I'm going to shoot for two parts with this sermon. That's the goal, just this Sunday and next Sunday. We have Remembrance Day coming up on the 12th, or at least that Sunday. I know it's the 11th, but we'll be celebrating it on the 12th of November. Or I say, I guess celebrate is not the right word. We'll be honoring Remembrance Day on the 12th of November. I want to get into a message tonight. This was a midweek sermon or series that I preached for three weeks in the Coney Valley campus, and actually had someone mention it to me if I would preach it down here. And so that's what we're doing tonight. But we're going to be in 2 Corinthians 10. We're going to break these verses apart over this Sunday night and the following Sunday night. And so read along with me, if you will, from your Bibles or from the screen. And the Bible says here, 2 Corinthians 10, look at it in verse 1. Says, Now I, Paul, myself, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who is in presence and base among you, but being absent and bold toward you. But I beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walk according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for this evening, this time together one with another. I pray you bless the sermon to the hearts and the minds of the hearers. In Jesus' name we ask these things. Amen and amen. So the Apostle Paul is writing this second letter, this second inspired letter, I should say, back to the Corinthian church. He mentions about being bold. But yet he says that he is base. And he's entreating the Corinthians by meekness and the gentleness of Jesus Christ. But then on the back side of that statement, he mentions the word confidence in verse two. So I want to speak to you tonight on that particular topic, both tonight and at least the following Sunday, on confidence tonight. on confidence. As I speak tonight, as I preach this evening, as I bring the scriptures to your heart and to your mind tonight, what I'm going to challenge you this evening is to look deep inside yourself and ask yourself, where do you get your confidence? Where does your confidence reside? Where does it rest? Where is it rooted and grounded in your life? When you speak to people either about Christ or when you speak to people about your job, your career, whatever it may be, Where does your confidence reside? The context of this section in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 is a very serious one, probably more serious than people realize. It's very personal. You'll notice that in the very first verse where the phrase we, which is typically written by Paul, changes to I, signifying that it's a highly personal topic. The nature of this topic that he's writing to the Corinthian church is very, very personal to him. He removes Timothy from the content of the scripture, and he uses it by a very forceful phrase, I. Now, I, Paul, myself, beseech you. by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Paul is going to deal with his critics. And that's what I, again, challenge you now. How do you deal with your critics? We all have critics. Some of us are our worst critic. I know I myself, I'm probably my worst critic on the planet. I get in the car and I criticize myself. That's my nature. That's how I'm cut. And I know that. And many of us are like that. But Paul's gonna deal with his critics. He's gonna deal with the false teachers who crept into the Corinthian church, as well as their followers. These false teachers that came in and these false teachers that were teaching a false doctrine and all of their followers, guys, they were not part of the revival repentance that's mentioned in chapter seven, verses two through six. And you can read that on your own time so that you get a clear understanding of why it's so important to see who he's dealing with. We find here a confrontation, and frankly, a well-deserved confrontation. And the church, guys, the church, this Corinthian church, which I keep in mind, the Corinthian church was an absolute mess, okay? They got on fire for God. I mean, from the very beginning, there was conflict in the city, conflict over here, accusations over here, and every person from every walk of life got saved and born again, and they came into this church, and every one of them had different backgrounds. And then they're crepping these false teachers, and they started teaching false doctrines, and they started tying false attitudes, and they started doing all these different things. And what it ended up doing was causing a misunderstanding, a disorientation inside the church. They were abusing the Lord's table. They were misappropriating the gifts that were meant for Israel. They were doing all these, trying to do these signs and wonders, and they were faking and baking and shaking, and all these different things. And Paul said, hang on a second. Let all things be done decently and in order, 1 Corinthians 14, 40. Matter of fact, he said, let me go ahead and tell you that a sign, the speaking in tongues, the signs, all these things right here that you're doing and you're faking doing, he says those are for those that are lost, not for those that are saved. 1 Corinthians 14, 22. That'll shake up your little doctrine, won't it? You see, we're saved by grace through faith and that's it. I don't need, you know what, I don't need a neon sign to drop out of the sky. I don't need a fuzzy feeling. I don't need to speak in some gibberish to know that I'm saved and born again. I know I'm saved because of that word of God right there, amen? That nugget that I found, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, we're saved by grace through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God and not of works. Lest any man should boast. If anyone ever teaches you that your evidence of salvation or your salvation comes by way, anything outside of grace through faith, They wrong. Can't save you. But this church here, man, they were a mess. So Paul writes a letter back to them, 1 Corinthians, and rebukes them, corrects them on the signs, wonders, gifts, and all this and that, corrects them on the false teaching, corrects them on the Lord's table, corrects them on all these different things. We have more local church doctrine from 1 and 2 Corinthians than we do any other singular book numerically wise, and it's because he's correcting them, and it's a blessing, amen, for us. But now he's writing the second letter back, because those false teachers snuck in. And the church is sitting back, man, look, you've already corrected them, you've ran them out. And they're back here wondering, Paul, what are you gonna do? So there's a well-deserved confrontation that is occurring right here. And the church needed to make sure that these false teachers were not gonna regain their foothold in the church. They also needed the assurance that Paul was going to personally correct those who had not repented, those who were stirring up the issues. He was going to deal with those who were attacking him and teaching false doctrine. Now guys, I don't like confrontation. I'm not a pertinent, my past loved confrontation. I don't like it because of that. But I can promise you this, I have no problem, I have no, I won't even flinch if you try to attack the church. There's no second thought. There is nothing at all that will hinder me from protecting the local church that Jesus Christ died for. I will stand for it, and I will stand against those who try to come against it. Isn't that what a good shepherd does? Does not a shepherd protect the flock? Does not a shepherd protect the people? Somebody comes in here, tries to attack you, you think I'm going to sit back and let them do it? No, sir. You're going to go through me first. both doctrinally and physically, for that matter, if you want to know the truth. That's what a shepherd does. A hireland flees when trouble comes. Paul's not a hireland. Paul says, I'm going to address these issues. Our verses, in context, deals with the ministry of warfare. Do you know our Christian life, guys, it's not a game. We need to understand that. I love life. I'm going to live every moment. I'm going to try my best to enjoy every part of it that I can. But I also have the understanding that our life is a war as a Christian. And we have a warfare that we are fighting. There's a way that we fight our warfare, different the way the world fights is. But this is the ministry of warfare. And our warfare, as Paul said, is the weapons that we are going to use. Paul was accused of living by the standards of the world. We see that in verses 1 and 2. and I won't reread them for time's sake tonight, but he speaks here about being present and based among you and being absent and bold toward you, but he said he's speaking toward those wherewith I think to be bold against some which think of us as if we walk according to the flesh. So they were accusing Paul of his ministry and his work was walking according to this world. Paul fights battles of this warfare, but when he fights his battles, he doesn't fight it in a worldly way. The next verses tell us in verses three and five, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the point of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that is altered itself against the knowledge of God and bringing it into captivity, every thought to the obedience of Christ. Our battle is different as a Christian. Our battle is different in this world. The struggles that we face, the things that attack our confidence and attack our faith and attack that grace, that attack us and are trying to bring false doctrine into our life and what the world tries to do and the devil tries to do and all of the things that he's very successful at doing. You look around at churches today and you find out real quick in a hurry that he's very successful. But you don't fight it like the world fights theirs. Our weapons are not carnal. The word carnal means flesh. You know, like a carnival is a flesh fest, carnivore, a flesh eater. Paul stands ready to deal with these rebels, but only after genuine believers are clearly identified. He says that in the final verse of our text, having a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. So the confidence that Paul is referring to in verse two is pertaining to a confidence in the Holy, or what he's talking about in verse two, is a confidence in self more than the Holy Spirit. He rejects that type of confidence. Paul's not wanting to be confident in his ability, of which he had plenty. I mean, he made it very clear that there were some that he would be bold against, and yes, he was beseeching them. Speaking of the church, the word beseech means to entreat, it means to implore, to invite, to desire, if you will. He's doing this in the meekness and the gentleness of Christ. And too often our world today, especially in the life that we live, they interpret meekness with weakness. The Bible tells us in the book of Numbers, it says in Numbers 12, three, now the man Moses was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. Now, does anybody in here at all consider and think That Moses was weak? That dude led 2.4 million people out of Egypt, man, and he walked for 40 years. Mind you, he started that when he was 80 years old, died when he was 120. Eighty years old, you understand. Now, he wasn't weak, but too many in our world today believe that one cannot be meek and bold simultaneously. However, this is really determined by the context of our Scripture. Paul makes it clear that he will be bold against some. These are the false teachers. These are the false teachers that accuse Paul of walking according to the flesh. These would be those, because of some secret reason, would have some type of ought against Paul. It was personal, and for some reason they made it personal against him. Guys, you're going to have people for some reason out there in the world today, and nobody may ever know, they're just not going to like you, and they're going to make it personal against you. And you're going to have to make the choice whether the confidence when you stand against them boldly is going to be in yourself or in someone else. They would probably go on and say that he was trusted in his education. We'll touch on that briefly tonight. His former positions, maybe his reputation. I would imagine, and again, I'm just speculating now, they probably called him egotistical. They probably said that he was arrogant. He was a hard taskmaster. They probably said that he was domineering. Can you believe that he, you know, that John Mark left the mission field that first year because, you know, can you believe that he wouldn't take him back the second year when Barnabas, that, you know, son of Constantine, can you, I can hear him saying things like that, pulling these things out. I mean, they, you know, listen, we know for a fact that they're false teachers. They're accusing him, they accuse him of not being a true apostle. They accuse him of tarnishing the church's reputation. They accuse him of taking money through a middleman, all these different things, all of which tie into the great accusation of walking according to the flesh, being a hireling, if you will. It would ultimately accuse Paul of two major things. They would call him a coward, we see that in verse one. This is what is referred to as base, of low degree, saying that he was bold in his instructions when he was away from someone, but he rebuked the church in writing, that was the first epistle, but he was a coward when he would speak face to face. So they're accusing him of being a coward, number one. And number two, some would say that he was carnal, again, accusing him of walking in the flesh. But I want you to think about what that really means. If you accuse someone, a preacher, a man of God, or anybody that names the name of Christ, when you accuse them of being carnal, somehow, someway, you're accusing them of being unregenerate, meaning that they wasn't truly saved. That's how deep that accusation goes. You're accusing them of preaching and ministering in the flesh, meaning that he wasn't really called of God. It's a heavy accusation. Living in the flesh, meaning that he was ungodly, immoral, seeking his own self, to please his own self, to live after his own self. Ministering in the flesh, meaning that he was only after our personal following, seeking to sell his own ideas and position and line so his own pockets could be filled and he could secure his own personal recognition. That's ultimately what they're accusing him of. Guys, we see plenty of examples in our world today. of men who were doing that very thing. Yet these false teachers were accusing the Apostle Paul. Well, can I say this to you tonight, and I'm going to be mindful of my time, character assassinations, they are going to come in your life. They're going to happen. There will be people in our life who, for whatever reason, they're simply not going to like you. They're just not. I can't tell you why. You probably can't tell me why, but it doesn't mean that you need to roll over and take abuse. No, it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that at all. I read a quote some years ago that you can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. Do we understand? Do you get that? You can. If somebody doesn't like me, that's fine. You're entitled not to like me. Love you, but you don't have to like me. And I'm not going to lose an ounce of sleep over. There's really one major person who, if they don't like me, I'm going to lose sleep over, and that's her right there. Okay? All right? You know, I know good and well my children, they love me, but there was times in their life when they got grounded or they got other things, they didn't like me. You understand? I still had to do what I had to do as a daddy, you know? And I know they love me and they like me because we the man. The Bible tells us that if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. We need to do all we can do to live peaceably with everyone around us. However, there are going to be some who simply won't allow that to happen. And for those people, guys, we should answer them with the very same meekness and the same gentleness of Christ. There will come a time when we will either have to remove ourselves from the problematic people and when there's a time when we're gonna need to be bold against some. Now here's where the text lies. This is where we need to make a decision for ourself. Again, we need to note Paul's answer to the church and to his critics was one of tenderness in the midst of a grave warning. I, Paul, myself, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. He gives a warning in the letter, but he does so with meekness and gentleness. Beloved, Christ was meek and gentle in handling the insults, in handling the attacks, the rumors, the lies, the wrongs, the evil done unto him. And this was the reason Paul's gentleness is dealing and dealing with the people of that church and confronting them face to face. This is why he is, because he's doing what Christ would do. But there came a time when the religious attacked Jesus, and he didn't hold back. There's a time when Jesus Christ was bold. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees. Then he says, you hypocrites. You know, a hypocrite is one of the harshest accusations you can ever make against someone. You call somebody a hypocrite, man, that word hypocrite comes from a Greek word which actually means play actor. You're just fake. You're living a life that is pure false. So beloved, we need to understand that there's going to be a time when you're going to have to be bold. And what's interesting is of the 20 times hypocrites are used in the plural as a blanket statement, It occurs 20 times in the Bible. All three of these times, all but three, sorry, are in the New Testament, spoken by Jesus Christ in his addresses. The one that is full of meekness and gentleness. Jesus didn't have a problem being bold against some, but Jesus was ultimately gentle and meek against most. So Paul many times uses the same boldness against those who oppose the righteousness of the word of God. He called that high priest, one of my favorite events, he called him a whited wall. He called him a whited wall, revealing that you only look good on the outside, but inside you're full of dead men's bones. He cast blindness on Bar Jesus so that he could experience in the physical what Bar Jesus had done to those in the spiritual there in Paphos. He rebuked Peter face to face when he refused to eat with the Gentiles, and many other times Paul was bold. And with all that said, Paul's boldness was not where his confidence rests. There was confidence that Paul spoke about in verse 2, but that's a confidence in himself. His confidence was not in his boldness, even though he had no problem being bold. So this comes back to us tonight. Where is your confidence? Is your confidence in your boldness? Is it in being brazen? I'll just give them peace of my mind. Might be careful because you might not have enough to share, amen? Is your boldness in the brashness of your words? Where's your confidence? Is your confidence in the boldness? Is it in the brazenness? Is your confidence in your brutality of your life? But if it is, you're going to lose the battle. You're going to lose the battle if your confidence rests in any of those things. So the first thing we need to recognize is there is a present reality. Look at verse three there. It says, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. There is a reality before us. The welfare of the warfare that we are fighting in this world today is not a battle of the flesh, even though many times it feels like it. The warfare that we are fighting, guys, is not something that can be won by tricks of the trade and multiple step programs and positions of power. Guys, if we're going to succeed in this battle that we're fighting today and have the confidence that we need in the Christian life today, it's going to take more than education. I'm all for education. I mean, having knowledge is great. It's something that we should, I think we should give attention to. Good night, man. I got more degrees in thermometer behind my name. That doesn't give me, it doesn't give me a lick of confidence in what I need to do. I believe we should gain as much education as possible, but there's a difference between having wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge may be considered power, but wisdom is the ability to know how, when, and where to use that knowledge. Wisdom simply is a commodity rarely found in our world today. Having all the knowledge in the world and not having the ability to convey it to others makes it utterly useless. So if we're going to succeed in this battle today, it's going to take more than education. It's going to take more than energy. Energy is necessary. Yes, we walk in the flesh every single day, we live in this world, we're living in the flesh, meaning that we're living and breathing and we have struggles every day. Many of us face things that are behind doors of everyday life, hidden in the depths of our mind, stresses that are emotional, they're depressing, they're of doubt, insecurity, anger, lustful, you name it. Most people are dealing with something on that list every single day. But the answer or even the solution to our confidence mustn't reside or mustn't rest in the amount of caffeine that we ingest or how hyped up we can be. The reality is there's underlying issues that we're facing. The energy's just not gonna get it away. If we're gonna succeed in the battle today, it's gonna take more than education. It's gonna take more than energy. And guys, it's gonna take more than excitement. I'm all for excitement. I think we ought to be excited. I think we ought to be excited when we come to church. We ought to be excited when we leave church. We ought to be excited in our car. I mean, we ought to just be excited, man. I think we should be, but if you're going to win this battle, it's going to take more than excitement. Our confidence can't be in our excitement. Synthesizing excitement is a plague of most modern churches today. And it's faced on a regular basis, and people come in, they get emotional, they get excited, they jump up and down and do this and that, and they walk out the doors and they go live their life just like they did before they came in. It's gonna take more than excitement to win the battle that we're in today. And I know what I just said probably, there's gonna be somebody that rubs wrong. I'm gonna get an email. I've gotten them before when I preached this before over that statement. Well, how do you know? Because I know, man, I've been there. Good night. The Bible's clear. Don't challenge me on something that I personally experienced that I know what's going on. That battle, guys, and I know we've heard it over and over and over, it seems like for months on end. That battle that we're gonna have to win is in the mind. The Bible tells me in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12, Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. What foundation are you standing on? What does that mean? This is what Paul is saying. Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. What is your foundation for your confidence tonight? Where are you standing? Where is your stability? Where is your strength coming from? Where is your confidence going to reside? How are you going to step forward and win the battles against this world today based upon where you are resting and putting your faith and your trust? So that's the present reality tonight. We live in this world. We're living right now, 2023, the 29th of October. This is the world we're living in today. Guys, we're not living in the world in 1902. And we've heard this time and time and time again about, you know, the way it used to be. Guys, I'm gonna be honest, and this is gonna sound so harsh, don't throw a shoe at me, I wanna have a good time of fellowship tonight. I don't care how it used to be. Do you know why I don't care how it used to be? Because it ain't anymore. All right? I don't want to be a used to be. I want to be a right now, amen. That's what I want to be. I'm dealing with people right now, not people 100 years ago. I'm dealing with society in this year, this time frame, this era. This is where I'm living. This is my present reality. And if I want to win the battle that I got to fight today, I got to quit looking back at how it used to be and all this and that. Man, get out of the past, man. So there is a present reality that we are trying to fight this battle and our confidence needs to rest in something bigger than ourselves, bigger than our own education and energy and excitement. It comes down to where our trust is. Trust will make the difference in your life. Trust will make the difference in your eternal life, I understand, but it's gonna make the difference in your life, in your confidence that you have, the battles that you face, and the war that wages in the world before us today. Your trust in where it is placed is what makes the difference. Well, preacher, I just don't know if I can do X, Y, Z. Preacher, I don't know if I can stop doing X, Y, Z. Where's your trust? If you're trusting the four-point plan out there, if you're trusting in this book, that book, this book, where is your trust? It's got to be in something that is eternal, my friend. That's where your confidence needs to rest tonight. Our confidence needs to be resting in a power that is residing. Verse 4 tells us, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. There is a power that is residing in every born again soul in this world today, the Holy Spirit of God. John said, you are of God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. That verse right there is just as real as John 3, 16. You're here tonight and you're on your way to heaven, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Dude, the same person was inspired to write that verse, and yet we're losing the battle of our mind where we're allowed imaginations to set up a root inside of our heart and our soul, and they're taking us places where we don't belong. We're losing our confidence. How can I stand? You can stand because of a power that's residing in you tonight. Well, I thought that was just for preachers. That's in you, amen. When you got saved, when you were born again to the blood of Christ, you received every drop of the Holy Spirit that you're ever gonna get again in your life. There is no second, third, fourth, and fifth blessing. I don't care what anybody's taught you. You show it to me in the word of God, and I'll give you 1,000 pounds. Dispensationally speaking, you show it to me. Ain't gonna happen. Amen? Oh, but the Bible says be filled with the Holy Spirit. You receive the Holy Spirit of God. The filling of the Holy Spirit is you rendering your body over to what's already inside of you. Rendering your life over, my soul. That power that's in you tonight is the one that moved mountains. I mean, let's think about the Trinity just in creation. God the Father thought it, God the Son spoke it, and the Bible says the Spirit moved upon the face of the deep. What spirit? Same one in you tonight, amen. And you're going to tell me there's something you've got confidence in outside of this building tonight better than what's inside of you when John says that greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world? My goodness, man. I don't want anything the world has to offer. I don't want any author. I don't want anything outside of what God has put inside of me today in His inspired Word of God that He has preserved and purified for me and for you. That's the power residing in you tonight. Our weapons, guys, are mighty, but they're not in ourselves or of ourselves, rather through the pulling down, those are active works, pulling down of stronghold. You know what a stronghold is? A stronghold's a castle. We got more castles here in Wales than any other place, loads of castles. Every time you pass a castle and you see one or a castle ruins, I want you to think about this verse. I want you to think about a castle, a fortress, it's fortified. I mean, it's position, guys. And what a stronghold is in your life. Their opinions and positions and preferences, even sins in the mind, which are holding us captive, not allowing us to grow and have the victory in the Christian walk. That's what they are. Those strongholds are locking you down. We heard Rachel's testimony during the praise here tonight that, man, what a nugget it was to find out that John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus Christ based upon what she was taught in the past and now she finds out different in the Bible and she's excited, praise God, what a blessing, amen. But up until that point when that reality bore witness with her soul, she had a stronghold inside of her mind that that wasn't the case. Maybe you're here tonight and you've got a stronghold and you think that you've got to work your way to heaven. You'll never do it. There ain't a work on this earth that you're ever going to do that's going to save your soul. You are saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Amen. Not of works lest any man should boast. There's no work you're going to do. Amen. For that matter, you can't lose your salvation since we're hitting it, let's hit them all. You can't lose it. Amen. You say, preacher, you believe once saved, always saved? Yep. Prove me wrong. You take the Holy Scriptures and prove me wrong. You ain't going to do it. When that Holy Spirit of God came inside of me, and let me tell you something, something that big don't come inside of you and you don't know it, it wrecked my world. It saved my soul, but it flipped me upside down. Things I used to do and get away with couldn't do it anymore. I was like a dog on a chain, Sue. I had to get out there and he'd yank me back. And each time, that chain got shorter and shorter and shorter, and it got a harder yank, and I suffered more. You say, wow, that ain't, yeah, that is, that's what the Holy Spirit does, because it's keeping me from doing something even more stupid, amen? That's gonna hurt myself and someone else. Getting me back where I need to be. The power residing, that's where our confidence must rest. And it's already inside of you tonight. A stronghold in the sense that Paul is speaking of here is anything outside of God, that we are relying on. If you're relying on your talents tonight, you're going to lose the battle. If you're relying on your heritage or your home or your ability, you're going to lose the battle. If our confidence is found in our ability to argue with someone, you've already lost. If our confidence is found in our education we've received, you've already lost. If our confidence is found in the location we live or where we hail from or what we can do, we've already lost. Our confidence must be in the power that is residing. All of these things, any of them, other than the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His word, must be pulled down. Pulled down. Solomon says, a wise man scaleth the city, the city of the mighty, and casteth down the strength of the confidence thereof. A wise man scaleth the city of the mighty, and casteth down the strength of the confidence thereof. The application here is when those who have put their trust in external things, the battle is lost along with their confidence. If you don't have confidence in your life, you're struggling with confidence tonight, ask yourself, where are you placing the confidence? You say, preacher, where do I pick up that confidence? Man, if you're saved, it's inside of you tonight. Believe and trust and put your faith in that Holy Spirit of God, the same one that saved your soul, the same one that cleansed you of all your sin, the same one that has sealed you unto the day of redemption. You're not getting out. Couldn't get out if you wanted to. That's where your confidence rests tonight. And to be frank, just to be blunt, there's nothing in this world tonight that you should lose to. When you put the present reality in the power that's residing inside of you already, it's already there, my friend. That's where your confidence rests this evening. That's where it should be. That's how we should live. No, it doesn't mean we're not going to have ups and downs. We need to have ups and downs in life. We need to have the ups and downs. The ups and downs are what teach us. They make us stronger. They allow us to keep digging and keep moving on. But it allows us to practice and exercise that faith to where that confidence will continue to trust. and put our faith in the power that's residing. Will you bow your heads tonight? Father, we thank you, Lord, for all that you've done, for who and what you are. As we enter into our closing song tonight, Lord, I ask you this evening that if you will, please bless our time together. Father, move tonight in our hearts. I pray, dear God, that we would be willing to be bold in the midst of being confident through the power of the Holy Spirit of God in our life. Let us not confuse boldness with arrogancy, but let us be bold in the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and take a stand in this life today so that others ultimately will believe and receive and be gloriously born again. Father, help us tonight take a hold of this message. Help us apply it into every thought, every step, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. I hope and pray that the preaching...