Most people can’t imagine being confident in standing before God. Let alone being bold in His Presence. But … well, that’s exactly what God wants us to be. Confident and Bold … but how?

One of the hardest things for me to unlearn is the idea of being afraid of God but instead be confident before Him. Why? Well you know we've all done stuff, you've done stuff and I've done stuff. It's a bit like with our fathers when we were kids. When we'd done stuff we knew there were going to be consequences and so we wanted to run and hide and then when we do come to that point of putting our trust in Jesus and wanting to follow Him, well you know, the fear thing is still there for most of us.

I'm joined again today on the program by Brett Barclay who's sharing with us this week the top five truths that God wants us to believe. Mate welcome again to the program.

Brett: Hey great to be here, thanks Berni.

Berni: So confidence before God, boldness before God, doesn't the Bible tell us that we should fear God too? What's going on here? What's this all about?

Brett: Well, all the Bible says is true so we need to reconcile those truths but in the context of our relationship with God and in the context of what we've been talking about, being the righteousness of God and having faith in the perfect life of Christ, the atmosphere and our approach to God is an approach of boldness and confidence because we trust in the one who is right with God.

Berni: But isn't it in a sense natural for us to be afraid of God, timid with God, shy even with God because we have all done stuff wrong. And if you believe the whole righteousness of God thing which is where we're having a right standing with God that means there can be a wrong standing with God, and a wrong standing with a God who promises that we will spend eternity without Him in a place called hell if we don't do the right stuff is a pretty scary thing?

Brett: Yeah it is.

Berni: And it's meant to be.

Brett: Yeah exactly. It is meant to be and I think if you go all the way back to Genesis you see when Adam first sinned, he made a decision to go off in his own direction. We see two incredible responses from Adam, it says in the new King James Version that he hid himself and he made for himself an apron. So he actually retreated, ran away from the presence of God and then he tried in his own strength to make himself acceptable to God.

Berni: Have you ever thought about how nuts it is to try and hide from God? Has that ever crossed your mind?

Brett: Where do you go?

Berni: Yeah.

Brett: Exactly, even like Psalms talks about where can I go from your presence? And in fact where do we want to go because He is so loving, He is so kind, we actually want to be with Him 24x7 and the basis of being with Him 24x7 is the fact that, not in my own strength.

You know Berni, you were talking about stuff before, you've done stuff, our listeners have done stuff, hey I've done stuff too and that stuff separated me from God but when Jesus was on the cross all our stuff, the punishment for our stuff, for our mistakes, our wrongs fell on Christ. You know something here's an amazing thing to think about is that the punishment for our sin was extinguished on the body of Christ. When He hung on that cross all the wrath of God was extinguished on the body of Christ. There's a great psalm, I think it's Psalm 30 that says:

His anger is but for a moment but his favour is for life.

That moment was the moment when Christ hung on the cross. God’s anger fell on Christ and His favour may fall on us.

Berni: That is powerful stuff. That rocks my socks off.

Brett: That's amazing hey? That's our God. That's the Gospel that we have. It's incredible when that actually seeps into your heart, when you recognise that you start to think, "Well how do I approach God? If God's my Father" … You know, both you and I are fathers there's nothing that could ever separate you from your kids, I mean the love that you have for your children it's indescribable is it not? But you know Jesus in Matthew 7 says if you've been evil, so even though you're not perfect you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him. So His Fatherhood, His example of a father way outstrips even the greatest human father.

Berni: It strikes me when you talk about confidence before God it's a question of who or what we have our confidence in.

Brett: That's exactly right and if, my goodness, if my confidence is in Brett Barclay, my goodness, Brett Barclay some days he's up and some days he's down and that's the truth, that's the human condition but if we trust in the One who is always perfect and we realise what took place on the cross we understand that our approach to God is full of confidence and boldness.

Can I read you a couple of Scriptures on this, Hebrews, I love, these are life Scriptures for me, fantastic, Hebrews 10 verse 19 says:

Therefore brethren having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.

So the Holiest is where God lived, it was His dwelling place; and so you and I can enter the immediate presence of God with boldness.

Berni: And when you recognise who that was written to which was the Hebrew nation, the Jewish nation and only once a year on Yom Kippur could one person, the High Priest enter into the Holy of Holy's and now, read that Scripture to us again.

Brett: It says:

Therefore brethren having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.

Berni: Yeah, that is radical, that would have blown their minds.

Brett: Absolutely and I tell you what, if you read through the Books of the Old Testament one word you will not see with how the High Priest approached God is boldness.

Berni: No.

Brett: Because the price for sin had not been paid.

Berni: Interestingly the day the High Priest went in to the Holy of Holy's what did they attach to his ankle?

Brett: Well my understanding is that it was a rope.

Berni: And a bell.

Brett: Yes that's right.

Berni: And the bell was there to make the noise to make sure that they knew he was still alive and the rope was there to pull him out if he died.

Brett: Exactly.

Berni: So that was the fear of God in the Holy of Holy's and it is such an incredible breakthrough to imagine that by the blood of Christ we've been brought near to God and we can stand before God completely confident in what Jesus has done for us. Totally.

Brett: One hundred percent. Let me read another Scripture, it's fantastic, Ephesians 3:12 says:

In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Jesus Christ.

Now let me just make a quick comment on these two Scriptures, one says we have boldness by the blood of Jesus, the other one says we have boldness and confidence through faith in Him. You notice that there's none of you and I in there? All our confidence and all our boldness is in the One who is perfect, the One who came to earth to make the way back to God so that's why I can be confident and practically Berni how this works is, you know what? On my worst day and on my best day it's my approach to God is the same because it's not about my, we talked about performance based religion, it's not about my performance, it's about Christs performance. That's what makes be bold and that is what makes me confident.

Berni: You know when I need that boldness most, when I know I've failed God. When I know I have fallen flat on my face and I'm the guy that gets behind the radio mike every day and every week to do this and I have fallen flat on my face before God, if I did not have that boldness I would not keep short accounts with God. If I did not have that boldness I would not go to God and say, "God I am sorry, forgive me."

Brett: Yeah that's exactly right and Hebrews 4 talks about that.

Let us come boldly to the throne of grace in time of need.

The time of need is not when you're doing well it's when you've done wrong, it's when you've done badly.

Berni: That is awesome stuff. So let me encourage anybody who's listening today whose kind of nervous standing before God, who's afraid. If you believe that Jesus died for you and rose again, if that's what you believe you may stand before God completely clean, completely pure, completely in right standing with Him and bold and confident in what Jesus did for you. Brett, thanks for joining me today.

Brett: Thanks Berni.