1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 25th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Hebrews 9:24-28, it’s entitled, “Confident in Christ,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Don’t you admire people who seem to be full of confidence? I’m not talking about bigmouths, people who are prideful or full of themselves. I mean those people who don’t get frazzled or defensive when criticized or who don’t become easily fearful when faced with a new challenge or problem that they need to confront. That kind of coolness in the face of adversity is considered an important characteristic of leadership.
3. It seems that a lot of people wish they had more confidence, at least by the quantities of books on the topic. A search on Amazon.com indicated that they sell over 23,000 books on the topic of building confidence in oneself. But that’s nothing! A web search came up with over 143 million Internet sites that deal with the topic of overcoming doubt and increasing confidence. There are several blogs with titles such as “Nine Steps to Increase Your Confidence,” “Ten Characteristics of Confident People,” or “Seven Ways to Be More Confident in Yourself.” Wouldn’t it be nice to have more confidence?
4. Do you know what it’s like to live confidently, and do you wish you could? Don’t we often make commitments to ourselves that we won’t get angry at the insults of others, or that we’ll keep our cool when our ideas are challenged or dismissed? Yet when things don’t go our way, or when what we think or say is rejected, we can find our confidence shaken, and we still may react with anger or self-doubt.
5. The problem is that there are many things that work to tear away at our confidence. Maybe you’ve been hurt too many times by those who build themselves up by tearing you down. Maybe you feel you simply don’t have the opportunity to be heard in our busy world. Maybe you’ve found that the “venom of perfectionism” can make it impossible for you to live up to your self-imposed standards. Maybe you’ve suffered a big loss—like of job or a loved one—that can shake your confidence. Finally, we’re all plagued by our inability to live up to God’s Law. We don’t love God with our whole heart, and we don’t love our neighbor as ourselves. Our sin convicts us, shattering any self-confidence built on ourselves.
6. Yet our text from Hebrews 9 talks about those who are confident, those who are eagerly waiting for Christ. There is a source of confidence in the face of any self-doubt or challenge in life. That source of ultimate confidence is rooted in the person (who he is) and work (what he has done) of Jesus Christ. We Can Confidently Live Our Lives in Eager Expectation in Christ.
7. Once and for all, Christ has dealt with the root cause of our lack of confidence. The writer to the Hebrews compares a sacrifice carried out by a human with the perfect sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ. Hebrews 9:24–26 says, “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Jesus entered not a temple made by humans, like the Old Testament priests, but heaven itself, where he appears before God on our behalf. Jesus is God himself, so only one sacrifice, rather than repeated sacrifices, was needed. The forgiveness, life, and salvation Jesus accomplished were accomplished for all people. Hebrews 9:28 says, “so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” The text saying he was offered up to “bear the sins of many” means “of all.” He died for all! No sin is too grievous, no sin is too serious or heinous, that it hasn’t been covered by the sacrifice of Jesus.
8. Jesus “put away” sin by sacrificing himself (Hebrews 9:26). That sin is “put away” means it has been dealt with; it’s no longer a factor as God looks at us. That is a source of real confidence, knowing that all those things, both big and small, that tear away at us, have been put away. What confidence we can experience, knowing Christ has dealt with it all!
9. In Christ, God has promised to give us all things, so we need not doubt in ourselves. It’s not about us; it’s about Jesus. That’s how the widow in today’s Gospel could give her last pennies. That’s how the widow at Zarephath could trust the instructions of Elijah in the Old Testament. That’s why our Introit for today could exclaim: “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” That is why we can eagerly wait for the Lord, living confidently, knowing Jesus has done it all.
10. “Judgment Day.” “The End Times.” “Armageddon.” Throughout the history of humanity, people have been fascinated by predictions of doomsday. For example, versions of the story of Chicken Little, who thought the sky was falling when an acorn fell on his head, go back at least 2,500 years. But especially in recent years, it seems that talk and rumors and predictions about “the end of the world as we know it” have captivated people more than ever. There have been countless movies based on disastrous scenarios with aliens invading or entire cities collapsing or an asteroid headed for our planet or some virus that’s about to kill off the entire human race or any number of other things, all designed to terrify us at the thought that the world as we know it is coming to an end. And people love it!
11. You probably remember how a number of years ago the end was going to come—on Dec 21, 2012, to be exact. It was based on some calculations in the ancient Mayan calendar. It seems that Dec 21 of that year completed a cycle of 5,125 years in the Mayan tradition. It didn’t take long for some writers and pseudoscientists and pseudoarchaeologists to pick up on the idea, suggesting various astronomical alignments and making use of numerological formulas to come up with the idea that there will be something big, something really big, on that date—maybe the end of the world.
12. People have frightful views of the end of the world, but those who trust in Jesus know that yes, the end will come; yes, Jesus will return. But it is not something to be feared. In fact, it is something we can eagerly await because we can be confident of our salvation (Heb 9:28).
13. What’s your source of self-confidence? There certainly are psychological explanations for why some people seem to lack confidence and others have more confidence, and no doubt there’s truth to some of those factors. But the message of our Epistle from Hebrews is that we can all live in confidence. We can confidently live our lives in eager expectation, because in Christ we can be confident of God’s love and forgiveness. We can expect it because it is done. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen
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