TRIGGERED: Taking Back Your Mind In The Age of Anxiety Part V | Pastor Steven Furtick

Philippians chapter 3 verse 1 we'll give you my title before I read my text today we're in a series called triggered taking back your mind in the age of anxiety and I will keep preaching until you are totally sane and until you are you know no longer hiding Doritos under your bed because of stress eating and custom people out in your car while you're listening to Elevation worship at the same time you don't even pause the music so the series is gonna go a little bit longer and this text is gonna help us today the Apostle Paul is in his own way upset and triggered for good reason about something that is going on to affect the believers and so the title I want to use I need you to announce this title to the person sitting next to you you don't have to talk to him another time after this it's be the last time that you have to talk to them but tell them this say I hate to admit it but I lost my confidence amen Philippians chapter 3 verse 1 further my brothers and sisters rejoice in the Lord it is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again and it is a safeguard for you watch out for those dogs those evildoers those mutilators of the flesh for it is we who are the circumcision we who serve God by his Spirit who boast in Christ Jesus and who put no news zero noon confidence in the flesh though I myself have reasons for such confidence if any one else if someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh I have more we're gonna stop right there and talk a little then we'll work through the rest of the passage but tell you something real quick that seminary professor taught me about preaching when I was preaching from the Old Testament book of 1st Samuel and there were a lot of names and places that I didn't know how to pronounce because they were based on Hebrew words and I took all of them up to him to ask him to help me pronounce them correctly because I was preaching in a few days and I wanted to make sure I said all the words right and he said he will first of all he laughed at my list of words and he said it's not important that you say it right it only matters that you say it with confidence he said don't worry about mispronouncing the words nobody will know the difference if you say it with confidence kind of seems to be the thing these days it's kind of like you know we're all it's kind of like we all found a Bible verse fake it till you make it only it's not in the Bible that's how I was taught to get girls you know Harold Staley he said it is really doesn't matter you could you your car doesn't have to be fast or nice he said you're not especially good-looking or tall he said but i'ma tell you if you just walk up to a girl with confidence you'd be surprised how much better-looking confidence can make you but then that's only kind of true because there's a fine line between confident and creepy am i right about it and I'm kind of trying to figure that out as a parent like how much confidence do I really want my kids to have because you kind of like them being confident when they're younger it's cute and then in their teenage years when they are so confident that they no longer believe that you have any knowledge about anything it's an issue it's like can we find a middle ground on this this confidence thing can you be like confident enough to be socially not awkward but then be humble enough to listen to me when I'm telling you what's best for you is there is there like a is there an in-between is there middle ground on this confidence thing like is there somewhere between you being intimidated and scared to death and feeling the need to apologize for your existence on planet earth and like Conor McGregor on the other end of the spectrum is there anywhere here's what's happening now it's like we we have confidence without competence can I preach a little bit today before I send you to join any group it's like we are okay we are we are approaching it like they were approaching it in Philippians 3 where Paul says you need to watch out for the dogs and I know you're wondering who are these dogs it's in verse 2 who is Paul calling a dog who who are these dogs and who let them out we need to know and you would assume that these are people who are tempting the church at Philippi the church that Paul founded and fathered in the gospel maybe they are luring them with with sin maybe he's talking about drug dealers or liberals you know all the the things that threaten the Christian worldview but really what he's talking about here is religious people they're they're trying to get the newly converted Gentiles who weren't Jewish to be circumcised with no anesthesia because that was the outward sign of the covenant with the Jewish people before Christ but Christ came along and changed that and Paul knows that it's not what you can show on the outside but it's what happens in your heart that proves the authenticity of your relationship with God invalidates your relationship with him by faith everybody say by Fame not flesh it is impossible for you to please God with your flesh with your effort it is impossible for you to impress God with your Bible reading streak I'm sorry he didn't call the Angels over today cuz you read a psalm Wow check this out she went a whole week without telling anybody off didn't impress God a bit on the other hand we can please God by faith and so Paul is talking about the dogs how long had you gonna do it don't know but he's triggered he says they're evil what they're doing is evil they're evil doers they're mutilating the flesh they're making it worse they're telling you all these rules and regulations that will make you acceptable to God and it's making it worse because it's teaching you to put confidence in the wrong thing and it is a perversion of the gospel to think that there are things that we can do outwardly or behaviors that we can quit or habits that we can enforce and sometimes our consistency can become the enemy of our humility because we stop doing stuff and start doing stuff and then immediately we start to create categories for people who have not yet arrived at the place of consistency that we're at and now god help us because we're raising a generations that don't have to train for their trophies so it's as if we think that confidence is our birthright we have developed a sick twisted version of confidence that knows nothing in the biblical context we have put our confidence in confidence but confidence that has developed outside of the process that produces true confidence is false confidence and you know I'm just thinking about it now a little differently than age 16 when I first gave my life to Christ and was very confident very confident in my ability to live for Jesus very confident in my ability to stay away from certain temptations oh it's so easy to be confident when you've never lived through a crisis it's so easy to preach faith when you never watched your dad take his dying gasping breath from ALS and watched his body completely shut down and prayed every prayer that you knew to pray over him and quote it every scripture that you learned and wrote about in a book about son stand still and then things happen to shake your confidence Paul is talking here about people who have lost their confidence in the gospel or they are on the verge of losing their confidence in the gospel and putting their confidence in their performance and that's dangerous I'm starting to wonder you know do we need more confidence it's just a question because lately I've been thinking that the dangers of overconfidence are just as great as the dangers of under confidence that really maybe it's not about the amount of confidence that we have at all I wrote a little note to my son when he turned 13 and it wasn't really about him it was about me remembering that age and one thing I was trying to tell him in the note is that every everybody in some way is faking it I just thought I would show him that there is no Wizard of Oz just a little short dude behind a curtain pulling levers and posting stuff with filters and captions that are perfectly crafted and they spend an hour and a half to write that caption to make themselves sound witty and they're really not that witty off-the-cuff and if you compare your off-the-cuff they're manufacturer captioned you can always feel like there's something missing and lacking in you it's so hard because it's like we're living in a culture that projects confidence at all cost and the cost of false confidence is ignorance the cost of false confidence is ignorance and trust me some of the people who are the most confident are also the most ignorant some of the wisest people that I've ever talked to in my life didn't have a lot of answers they asked a lot of questions you see what I'm saying but it's tough because we're we're teaching this to our kids right just just be confident you know that be be confident I'm trying to find the balance cuz I do want to raise confident kids and I want to be a confident Christian but I'm trying to find I'm trying to find the balance you know like our kids are out playing sports just like many of your kids someone said to me a few weeks ago stop talking about your kids so much in your sermons we don't come to hear about your family we come to hear the word of God and I'm like well I got another solution just quit coming and you won't have to hear me talk about anything that'll be fine work well for both of us that's just sugreeva we don't share the same interests but that's my life right now is raising these kids so it's just like it's just what I mean I'm always out at some baseball field or football game or something like that and now even Abbey is playin seven-year-old softball and she says she likes it and but I don't know she really likes softball or dugout cheers because honestly no I'm gonna make a plea here and if anybody's watching this online that has any kind of authority in girls seven-year-old softball I'm begging you in the name of Jesus Christ whose gospel I preach that we possibly been dug out cheering four seven-year-old softball and I know it's cute and it's delightful but I'm just trying to protect these girls because I'm listening to them in the dugout and not only is it bad for my hearing not only is it loud and it's rough on their voices but what they're saying in these cheers is not true I heard had a bee the other day she was doing a cheer my name is Abby and you know what I got and the whole team said what do you got Abby said I got a team that is hotter than hot see right there we just sucked the realm of reality because I've been watching all three innings of this and y'all are not hotter than hot y'all are not even lukewarm baby girl you're frozen in the center you need to be in the microwave about three more then she said grand slams and homers too I'm like how about a base hit can we start with a base hit praise the Lord it's it's dangerous to have too much confidence in the wrong place in the wrong place but the Bible says to be confident you know in this I will be confident doesn't the Bible say that yes but the question is in what will you be confident in what and sometimes we want to have a confident belief without the behaviors that build confidence in our lives you know because to have real confidence you gotta have consistency don't you I mean to have confidence you got to have competence competence is built through consistency you got a if you're gonna have real confidence you got to have character amen amen you know what imma spend the rest of my life preaching what I think is true whether anybody says Amen to it or not I'm committing to that these these little gray hairs that keep popping up are trying to tell me you don't have time to get up there in that pulpit and just hype people anymore because while we're hyping people in one sense to believe God we are actually making the problem worse because when their circumstance is not reflecting their confession their faith collapses beneath the weight of unmet expectations and so the Lord was really speaking to me you know because I go back and forth of feeling really confident sometimes and then sometimes I feel I can't find my confidence anywhere and so then I think well I had too much confidence I need to be more humble and then sometimes I think well I don't have enough confidence I need to just bump myself in a mirror mirror a few times and get out there and put myself back in the game coach get out there and I'm back and forth and and God spoke to me this week he said it's not how much confidence you have is where you put it the coughs Paul said I have no confidence in the flesh all of these people who are telling you you need to be circumcised and that's how you prove that you have a relationship with God or you know this this temptation that we all have to to to fake it until we break that's what really happens you know you've you fake it and you never make it because no matter how much you work to develop your confidence in your flesh it will always fail you it will always fail you and all of this behavioral modification that I know is necessary for us to make improvements in our lives and maybe it's important for us to have confidence if we're gonna stand on stage and give a presentation or go into a meeting that we don't feel qualified for I understand that but my question is have have you put that confidence in the right place and the other day I noticed Holly didn't have a wedding ring on wasn't anything sketchy we were just at the house she wasn't going out without her wedding ring on in fact I got that covered too I made her put a tattoo on her ring finger so even if she wanted to take it off it says H and s and so she wants to leave me the dude is already gonna be narrowed down his name better start with s or she'll have to turn it into an eighth but she is mine [Applause] [Music] but I said where's your ring she said oh I put it over here washing dishes and I asked her question I didn't have to say much I said is that a good place to put it cuz listen she lost it once and when she lost it we had insurance and she got a better one so now starting to wonder are you trying ask somebody next to you is that a good place to put it because you keep putting your confidence in people and you keep putting your confidence in your performance and you keep putting your confidence in your ability to be disciplined and our my exercise and i'ma stay on my diet this time and I'm gonna pray for 15 minutes every day you know I hear people say sometimes I gave up on God because some people in the church let me down but let me ask you a question your relationship with God is so precious why would you put your confidence in God in how people treats you people will always let you down they belong ways false or even if they have good intentions they have limited ability do you really want to put it in people haven't you spent enough time trusting in people to meet your needs I feel like preaching ask him again is that a good place to put it do you really want to put confidence in your flesh your effort your ability to keep the law now Paul said if you want to play the game of who has more reasons to be confident on the basis of lifestyle or legality he says if you want to play the game whose circumcision is better let's play watch this he starts reading off his resume and what a weird game this is watch this you know people try to top everything Paul's like my circumcision is better than your circumcision but that's watch first like I was circumcised on the eighth day when you're supposed to be a lot of the Judaizers the dog guru they were circumcised after the fact Paul said I was circumcised when I supposed to be circumcised because I was born the way you're supposed to be born into the race that God said that he would use to bless all the nations of the earth through so I was circumcised before all y'all on the eighth day I don't remember it I'm glad I got that out of the way early in life I was of the people of Israel so I have connections I was not only of the people of Israel I was of the tribe of Benjamin that was the tribe that the Kings came out of the tribe of Benjamin so he's like I'm already one of God's favorite people because I'm an Israelite and then I'm the favorite tribe within the favorite people come on you want to talk about flesh my flesh is impressive mm-hmm and I was not only of the tribe of Benjamin it was not only a matter of birth I wasn't only born into fortunate circumstances but I was a hebrew of hebrews wow i was i was a hebrew of hebrews i I was competent watch this I was connected I was competent in regard to the law a pharisee that's the strictest order of religious law for the Jewish people so he says I was on a scholarship I was I was a prized pupil of Gamaliel he doesn't mention that in Philippians 3 he mentions that elsewhere that he's he sat underneath the tutelage of one of the greatest teachers of his day this is like you interned under Elon Musk Paul said let's talk you want to talk to me you dogs that think you're so much better than other people he said I had all of that I was so good at it that I was promoted to the highest level I was so jealous verse six please I was persecuting the church asked for righteousness based on the law faultless so stop make sure we got this he's connected he's competent and his character he says according to human law and what you can measure and what you can see and what you can judge faultless connected competent and this character is faultless and he builds confidence to a certain level but then something happened to Paul Paul saw a contrast and sometimes what we need when we get a little too full of ourselves come on happens to all of us quiet people loud people flashy people low-key people it can happen to every one of us that we start to trust in our flesh and about the time you think you get it figured out you know how we do we get our categories exactly right okay here's the kind of people that are going to heaven and here's the kind of people that are going to hell and the way I know is there are certain things that people who are going to heaven do and don't do and certain people who are going to hell here's what they do and they don't do the only problem that I'm finding what this is a lot of our confidence that we put in our judgments and our assessment is based on our external observations of people and we can never really know anyone's heart now here's a case in point and I told this story the wrong way last night so fewer here last night I messed it up but here's how it actually happened this way I put no confidence in the flesh because I can't even tell my own stories right while I'm preaching about confidence that's how much I need the Holy Spirit but I was watching a sermon with my father-in-law when I was first starting in ministry and he was telling me how the person preaching the sermon was cocky and arrogant he said look at him you can tell he strutting around that stage he's wearing a $5,000 suit look at him he's cocky and he's arrogant even his tie is loud he's cocky and he's arrogant he's so cocky and he's arrogant of course I asked my father-in-law have you met him no but you can tell he's cocky and he's arrogant do you know anybody who's met him no but I don't have to you can tell he's cocky and he's arrogant and I said just kind of innocently well who's somebody that you think is not cocky and arrogant that would be better to model my ministry after because he was in ministry and I wanted to hear his wisdom and he named the name of somebody that I knew it was a man who had the Greek New Testament memorized no not the mm-hmm not that little Philippians 4:13 in know the whole New Testament he would show up I took the class with him one time he would say the Bible verse without looking at the Bible but he wouldn't say it in our translation he would be translating it in his mind from Greek he never looked at the Bible to teach us the Bible and my father-in-law said that guy that's a man of God that's a humble man of God that's a man of God who knows what matters and what doesn't that's a man of God who is understated that's a man of God and twelve months later the man of God who knew the Bible in Greek had left his wife for a woman in Russia he had been taking mission trips to Russia mission trips to Russia but one mission he went for and he never came back and the man that was cocky and arrogant is still serving God today and his kids are in ministry too and here's what I'm trying to say let's stop being so quick to categorize people based on what we see with our eyes or where they are in certain behaviors in their lives judge nothing before the appointed time you don't even know what battles they're fighting and you don't know how far they've come and you don't know what it's taking up with you just to keep running the race and they might be limping but they might make it to the finish line because they live I don't know anymore I put no confidence in the flesh I don't have categories they're not as clear anymore for who's a godly person and who's not in in the noonan and who God is favored and who God hasn't because some of the people that I thought were walking in the favor of God were faking it but I know it till they fell apart Paul's riding to Damascus one day a hebrew of hebrews a Pharisee of Pharisees in regards to the law righteousness connected and competent connecting and competent and all of a sudden he was blinded by a light on his way to imprisoned Christians in Damascus and bring them back to Jerusalem to be sentenced and something happened to him that will happen to all of us in one way or another if it hasn't happened to you yet send me a text message when it does God in His mercy and God in His wisdom knew that if I allow Paul to remain confident in his flesh he will not fulfill my purpose for his life he will live the rest of his life putting his confidence in himself and his competence and his character and so all of a sudden you can read it in Acts chapter 9 a blinding light throws Paul from his horse he is thrown to the ground on the way to exercise his gift with authoritative letters from the Jewish ruling council he falls off of his horse and a voice from heaven asks him Saul Saul who do you think you are and Saul said back I don't know who are you and the voice said I am Jesus and Paul spent three days blind and someone had to lead him by the hand you know that's when life gets really interesting when you're used to leading others when you're used to knowing what to do when you're used to making it happen when you're used to smiling and getting through it but then every once in a while something will come along in your life and you'll say I didn't take a class on this I didn't read a book about this nobody told me it would feel like this I wasn't prepared for this I didn't know would be like this and Paul said I lost my confidence I lost my confidence and I had to start all over and I had to I had to give up all my connections cuz everybody hated me that I used to serve with him and I had to start all over because I didn't know how to preach Jesus cuz I just met him and I had to humble myself and I had to re-evaluate my character cuz I had been comparing myself to others you know how we do Holly preached this brilliant message to the ladies a couple weeks ago and everything about it was good but I just want to correct one thing she say she said we need to stop comparing ourselves to others and I think she's wrong about that I think we need to compare ourselves to others every chance we get until we are so sick of comparing ourselves to others you know because if you compare yourself to others long enough you will come to the place eventually if you're not there yet you'll get there just keep doing it keep comparing yourself to others just keep right on doing it and do it do it to make yourself feel better do it when you see somebody whose kids are on drugs you just silently tell yourself my kids would never do that go ahead go ahead and go ahead and do that just go ahead and do it just go ahead and do it when you see somebody who's not married I'll tell you if they live they have to go ahead and compare yourself to them because you know you're better than them that's why you're married they're not just going to compare yourself go ahead and do it go ahead and do it too the other way to go ahead and compare yourself to people that are better than you all the time just all the time look at everybody sucking in on the gram and then compare yourself bloated after a whole day of running your kids around and then compare yourself who didn't have time to eat healthy because you actually care about other people and that's why you had to go through McDonald's but compare yourself to them you won't even know that they're selfish and that's why their body looks like that because they never they never have time for anybody else and all their that's going here's what I want you to do I want you to completely compare out-of-context for as long as you can and don't ask the question you know like they're real successful on their job but I wonder are they happy don't ask that question because if you could compare across all the categories you might see that their success is costing them their fulfillment but don't do that just compare just completely take it all out of context and compare what people show you to what you can see and and don't take time to wonder what's really going on and don't take time to stop and think about how they're so gifted and there's some ones will just compare yourself to them until you feel so terrible that the only place left for you to go the only thing left for you to conclude the only thing left for you to do is to fall down off your horse and say god I'm sick of myself I'm sick of false standards I'm sick of worldly measurements I'm tired of my flesh I'm tired of keeping up I'm tired of falling short I'm tired of looking around and in that moment you will come to the point that Paul came to in verse seven where he said I compared myself to everyone else so long and it finally brought me to a point not because I hit the bottom but because I was on top and then something happened in my life I compared myself to Jesus and when I compared myself to him I didn't have anything less to brag about when I compared myself to him I was such a good person after all when I compared myself to him I lost my confidence in me I lost my confidence at how nice I am and how sweet I am and how polite I am and how educated I am when I compared myself to the fullness of wisdom that was revealed in Jesus Christ I didn't bring up my IQ anymore and I didn't show my SAT scores when I compared myself to him my posture changed when I compared myself to him I quit trying to be first place in a race that I realized I couldn't win when I compared myself to him I fell off my horse and I was led by the hand and Paul says in verse 7 now whatever we're gains to me I consider loss I lost my confidence or watch this I gained Christ speak this message today in the hopes that someone who has lost your confidence in yourself would realize that this is a necessary step for you to receive the righteousness that comes by faith and that's what Paul says here he says I lost my connections I lost my sense of competence I found out I wasn't so good at everything you know how life is man just about the time you master a set of skills the whole game changes by the time I figure out how to get my kids to you know che are teenagers I'm trying to get them to talk to me you know the whole the whole opposite changes it's so it's designed that way it's designed that way I wonder if God is trying to strip you of your confidence today so that you can gain something greater I lost my confidence to preach to people and tell them you know if you do this God's gonna do that I don't make those kinds of promises anymore because now I have a different kind of confidence it's a kind of confidence that doesn't come from circumcision and changing your behavior getting it right knowing all the answers it's it's an inward confidence I wonder if that's the real contrast here is that we are trying to project confidence and God is trying to impart it I wonder if we're so busy trying to be confident and seem confident that we have isolated ourselves so we stay in places where no one really knows us and no one can really touch us because we have gotten so good at looking confident but on the inside we have we have lost a sense of ourselves and we have lost touch with our humanity as we project into the world pretend images of who we wish we were and who we think we should be but Paul said I lost all that I lost all that and you know what I'm glad I lost I'm glad I got knocked off my horse glad I got my heart broken glad I got my plans disrupted I'm glad I found out that the world wasn't flat I'm glad I found out that it didn't revolve around me I'm glad that I didn't know what to do cuz if I'd have kept trusting in my flesh I would have spent the rest of my life measuring myself against an irrelevant standard but something wonderful happened when I lost my confidence I gained Christ and what is more verse 8 I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whose sake I have lost all things I'm letting it go I'm not trying to get back on my horse I don't even want to ride in that direction anymore I've been down that road and I'm ready for something better I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ take the whole world take my skills take my knowledge take my insight take my appearances take my youth but give me Jesus I want to be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith stand up it's not about how much confidence you have it's about on what basis you've built it and the answer to our anxiety isn't just more confidence it's more Christ he says verse 10 I I used to know a lot of things about the law used to know a lot of things about life but now look what happens after you lose your confidence and your arrogance and your prejudice and your presuppositions he said now that I've lost my confidence I want to know Christ I don't want to know about him I don't want to know what I think I know about him I want to know Christ yes to know the power watch this of his resurrection so after you have lost your confidence you can expect a resurrection I told my friend what I was gonna preach to you today I said I'm gonna preach on I lost my confidence and he texted me after I preached it the first message and he said did you get it back and I said no I told the people to let it die to let that confidence that we put in what we can see and then what we can know and then what we can feel let it die let it be nailed to the cross you know God will allow certain circumstances in your life and he will use those circumstances to crucify your false confidence and if we don't understand this we will try to pray our confidence back down off the cross and we'll try to get it back and we'll go back into those same modes but only after it dies can it be resurrected as faith I lost my confidence and I'm glad I did because while I was confident in me I could not have faith in him and I wonder if today God brought you here not to give you back your confidence you know so you can get the girl and win the bid I wonder if God brought you here to give you something better but now that we have buried your need to prove that you're better than everybody helps cuz you realized that all of our righteousness is like filthy rags are you ready now for a resurrection of faith that's what had to happen to the disciples they were so confident in Jesus as an earthly King when he went to the cross it killed their confidence because they couldn't understand how he could set up a kingdom and die on a cross but he had to crucify their confidence in order to give life to their faith the same thing is happening in your life right now you're getting older or you got rejected or something's happening in your body and it's not working like it used to and God is God is trying to give you something greater than confidence in your flesh I've seen what my flesh can do and I put no confidence in it anymore I've seen what my effort can accomplish I don't want to preach based on my opinions anymore I'm ready now for the righteousness that comes on the basis of faith will you lift your hands and God's presence father I thank you for the word that you sent forth from this pulpit today while I understand God that there's a deep need in all of our hearts to feel assured that everything is gonna be alright understand that also there are times that are necessary for us that we have to question everything and sometimes we have to be shaken to our core in order to find a foundation that is worth building on and I just believe today that you didn't give me this word so that I could preach it for myself I believe that there is a brother or sister who has lost their confidence because their circumstances have changed or they've come to a place where something that used to work for them doesn't work anymore or they have not been affirmed in certain ways and I believe that you you sent me here to tell them today let it go and receive something better and so as their hands are lifted to you and their hearts are open to you God would you in each and every heart in this place fill our perspectives with faith take away our confidence in our flesh God even if we can do it in our own strength we can't sustain it in our own strength we need you we need you you are our righteousness and you are the only confidence that we have hey thanks for watching the Elevation Church YouTube channel if you enjoyed this message take a minute click the subscribe button on your screen that way you won't miss a single video and if this ministry has impacted you and you'd like to partner with us to continue to reach others you can click the link in the description below to give now thanks again for watching and don't forget to subscribe

Channel: Elevation Church

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Keywords: Elevation Church, Pastor Steven Furtick, Elevation Church sermons, Pastor Steven Furtick sermons, Sermons 2018, Steven furtick 2018 sermons, triggered sermons, triggered, steven furtick triggered, elevation church triggered, I Lost My Confidence, I Lost My Confidence steven furtick, I Lost My Confidence elevation church, the elevation church, elevation church 2018 sermons, triggered part 5, triggered part V, TRIGGERED: Taking Back Your Mind In The Age of Anxiety Part V

Id: rHcnRVDvFEI

Length: 42min 40sec (2560 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 24 2018