in terms of facing opposition. And last of all, very briefly, he gives us confidence for everything that lies ahead of us. That's highlighted in the last section, verses 10 to 13. These verses highlight the fact that for these Philadelphians, the trials aren't over. There's still challenges ahead. You can see that I'll keep you from the hour of trial that's still coming. There are still troubles ahead. Sometimes we can make the mistake of thinking that being a Christian is kind of like, that the Christian life is kind of like a sort of bargaining pattern. So you think to yourself, well, I've had a rubbish year this year, so I'm due a good year the next year. And it's easy to think like that, but that's just legalism in disguise. And sin doesn't work that way. Sin has made a right mess of the world. Sin offers no bargains. The Christian life is a battle. And often it can be the case that it's just wave after wave of trial. But the key point that's been emphasised here is that one day the battle will be over. One day Jesus will take us into
[34:38] His nucleation. One day Jesus will wipe away every tear through your eye, even if there's thousands of them. The Christian life is not promising you that, you know, well, go through a couple of hard years just now and then the rest of your life will be plain sailing. That's not what it's about at all. It might be tough. And people's lives are tough all the way through.
[35:00] Some people carry burdens, illnesses, struggles that just go with them all the way through their lives. But one day these things will be gone. One day it will all be over. And that is such an important thing to remember if you feel utterly worn out by the struggles that life can bring. If you are trusting in Jesus, if you put your trust in Him, the day will come when all these trials will pass. The day will come when sorrow is just a memory.
[35:37] The day will come when you will never again have to worry about what a day or a week is going to bring. And all of that's reminding us that we can have confidence for whatever lies ahead of us as Christians. That doesn't mean confidence that our life is going to be great, not at all. It means confidence that we're safe and secure in Jesus, even if there are rubbish days ahead. And all of this is confirmed by the smallest word in the letter. And this is one of the things I love so much about scripture is that there are many amazing big words, but it's the small words that are often the most amazing. It's the word I. Jesus says, I will keep you. I am coming. To the one who conquers, I will make him a pillow. I will write on him the name of my God, the name of the city, and my own new name. I, I, I, I. And it's reminding us that our confidence comes from what Jesus is going to do. And this is where we see something so encouraging in this letter. We've been talking about confidence throughout this whole letter. I'll just bring up the whole letter so it's on the screen. I'm sorry that the writing's a bit small, but I just wanted to highlight a tiny wee thing. This letter says something utterly brilliant in verse eight.
[37:05] If you just squint your eyes and see if you can see it, I'll make it red. Jesus says, you've got little power when he writes to these Philadelphians. In other words, they're weak, they're fragile, they're not particularly strong. And it's all reminding us that our confidence as Christians has got absolutely nothing to do with anything that's in us.
[37:32] And this is where our confidence as Christians is the opposite to the kind of confidence that we tend to see in the world around us, because so often around us people will ground their confidence in their skills, in their qualifications, in their experience, in their achievements, in their job titles. And that's all okay, but Christian confidence is completely different because our confidence has got nothing to do with anything that's in us. So that means that you can look inside yourself and you can see a bottomless pit of empty uselessness, which isn't true, but that's might be how you feel. You might look into yourself and think, I'm just empty, and yet you can be full of confidence. Because every ounce of that confidence comes from who Jesus is and what Jesus is doing. You might feel like your strength is tiny. It's probably true, it probably is tiny. But even if it is really tiny, your confidence can and should be absolutely massive. And that's why if our confidence is low, we're getting a basic wrong. Jesus is saying to us all, come on, I've got you. I'm never letting you go. I'm never leaving you behind. Let's blast on together. Let's keep going.
[38:59] Let's keep serving. There's an opportunity ahead of us. We can have confidence. Amen. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, help us to get our confidence right. Amen.