What do I do with my doubt?

And let me invite you to turn your Bibles, if you have one, with you, to the very end Revelation, and then go back one book to the book of Jude.

It's a little letter, it's just one chapter long.

And we're doing just one verse from Jude 1.

And I would have you stand, but you'd sit right back down.

So, in honor of God and His Word, direct your attention to the screen or to your Bible as I read Jude 1, verse 22.

Jude 1:22

And have mercy on those who doubt.

Let's pray.

We are so glad that your scripture addresses big idea, theology, big questions about the cosmos, our philosophical questions.

But we're also very grateful that your word addresses the day-to-dayness of living life in a fallen and broken world, and the hurts and bruises that we face, the sins that we've committed, and the forgiveness that is ours, and the struggles of our inner life, particularly here talking about doubt.

And so we pray that you would pour out your spirit on this place right now because there are people in the room who doubt.

And there are people whom we love who doubt.

And there are people in this room who in the coming months will struggle with doubt.

And so we pray that you would help us to see the mercy that is ours for those who doubt.

Bless us and be with us and be with me.

I'm weak physically and mentally and emotionally as well.

I doubt too.

So I pray that you would help me to speak clearly with confidence in this word from Scripture.

Bless us and be with us.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Spiritual doubt is a most unpleasant experience.

It has been described as mental anguish.

I don't know if I've ever talked to anybody who said, Yeah, I really enjoyed my bout with doubt that I had.

It was really fun to go through that.

And that's why I think Jude says very simply here, be merciful to those who doubt.

They didn't ask for it, but they're going through it.

Now, some people think that if you are really strong in your faith, you're never going to struggle with doubt.

That is not true.

There are a lot of people of great faith who have struggled with doubt in the history of the church, and it is fascinating to read their stories.

I'm not going to tell you one of their stories, but I'm going to tell you the story of a student for just a moment.

His name's David.

And David went on mission trips with me.

We were close.

I was his minister on campus.

And he, you know, because of your major, you're required to take certain classes that you never would have taken.

That's just how the university system works.

And so he was, he had to take a religion class or philosophy class.

So he settled for this one class that was taught by this professor who had been really influenced by Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens and others, except he was a very nice professor, and he he just kind of came under the radar for people.

So he asked in this religion, he was an atheist, and he just asked questions that undermined particularly the Christian students who are in the class.

And so David, I had known this, I said, hey, this guy doesn't have a very good reputation.

I've talked to a lot of people who've struggled in his class.

And David said, No, I'm strong in my faith.

I can deal with it.

So the spring semester where David took the class, uh, after about week one, I didn't see him for a while.

He was avoiding me.

Because I don't think he wanted me to tell him anything, like to make him feel bad about struggling, which I wouldn't have done.

But he just didn't want to see me because he's he was going through it.

Like this class knocked his legs out from under him.

So by the at the end of the semester, he came back around and he's like, Yeah, I was really struggling with doubt.

I didn't think I was susceptible to that, but I was just because, you know, doubt, doubt just happens sometimes.

You hear something on the news, you hear something that somebody says, and it just kind of lodges in there like a splinter in the mind.

Sometimes doubt happens for a reason.

There's something in you that you want, and in order for you to be able to do that, God can't be real.

So for me to justify doing this, I have to like, I'm starting with doubt, I'm gonna investigate this.

So it doesn't just happen, and we're gonna talk about that in a second.

But spiritual doubt, though, as we're talking about it this morning, it's not simply about a proposition that you need to investigate.

Like, I doubt that that's true.

Spiritual doubt, it's it's it's like some sort of barrier has been placed to you in in heaven.

So that you may have had the most palpable sense of God's presence with you in prayer sometimes.

He's in the room with me.

This is amazing.

But when you go through spiritual doubt, it's like this iron dome has been placed over you.

It's just radio silence.

It's like there's a black hole beyond it.

It's like, God, where are you?

I don't feel your presence right now.

That's the way it feels for people when they're going through.

And I think that's why Jude says here, be merciful to those who doubt.

Now, in itself, doubt is not a bad thing.

Doubt is a natural thing, it's a good thing.

God wired us with the ability to doubt.

Doubt is a beneficial thing.

If someone seems untrustworthy, doubt is a healthy reaction.

If somebody says something completely outlandish, doubt is probably the correct response to that, even the wise response.

So doubt prevents us from reaching hasty conclusions or making commitments to unreliable people or sources.

So in this light, doubt is not an enemy of faith.

So we're not talking about just doubt.

We're talking about spiritual doubt.

Nor this morning are we talking about somebody who might be investigating the claims of Christianity.

And they're reaching this point where they're like, ah, I'm not so sure about this.

That's a different kind of thing.

That's not what we're talking about.

That's probably right for people to be asking questions on the front end and saying, is this true?

Could this, is Jesus, did Jesus really rise from the dead?

So they should be asking questions about that to figure things out.

So that's not what we're talking about.

What we're talking about is someone who is sincerely believes but faces maybe out of the blue, strong, even crippling doubts.

So this morning we're talking about spiritual doubt, which I'm going to define this morning as an unwanted idea that intrudes upon a person's confidence in God.

An unwanted idea that intrudes upon a person's confidence in God.

And it can be a doubt about his existence, or it can be a doubt about his goodness.

Because there are people who God is real, but a doubt he's good.

So has that ever happened to you?

It's happened to me.

It's happened to me on a couple of occasions in my life.

And I'll talk about that a little bit later and how to deal with that.

But when you go through that, it's like it feels so confusing.

How did this happen to me?

I don't want to doubt, I just doubt this.

I want to believe.

Help my unbelief.

So while stubborn rejection of God is condemned, the Bible portrays doubt in the Christian life as a common occurrence that we all face.

We're all tempted by sin.

We're all tempted to doubt on occasion.

And so it's a common experience for God's people to be navigated.

So if we're going to talk about it, let's talk about what doubt is.

What is doubt anyway?

In the Bible, doubt is not inherently treated as a sin.

It can lead to sin, but it's not inherently a sin.

Rather, it's defined as a hesitation, a wavering between two opinions, or a temporary struggle to believe God's promises.

The Greek words, and the word that's here in Jude, is for doubt means to waver or to stand in two places.

And this is why when you're facing doubt, it feels like you're standing at a crossroads.

I have to go one or the other.

It has to be one or the other.

I can't do both of these things.

And the idea is that you're of this word is that you're standing in two places.

It's like having one foot on the boat and one foot on the dock.

And the boat's pulling away, and you've got to decide which one you're going to go to.

That's what doubt feels like.

We might say we have a foot on shore and a foot on the boat that's pulling away, and so that makes us unstable.

And James talks about this in chapter one of his epistle, verse six.

He says, A man who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

He's unstable.

He feels unstable.

It's hard for him to decide which way to go or how to move.

So that kind of doubt is painful and it's difficult because it's faith and conflict.

It's a tug of war inside of you.

There's something that, there's an idea that's pulling and tugging at your faith in Jesus.

I trust him.

I believe.

How about my unbelief in the midst of this?

So that's what is doubt.

Why is doubt?

That is what's the cause of it.

And Jesus asked his apostles a question in Matthew 14, and we'll look at this a little bit later, too.

Where Jesus asked the question, why did you doubt?

Why did you doubt?

That's a great question, isn't it?

Because we don't really consider that very much.

And what it does is it forces us to do some self-reflection.

And he's saying there's a why, there's a reason, uh, there's a because.

Why?

Why did you doubt?

And it's because there are two ideas in competition, jostling for a foundational supremacy in your head.

Doubt is not an attack on faith.

Doubt is an alternative form of faith.

Doubt is its own form of unrecognized faith that's now taking up space in your head.

So that because of that idea in your head, the claims of Christ, the claims of the gospel, seem to be a little bit far-fetched.

Right?

I started playing with this idea of being far-fetched in my head a little bit.

And I thought it's like a dog.

You know, you play fetch with a dog, and you have a ball and you throw it, and he goes and gets it.

And then he has the ball in his mouth.

And then you throw another ball.

He already has a ball in his mouth, and he runs after the other one and he's like, What am I gonna do?

I can't get both of these things in my mouth, so he'll like push it around or do something.

He's trying to jostle with these two balls, but he can't fetch one because he's already far-fetched the other.

Right?

And so this is when we say something's far-fetched to us, what we mean is not simply like that idea doesn't make sense.

It means I already have a set of ideas in my head that make what you just told me seem far-fetched.

Because I'm already holding on to this one.

I've got it right here.

So every doubt is a covert conviction.

It's a hidden conviction, a hidden belief that's already there, or hidden potential belief.

Every doubt has an unrecognized authority saying, here's what you should believe.

Two ideas.

Fetch, far fetched, what am I gonna do here?

So most people who are Americans express American-sounding doubts because we've already fetched.

We were we fetched through middle school, we fetched through high school, we fetched through college, we fetched, every time we watch TV, we've got ideas that are presented to us constantly, so we fetched.

And our doubts are very American.

But if you go to other parts of the world, say China or India or some other place, they have fetched something else.

So the claims of the gospel seem far-fetched to them for different reasons, because they have a different set of beliefs and ideals that are hidden away inside of them.

So our doubts are culturally conditioned, our culturally conditioned covert beliefs that we just assume are true because we're Americans, right?

Um, but and the same thing's going on here in the book of Jude, is in that's the background for Jude.

Jude 1.22, when he says, and have mercy on those who doubt, Jude's recipients are facing doubt because of false prophets and false teaching.

It's causing doubt by people who are presenting a different version of Christianity, different version of who God is.

And so there's doubt that they're struggling with.

They're being pulled in two different directions.

The tug of war is taking place.

So which do I pick up?

I fetched one, and how do I far-fetch the other?

Can I hold them both?

And you can't.

So if doubt is so internally difficult and culturally conditioned, uh, why does God allow us to struggle with it?

Why did God allow me to struggle with doubt?

Why is God somebody said it?

Growth, thank you.

Who said that?

You get a free book at the front at the table, so it's good.

Growth.

Yeah.

Those who have been through doubt are strengthened through finding answers.

We're not always going to give away books if you give an answer, so don't think.

Those who have been through doubt are strengthened through finding answers, even if the answer is simply, I don't have to answer that.

I don't have to have all of the answers.

I can trust that Jesus knows the answers even with when I don't.

What I know about him and all that I know about him is so is enough.

So God allows us to go through doubt in order to deepen our understanding, right?

You can you try on, this is what happened.

I saw this with students, I've seen this with me and other people.

You try on a set of ideas for just a moment, and then you realize that doesn't work.

I'm going back to Jesus.

Right?

It allows us to see the truthfulness, the trustworthiness of God's word so that we'll ground ourselves more deeply in the faith of Jesus.

So doubt can be a powerful opportunity to grow, to ask questions and find the answers.

It's an experience to find clarity on what you believe and why you believe it.

It can be a catalyst for greater understanding, and this is what I found to be so helpful too, it makes you a valuable resource for other people who are doubting and struggling.

Because you've already struggled in a deep way with that question.

And when somebody comes to you with a question, you you don't say, Oh, I don't I don't know the answer to the question.

You can say, I've been there.

I struggle with the exact same question.

And here's what I found if you're willing to have a conversation.

It enables you to step into somebody else who is doubting with gentleness and kindness and understanding and mercy.

Show mercy to those who doubt.

So, how do how do you deal with your doubt?

Uh, God's people are not immune to doubt.

And simply telling ourselves or others to stop doubting doesn't help.

It just makes them feel guilty on top of their doubt.

So the way to deal with doubt as a Christian is to produce proper antibodies to depower it, to against depower doubt in our lives.

A doubt may seem like it's world-ending, faith ending, because we think, oh, this is this one question that is asked, and I can't find an answer to this.

So all of my other answers and all of my other to all of my other questions are now invalid because of this one thing.

That's not necessarily the truth.

You've got other antibodies, you have other truths that bulwark.

And so what you can do is you can you can take doubt, you can take aim at your doubt itself.

Like, here's here's something I've heard people say that has caused doubt for many people.

What if your faith in Jesus is just uh a delusion, a passing feeling that you have?

What if that's all it is?

And I've heard people say, oh my goodness.

What if it is just a delusion?

Oh my goodness, what if it is just a passing feeling?

Well, here's the response to that.

Well, what if my doubt is just a passing feeling?

And what if my doubt is just a delusion?

Right?

Turning tables on that, like, oh, so what I feel right now, the doubt I feel may not be permanent.

It's just something I'm struggling with right now.

And I don't have to say none of it's true because there's a question I can't answer, or because somebody else accused it of being a delusion.

So you ground, and so you can take aim at your doubts themselves and say, my doubt doesn't hold water.

But there's another thing you can do, and that is to focus on the truth rather than the question that the doubt is bringing up.

Bulwark everything around it and say, here's where I have strength because I have all of these other questions answered, even if I can't answer this one.

C.S.

Lewis said this.

He wrote, he wrote this.

He said, There we go.

I spent a long time trying to come to grips with my doubts.

When I realized I needed to come to grips with what I know to be true, I've since moved from questions that I cannot answer to answers that I cannot escape.

And it has been a great relief.

So what do you do?

What do you do when you're struggling with doubt?

You focus on the truths that you do know, and I'm gonna give you two broad categories.

One, and because it's where I see people struggle struggling, is one is God's existence, and then the other is God's goodness.

God's existence, God's goodness.

If you ask me why I believe in Christianity, I will say, depending on the day, any variety of things.

Um, sometimes it goes back to my ex my uh experience, sometimes it's other things.

Um, but I do have a set of things in my head that when somebody says I hear something online that you know tries to poke hole in what I believe as a Christian, I go to and it bulwarks my faith.

So here are some of them: like there's subjective reality and there's subjective reality, dealing with God's existence.

I believe God exists.

Let me give you some of the subjective experience questions why.

For me, these are mine.

You can take them if they help for you, help if they're helpful for you, but you can come up with your own that are helpful.

So, subjective experience.

I had an encounter with God that I cannot deny, and it changed me.

That's subjective.

You didn't have the experience I had when I had that experience, but you may have had your own experience.

But that one for me was a crystallizing moment.

I had that.

I can't deny that.

Number two, I continue to have spiritual encounters with God.

I can't deny that.

That palpable sense of God's presence.

I've had that.

Number three, I find the message of the gospel to be personally fulfilling.

God loves me, He's forgiven me, He's adopted me, and He's given me a future.

That bulwarks me and holds me fast.

I've got that.

And I find that to be personally fulfilling.

These are subjective, right?

I said they were subjective.

Number four, I find the gospel of Jesus gives the best explanation of human experience I've ever read or ever encountered.

He explains all, the gospel of Jesus explains all the things that our philosophies in the modern world try to come, they try to invent reasons, but they all fall flat in the light of a completely materialistic universe.

Love and unity, these kinds of things, they don't exist in that world.

It's tooth and claw.

Dog eat dog.

But he gives the gospel gives us meaning, morals, purpose, identity.

And I find the gospel to experientially compelling and satisfying, meaning that what it says about the world is exactly in line with what I've encountered and experienced in the world.

It gives the best explanation.

Those are all subjective.

But there are also objective reasons why when I look at the world around me, I say, this is true.

The gospel of Jesus is true.

Number one is as I look at history, I think that the Bible gives us an accurate historical account of what took place with the life, death, burial of Jesus, in addition to all the other things it teaches.

It's historically accurate.

It's the story of the world.

It's more true than, you know, we tell ourselves stories about our founding fathers that may or may not be true.

They're, you know, tall tales.

None of what Jesus says is tall tales.

It's in the historical record what Jesus has done, going dating far back.

Objective reality number two.

Science.

I find the Bible to be scientifically sound.

It's not a scientific textbook, but it makes science, doing science possible.

And it's interesting the number of, and I know your algorithms do things like this for you and to you.

The number of videos that come across YouTube for me is like MIT professor in this hard science becomes a Christian as a result of studying their field.

Because as they're studying their field, they're recognizing what I'm seeing in the world points to a great cosmic mind.

And so things like the Big Bang, the universe had a beginning.

We know that because of Redshift and Big Bang.

DNA, that inside of every cell of our body is a tiny machine with typing out, building microscopic pieces of our bodies.

It's fantastic, it's amazing.

It's a computer code in our cells.

And sometimes when I like hear things online or somebody says something that pokes holes and tries to poke holes in Christianity, I just look at my hands and my fingerprints.

Because that's as close as I can see can come to seeing a cell in my body.

And I imagine every single cell in my body having this tiny manufacturing plant.

That couldn't have happened by accident.

I don't think that happened by accident.

Our bodies are irresistible.

Complex in terms of our cells, our eyes, all of these.

And then there's the fossil record that shows that these fossils are on the same sphere.

The Cambrian explosion.

Go look it up.

It's fascinating.

So, objective.

And then there's another community confirmation.

I talked to you.

I talked to other Christians who confirm the realities that I have experienced and the things that I have seen in the gospel.

And it's the same with doubt.

We bring our beliefs and they're strengthened.

We bring our doubts in the community and we find answers.

I read a story this week about a young man who went through an incredible bout with doubt.

And he was afraid.

He was afraid of Christians.

And the reason he was afraid of Christians was because he thought if he if he talked about his doubts with other Christians, that they would condemn him or look down on him or give him the kind of sad puppy eyes.

You're struggling.

I will pray for you.

You know, whatever it is that he thought that Christians were going to do.

But he carried this alone for a long time and it just ate away at him.

And finally, in community, he he talked about his struggle with doubt.

And he said it was the exact opposite that he thought he was going to find.

And the verse he quoted was Jude 1.22.

Have mercy on those who doubt.

He experienced the mercy of the church as he brought in his doubt.

Nobody poo-pooed his doubts, nobody beat him up for his doubts.

They just came alongside of him.

And doubt is a little bit like sin.

People who have hidden sins that they don't want to talk about because they're, you know, what happens is that sin then controls them.

Because when sin has you alone in the dark by yourself, not only does it have the guilt and shame, but it has the power of that sin that harms you.

So when you bring a sin struggle out into the light of community, it begins to lose its power because part of its power is the hiddenness of being in the dark.

It's the same with doubt.

When you bring your doubt out into the open with the hope that you're going to be received with grace, and the reality that the church has the answers, other people can speak into your doubts in ways that you can't at that moment, then it does bring healing.

It loses its power for you.

The risk is worth bringing it because doubt is too disorienting.

So God's existence.

But also God's goodness.

We doubt God's nature.

We doubt his goodness, his trustworthiness.

And we're gonna, we're if we have time, we're planning to do in our summer series a whole question on what do you do when you pray, and God doesn't answer your prayer the way you want it.

Because we struggle with that.

But that's one of those things that produces doubt for people.

Is I prayed.

And I love the person I'm praying for.

And if God is love, then he would have the same outcome for that person that I imagine he would be for that person.

Does that make sense?

I've experienced that.

And many of you have experienced that.

So we have disappointment, discouragement, disillusion, and anger with God.

How do you deal with that?

Is God good?

Well, you look beyond that immediate thing to the bigger picture.

We have proof of God's love.

Not in a specific answer to a prayer, but in Jesus coming and dying for us.

We have proof of it because Jesus, we have one who came back from the dead.

Jesus was not a survivor, he was a savior who defeated death and came back.

And so in Romans 8:32, we read this He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Romans 8:32

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

Knowing all these things we're more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Now understand what he's saying.

He's not saying if Jesus loves you, you're not going to face tribulation, distress, persecution, or famine.

He's saying that the love of God will not, those will not separate you from the love of God.

God loves you in the midst of those things.

Verse 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He is so for you.

He loves you.

He intends such goodness for you that Jesus willingly endured the cross for you.

The world is broken.

The world we're currently in is broken.

He's not told us anything different.

And so we're going to face some hard things in the midst of this.

And God directs and moves us.

And he loves you in the midst of your doubt.

That's one thing I want you to kind of we're going to end with.

Is we have kind of this idea that God's love for us is fueled by our faith in him.

It's not.

God loves you as much when your faith is at full strength as it is when you're doubting.

He loves you as much.

You may feel far from God because doubt creates the sensation that you are far from God.

Puts an iron dome over things.

And you feel like God is distant from you, but He's not.

He's not going anywhere.

Jesus said, Surely I am with you always.

Even when you doubt, to the end of the age.

Doubt in that case is like vertigo.

You may be standing on completely solid ground, but there's something inside of you that makes you feel off balance.

That's what doubt is like.

You can be standing on solid ground in the gospel, but feel.

Because that's how God feels towards his people when we doubt.

In Luke chapter 6, verse 36, we read, Be merciful even as your Father is merciful.

Luke 6:36

So when He's telling us to be merciful towards people who doubt, it's because God is merciful towards people who doubt.

He's merciful to you when you doubt.

God is more patient with you in your doubts than you are with yourself.

And he's using this in your life to bring not a loss of faith, but a strengthening of faith.

Or to help you clarify for yourself what you really believe.

So if God is commanding us to show mercy, he's showing mercy.

And there's a great picture of this in Matthew 14.

Doubt and Jesus meeting us in our doubt.

Matthew 14 is the famous passage where Jesus is walking on water.

And then he, you know, calls Peter out onto the water.

And Peter takes a few steps, and then all of a sudden the wind, the waves, everything that's around him makes him cared.

And so he starts to sink, Lord, save me.

And then Jesus walks up and says, Where's your faith?

Why are you doubting?

That's not what Jesus does.

Jesus walks over and hoists him up and gets him into the boat.

And once he's safe, the question is, Oh, you have little faith.

Why did you doubt?

That's a great question, right?

Like I would love to have stayed out on the water.

Why did I doubt?

Why did I doubt?

Jesus is there, he's walking on water, he calls me to come with him.

It gave Peter the opportunity to wrestle with his faith in a way that would serve him in a great way later on, when, according to church history, he's crucified upside down.

How do you face hard things like that?

It's by learning along the way.

I can trust Jesus.

Jesus is merciful to us when we doubt.

He's not chastising.

His love for us is constant, his knowledge of us is perfect.

His wisdom in shepherding us is redemptive.

He knows what he's doing.

You will not be saved by the power of your faith.

You will be saved through the faithfulness of the one that you sometimes doubt.

Because he's faithful.

You will not be saved by the greatness and strength of your faith.

You will be saved by the greatness and strength of the Jesus that your faith is in.

Your doubt may diminish or disable your ability to experience God's mercy, grace, and love for a time, but it will never remove you from God's love and his grace and his mercy.

Some of us, some of us, struggle with doubt our entire lives.

It's a struggle.

And Jesus loves that person just as much as the person of great faith.

There is much grace for the doubter, whether it's a long time or short, short time.

Jesus is merciful to us when we doubt.

And you be merciful to other people when they doubt.

And I think what he's saying here is you be merciful to people when they doubt.

Let's pray.

You are a good and gracious king.

You know our frailty, you know our weakness.

And you meet us with grace in the midst of it.

Thank you.

You know our doubt, you know, our our guilt, you know our grief.

And you meet us with grace in the midst of it.

I pray for the people in the room who struggle with doubt, who doubt your existence.

I pray for the people in the room who doubt your goodness and your kindness and your love.

I pray that you would meet them.

I pray that this season of doubt would be over.

And that they would find you to be kind and gracious as they experience relief from that struggle.

And I pray that they would learn the lessons that you intend.

We thank you for your word.

We thank you for your grace.

We thank you for your mercy towards those who doubt.

We pray that you would make us people who are merciful to those who doubt.

And we ask it all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Stay with me.