Confidence is a quality that is admired within most cultures around our world. Individuals who speak with authority and knowledge in their fields of expertise so often are regarded with high esteem. In the Christian church it is usually the Pastor that is viewed possessing such confidence, or the Youth Director, Sunday School Teachers, or Church Deacons. Many look to these individuals for guidance because they trust in their words or are “confident” in their knowledge to provide help or much needed advice.

As a Pastor I am acutely aware of the assumptions that are made about my position and the sermons I speak. It is this awareness that often fills me with a bit of trepidation when I stand up to preach on Sunday mornings. The concern that I have in these moments, which I’m sure you have had as well, is; our the words I speak coming from a worldly confidence, or a divine confidence?

In other words, am I speaking with a human agenda, designed to promote my own personal queries or positions? Or am I speaking with the divine, scriptural authority of Jesus Christ? It is a slippery slope, as you can see, and one that we as Christians should be acutely aware of and watching.

The Bible says, frequently, that we are filled with the “breath of life” that comes from God. Isaiah 42 states, “Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. So the question must be asked, are we filled with the breath of God, or the breath of human arrogance? One will glorify the Word of God and lead to lives transformed by the grace of Christ, the other will lead to self aggrandizing, human glorification, and God’s Word becoming subject to human preference. In other words, one is life giving, the other is life stifling.

Here is the basic truth, we are all guilty of filling ourselves up with the breath of pride and arrogance, which is why we all need a good deflation every now and then. In the book of James it states, “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humility allows for God to guide us and speak wisdom to us because we are open to hearing His voice. In those moments we are inflated with the breath of life that comes from God and allows us to speak with the authority of Christ Jesus.

I’ll close with this, have your words been reflecting the Word lately? What I mean to say is that are your words reflecting the teachings of Jesus? Perhaps it is time for all of us, pastor and parishioner, to be deflated by the divineness of God and inflated by the Holy Spirit. That way our voice will be a mouthpiece of God’s wisdom, not a bullhorn of humanities hot air.

Speak the Gospel Brothers and Sisters,

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Pastor Mike McVey
Minister – First United Methodist Church, Fairfield TX
ACS Chaplain – United States Coast Guard, Station Galveston TX
Chaplain – Texas Game Warden Service
Cell: 919-935-2513
Email: pastormike@fumcfairfield.org