Permission to Doubt // What Jesus Would say to Doubters

In John chapter 20 this morning.

John 20 · chapter mention

John chapter 20 this morning, and I was thinking about you guys this past week and I had a really spiritual question in my mind.

John 20 · chapter mention

So I thought about you guys.

I was thinking I wonder how many people at FCC like movies?

You hear me, guys like movies, guys like movies.

Okay, you know our movies.

Great, like you get your popcorn.

I actually like kettle corn, kettle corn, people, kettle corn.

Okay, you get your kettle corn, you sit back.

You get your Coke.

Not Pepsi, not Pepsi.

Are there any Pepsi drinkers in the room?

Pepsi people.

You guys can tell we're a church full of imperfect people.

You know we're just imperfect here.

You get your beverage there, your popcorn, and sometimes you just, sometimes you just gotta watch a good comedy movie.

Maybe you're kind of stressed out a little bit.

You need a good laugh.

In fact, how many of you guys your go-to genre for your movie is a comedy movie?

How many of you guys comedy?

Okay, some comedy movie people.

How many of you guys you're more of like the mystery thriller type of people oh yeah, hands were just shooting up, right Mystery thrillers.

How many of you enjoy a good romance or chick flick?

Romance or chick flick?

Oh, I see some guys in the back.

That is awesome.

Rob Duggan had his hand up.

Guys, rob, pat, pat, pat had his hand up.

Pat got baptized last week and I was like everything I had man Pat, awesome, that's great.

All right, that's good.

One type of movie genre that I like is I really like action movies?

Yes, action movies, yes, yes.

You know, where there's like this brave hero, they do something awesome, like, for example, have you guys ever seen this is actually it's over 20 years old now but have you guys ever seen the Mel Gibson movie, the Patriot?

Oh man, that's one of the goats right there.

Okay, it's great.

You know you got Mel Gibson and he's getting revenge for his family and he's gonna take out all the red coats.

He gives that iconic line aim small, miss small, aim small, miss small.

You know what I'm talking about.

You don't know what I'm talking about, but it's a line in there and at the end of the movie.

You know he's like a hero.

He's brave, he did all these things and it's like man.

I wanna be like Mel Gibson when I grow up.

You know, like the Patriot.

It's such a great movie.

We hear stories of bravery and we're inspired by them.

You know you watch a video, you watch a movie, you watch a video on TikTok or something.

Somebody does something brave.

You're like, well, it's so great.

We're gonna talk about something today.

That was, and John was actually.

He was a really brave guy, but he's not known for his bravery.

In fact, this guy was so brave he was willing to die for Jesus to die for him.

In fact, this is what it says in John, chapter 11.

John 11 · chapter mention

I left out his name on purpose.

Okay, it says this then dot dot dot.

His name is right there in the space.

Then this person said to his fellow disciples let's go to so that we may die with him.

That's pretty brave.

I mean, I would like to say that I would be willing to die for Jesus, but I can promise y'all I wouldn't be volunteering saying, hey, I'll do it.

This guy was, but he's not known for that.

In fact, even though he was an apostle of Jesus, we only see him.

It's only recorded him speaking three times and his name is only mentioned a handful of more times than that.

At one point he was brave, but he's known for being a doubter.

His name Thomas, and Thomas got that infamous adjective before his name, that little nickname that we all know him as, and it isn't brave Thomas.

It's not brave Thomas.

We know him as doubting Thomas, doubting Thomas, but before there was a doubting Thomas, there was a brave Thomas.

Now, if you're new here, we've been in this series that we've just been kind of navigating through, walking through.

We're in a series about doubts.

It's a series called Permission to Doubt, and what we've been doing is we've been looking at people in Scripture that, surprisingly, had doubts.

People like you, like me.

They're normal people.

They had doubts and sometimes what we think is we think doubt is the enemy of faith.

Like doubt and faith, they're odd to each other, but what we're really discovering we're talking about is the doubt is not the enemy of faith.

Doubt is actually an invitation to deeper faith.

And Thomas had some doubts.

And what took Thomas from brave Thomas?

My faith is on fire.

It's an inferno to doubting Thomas.

My faith is just a flicker.

It's an event that happened that he didn't expect would happen.

Thomas had genuine faith in Jesus Christ, that he believed that he was the Messiah, that he was the Son of God, that he was the forgiver of sin.

But then Jesus was.

He was captured, he was arrested, he was tortured, he was publicly executed for the watching world to see, and in the eyes of Thomas, this was not supposed to happen.

Thomas thought man, the Messiah Jesus, he's gonna go, he's gonna get rid of all the Romans, he's gonna set up his kingdom right here.

I mean the Romans, they're pesky, they're annoying, they take all of our money like he's gonna get rid of them.

But it didn't happen and let the apostles with all kinds of questions after Jesus died, questions that he didn't know, questions about faith, questions about what do we do now, questions that maybe you would have if you were in that situation, questions that maybe you have right now in your life.

How do I go forward?

What do I do?

Maybe you're in a place like that right now and Thomas is in this place of doubt, is in this place of questions, and he hears something.

He hears that Jesus, who had died, isn't dead.

Now it's really easy for us to be like come on, thomas, you're doubting Thomas.

What do you mean?

Think about this what if one of your friends or family member, what if they passed away?

And then you had a friend come to you and they're like oh, you know that friend or family member that passed away.

They're not dead anymore, they're alive.

You would be like what are you smoking, bro?

You'd be like I don't know about that.

This is where Thomas is at, but something happened in Thomas's life that caused his flickering faith, his doubting faith, to turn into a flaming inferno again.

That history tells us 30 to 40 years later would allow Thomas.

His faith was so strong that Thomas actually died for Jesus by being speared to death.

He gave his life for Jesus and he was like what's the point of this?

His life for Jesus?

In his life, his faith journey went from with just a flickering faith to a flaming inferno, and it happened in a room in Jerusalem 2000 years ago.

It was an experience that Thomas had that changed how Thomas viewed and saw the world, and it changed how Thomas viewed and saw Jesus in faith.

And what I want us to do this morning is I want us to transport back 2000 years to the room in Jerusalem where Thomas's faith came back to life again.

What I want us to do is just to be a fly on the wall and almost to watch and see what it'll allow Thomas to have his faith come back to life again.

And maybe you might be here and your faith might just be a flicker, but can I say that your faith too can come back to life again, and we're gonna see this in John, chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

And if you're ready for the word this morning, would you say amen, amen.

It says in John 20, verse number 24, it says but Thomas called Twin Thomas.

He had a twin.

We don't know who he was, we don't know anything about his twin.

We just know he had a twin.

He was one of the 12, one of the 12 apostles.

He was not with them when Jesus came.

So a week earlier Jesus had appeared to the other apostles.

He was.

Thomas wasn't with them.

So the other disciples were telling him we've seen the Lord.

They're telling Thomas, we've seen the Lord.

But he, thomas, said to them if I don't see the mark of the nails in his hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will never believe.

So his friends are trying to convince him that he's alive, that Jesus is alive.

Have you ever tried to convince a friend or family member of something and they just didn't believe you?

All right, you're trying to convince them and say, like I don't believe you.

You're trying to get them to do something right.

You're trying to get them to go to this restaurant.

You're trying to like I don't know about that.

The apostles, thomas's friends, are saying hey, he's alive.

Thomas is like I don't believe that.

I need to see the mark of the nails in his hands.

I need to see this.

Now, if you think about it, in the Old Testament it was prophesied that these things would happen to Jesus, that Jesus would, that he would die, that the Messiah would die.

Jesus had said that he's going to die In three days.

He's going to resurrect, like he predicted that.

He said this was gonna happen.

This whole thing of Jesus dying, it shouldn't have been a complete shock to him, because this is what the word said, and you know what this shows me?

It shows me is that, thomas, there were some places in scripture where Thomas didn't know, is that there were some doubts in Thomas's life because he didn't know the scripture.

And for some of us in our life, our doubts are directly correlated to our lack of knowledge of scripture and our lack of time in scripture.

Some of us, we have some doubts in our life and it's because we don't know this book.

In fact, it says in Romans.

It says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

And here's why I say this, because the darkness of doubt is often diminished by the light of the word.

I'm gonna say that again, so we get this okay.

The darkness of doubt is often diminished by the light of the word, and what God does is God uses his word in our lives.

And Thomas, if he knew some of these prophecies of what the Old Testament said, of what Jesus had said, this wouldn't be such a surprise to him, because this is what the word says.

And even Thomas, though he's in this place of doubting, jesus didn't give up on him, and that's such good news for me and for you.

He didn't give up.

In fact, thomas is gonna experience something that's gonna change him.

It says a week later, in verse 26, his disciples.

They were all indoors again and Thomas did with them, even though the doors were locked.

So they're all hanging out, hanging out with their friends Talking.

Maybe they're sharing a meal, we don't know.

The text says the doors were locked.

I mean, that thing was locked in, people weren't coming in.

But all of a sudden, jesus came among them and said peace, be with you.

Peace, be with you.

I'm telling you right now, if I was in that room and the doors were locked and all of a sudden Jesus Comes in, he would have to say peace, be with me.

Because I'd be scared out of my mind.

I Like what is going on.

Honestly, guys, I probably like wet myself or something.

I'd be like.

I cannot believe what, what is happening right now.

The doors are locked, all of a sudden, jesus body and he is here alive.

And then he said to Thomas in verse 27 puts your fingers here, says to the doubter Reach out your hand and put it into my side.

Don't be faithless but believe.

Can we say that last underlying lines together ready?

Don't be faithless but believe.

Don't be faithless but believe.

The word faithless here is translated from the word apesos, which literally means don't disbelieve.

He doesn't say Thomas, don't have any questions.

He doesn't say Thomas, Don't, don't wrestle with anything.

He says Thomas, I want you to believe through your doubts, thomas, I know you have these doubts, but I want you to believe through them.

Don't be faithless, but believe.

Sometimes I think what can happen is we, we come to this place in our lives where we think we can only trust God when we fully understand everything, like we're only good.

We can only fully trust God when we don't have any doubts, when we have all the answers, when everything makes sense, when everything is exactly how we planned it to be, then we can trust it's not real life.

Faith is trusting when we don't have all the answers.

Faith is trusting even though there might be some doubts.

Faith is trusting when everything doesn't make sense.

And what Thomas does and what Jesus does to Thomas is Jesus says hey, still have faith in the midst of these doubts.

We could say it this way Jesus welcomed Thomas's skepticism and challenged his doubts with evidence.

He welcomed Thomas's skepticism and he challenged his doubts with evidence.

Says you have doubts, you're not the first person.

Look, look at the evidence, look at the evidence and Look at how Thomas responded in verse 28.

Thomas responded to him in verse 28.

He says my Lord and my let's say together and my God, hold on.

Thomas had said earlier that he needs to actually touch.

If you didn't touch it, if you didn't touch, you're not gonna believe.

But at this point, thomas, thomas just sees this evidence.

He he dropped his conditions and he says my Lord and my God.

He says this is who you are.

Jesus said to him Because you have seen me, you have believed.

But there are those who have not seen and yet believed.

Now I want to point out a really important theological truth here is that Jesus is called God by Thomas, and what and what Jesus does is Jesus still receives that Thomas called him God.

Here's why I say this.

I say this because Jesus is God.

Thomas calls Jesus God and he received this.

There are other places in scripture when Jesus said that he was God, and this is such a fundamental truth of what it means to follow Jesus is Believing and embracing that he actually was God.

And I say that because there's a lot of nice, zealous religious people that say Jesus, it's good dude, it's good prophet, he was nice guy.

But they don't say that he was God.

But scripture tells us that he was God and he proved he was God by resurrecting from the dead.

I mean, think about this.

When's the last time a religious leader out there Predicts his own death and resurrection and then actually pulled it off?

Doesn't happen.

There's a general rule of thumb for me If you can predict your own death and resurrection and actually pull it off, I'll just follow you and listen to you like Jesus did that.

Jesus was showing that he was God.

And the resurrection wasn't the only miracle that he performed.

It says in verse 30 he performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.

In other words, there's all these other signs that Jesus did that weren't even recorded for us, but these are written.

Verse 31 all the things that we see and we hear in Matthew, mark, luke and John, which are the biographies of the life of Jesus.

They're the Gospels.

All these are written so that you May think that Jesus was a really nice guy, so that you may start acting more like Jesus, so that you may use the teachings of Jesus to judge other people.

Now, what is it?

So?

That you may believe, so that you would trust that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have what's that word?

Let's say it nice and loud together that you may have life, life, life in His name.

You know why the book of John was written.

The book of John was written is not so you can just live your best life now.

It's not why the book of John was written.

The book of John was written, not so you can just say Jesus was a cool person.

It's so that we would believe, so that we would trust you know the New Testament.

It wasn't written just so we could form this church and hang out and just because we like each other and we like to spend time together.

No, this place, this church, this gathering, is about Jesus Christ.

It's about our belief, our faith in Him, and it says that we can have life.

This is eternal life, this is abundant life.

Eternal life is not found by being a good person or by being a spiritual person.

It's by trusting in Jesus Christ and what he did for us and in Him is life.

And some of us are spending our lives right now.

We're looking for life, we're trying to find abundant life.

Like we think man, if I could just move into this neighborhood and get this house, or get out on my own, away from my parents, or make this amount of money or finally get that car I've always wanted a Tesla If I can get this over here, then I'm gonna have life.

If I could just move out of California, man, that's where life is gonna begin.

If I could just get this many amount of followers on my social if I can get this many TikTok views.

Whatever, guys, life is not found and that life is found in Jesus.

And one of the tragic things that can happen and this is a normal thing is that people spend their life trying to find life.

They spend their life trying to climb the ladder and they get to the top rung only to discover the ladder is leaning against the wrong building and you have it all and you have everything you dreamed of, and you got the car, and you got the 401K, and you got the zeros in your bank account that you always wanted, and then you're like gosh, this is it.

Because that's not where life is.

Life is found in Jesus.

And when Thomas has these intellectual doubts and when Thomas has these things that I don't really know about this, this is what Jesus does.

Jesus comes to him and Jesus talks to him.

What I want us to do is to spend the rest of our time together asking and answering a simple question what does Jesus say to us when we experienced doubts?

What does he say to you?

What does he say to me when, mentally, you're all over the place, when you're not sure what to do, when life is kind of topsy-turvy when you didn't know this was gonna happen.

When, like spiritually, you're like, where's God at?

This is what Jesus said to Thomas.

And this is what Jesus would say to you is one look at the evidence.

Look at the evidence.

Jesus says, hey, thomas, here you go.

Look at my hands, like, look, I'm here, I'm right here.

Look at this.

Now some of us are thinking, hey, well, if Jesus did that to me and I physically saw Jesus, then I wouldn't doubt at all, I would believe, I would say my Lord and my God.

But I haven't, ever I haven't seen Him.

If I actually saw Him, then I would fully believe, would you?

I mean, we read several people in the gospels.

They saw Jesus and they saw miracles and they didn't believe.

We saw people, they heard Jesus teach.

I mean he did incredible things and they were like now we're cool off of that.

We don't think so.

Think about the children of Israel.

God is like in the book of Exodus.

God did these incredible miracles where he had 10 plagues happen in Egypt.

Water was turned to blood.

All these crazy things happen through the power of God's miracles and then the Egyptians released the children of Israel.

They get out of the bondage of Egypt.

They're in the wilderness and they're like I don't know if we can really trust God.

I don't know if God's really here for us.

Bro, come on, dude, Like, look at what he did.

This is why, later, what Joshua would do is Joshua the leader of Israel.

He talked about building something and he built something called the Stones of Remembrance.

This is what we're gonna do.

We're going to remember what God has done and we're gonna build all these stones so we can look back at evidence, at what God has done.

I say this phrase semi-regularly here, and I said it a couple of weeks ago and I'm probably just gonna say it for the rest of my life, because I just believe it with every ounce of my body is that the greatest enemy of faith is forgetfulness.

When you forget what God's done, you'll stop believing what God can do.

Like the greatest enemy to faith is forgetfulness.

When you forget what God's done, you'll stop believing what God can do.

Like this is the enemy of faith.

It's not like agnausicism or atheism or whatever.

No, no, it's when we forget what God has done in our lives, it's when we forget what God has delivered us from.

It's when we forget what God has saved us from it's when we forget when we were in this situation and we were down and out and broken and we cried out to God and God brought somebody in our path, or God brought some resources, or God did something in our life at that moment.

Now we're on the other side of that and we're like God, are you even here?

Like what's going on?

It's like hey, we can't forget that.

Like it's like forgetfulness.

This is why I talk to us often about having an answered prayer journal or maybe having something in the notes in your phone where, when you see God come through, man write that in your notes, because the time is coming when you're gonna doubt, like, hey, god, what's going on and what we can do is we remember what God did in the past and what that does is it gives us faith in the present and we need to remember the evidence of his work in our life.

We need to remember this, the evidence of what he's done in our life.

It's funny last night.

It's funny I'm preaching this because I was praying last night about something and I'm just praying and I'm like God, is this ever gonna happen?

I was doubting.

I was doubting.

I was praying with some faith.

But then my rational logic side is like I don't even know and I'm praying, and I'm praying and I'm praying.

So I've been praying for a while and it was like the Holy Spirit or something in my mind reminded me of the faithfulness of God in past seasons of my life and I started thinking back to two or three specific times where I'm like those were God moments in my life that are unexplainable apart from a living God.

And what happened is last night.

It gave me faith in the present.

What's so funny is, after I'm talking to God about this, I went and I was looking through my nose and I was like I literally just experienced the same thing I'm gonna talk about this morning.

And we have to look at what God has done in our life.

We have to look at the evidence of the resurrection, which is what Jesus showed Thomas right here in John, chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

The Christian faith is not based on a church.

The Christian faith is not based on a pastor.

Amen, thank God for that.

The Christian faith is not even based on the teachings of Jesus.

The Christian faith is based on a historical event.

It's based on the person of Jesus, the fact that he died and resurrected from the dead.

That is what the Christian faith hinges on.

That's what it's about, and there is so much evidence that supports that this actually happened.

I don't have a lot of time, but one resource if you kind of want to get in the weeds of this and study this out.

It's a book called Evidence that Demands a Verdict.

I'm curious any guys ever heard of this book?

Any of you guys heard of this book?

Cool, some of you guys have read it.

It's by Josh McDowell, and this is the guy, josh McDowell.

He did this.

He was an ardent atheist and he didn't believe anything in the book.

He set out his life to disprove the scripture and to disprove Christianity.

That was what his life's mission was about.

He was gonna do it and in his process of looking at the evidence, he became a devoted, passionate follower of Jesus that now travels the world teaching people about Jesus and telling people that there's overwhelming evidence and people need to follow Jesus.

Like it's crazy.

And one of the evidence that he brings up in this book which I think it's worth noting is that when the apostles died for Jesus because all these apostles died for him the fact that he resurrected from the grave.

They weren't dying for something that they just believed.

They were dying for something that they saw and witnessed.

They weren't just dying for something they believed, like I believe that Jesus is alive.

They were dying for the fact that they actually saw him him after he had resurrected and they witnessed that.

And when your life is on the line, you don't die for a lie.

So if the apostles, if this was just like this is like a conspiracy theory, like let's just tell everybody he resurrected, it's not really true.

Like let's do this because we can get power and money, if that was their motive, then why would they all die?

They weren't dying for something they just believed or felt.

They were dying for something they saw and experienced.

And when you have intellectual doubts, look at the evidence.

Look at what God's done in you, look at the resurrection of Jesus.

Hey, here's another one, just for fun.

How about this?

Look at creation.

Now, you'd be like gone and taken a hike, or you looked around.

Probably haven't taken a hike recently with this crazy weather, right, but you gone and looked around, or you watched the sunset and you're just like, oh, my goodness, god's just showing off.

This is what scripture says in Psalm.

It says the heavens declare the glory of God and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.

Now, if you have doubts in your life about Jesus, about God, look at the evidence around you and what's gonna happen is our faith is gonna be strengthened, and one of my favorite definitions of faith is that faith is when the unexplainable meets the undeniable.

So faith is at that place where I can't explain everything that's happening, but I can't deny these things either.

I can't explain all the questions of life.

I can't explain why this person got cancer.

I can't explain why I lost this job.

I can't explain why this happened, but I also can't deny that God is real, that creation is incredible, that God has done a work in my life, that the resurrection of Jesus has actually happened.

And it's at this intersection where faith happens and what faith does?

It's faith is accepting what we cannot understand on the basis of what we can understand.

There are things in your life that you cannot understand.

There are things in your life that I cannot understand, and this side of heaven I probably will never know and you probably will never know.

And if you're like me, there are times where I'm just like man.

I wanna rationally think through this and try to figure this things out and you'll find the answer for it.

And sometimes, when it comes to all the different theological aspects of Jesus and God, I just man.

Sometimes I'm like I think I understand Him, I think I've got a pretty good grasp on Him, and then I go a little deeper and I'm like man, I can't, I don't understand everything about that.

I can't, you can't scientifically say this is how Jesus resurrected.

You can't do that.

This is what faith is.

Faith is not understanding everything, but it's accepting what I cannot understand based on what we can understand.

And this is what I found in my life and I shared a little about this not too long ago but those times in my life where I want every single answer to every single thing, what really that is for me is I just want control, I just want control of things.

And when I open up my hands of control and I accept what I cannot understand based on what I can understand, it's there in that intersection where faith happens.

It's there in that intersection where I understand that God because he's a good God, because he's a God that resurrected from the dead, that he can redeem broken situations, he can redeem broken people.

He can take your pain and your suffering and your trials and bring something from that.

And you might be at a place in your life right now where you were like limping in this room emotionally, or you were limping in this room psychologically and you're having anxiety and you're having mental health struggles and you're like God.

I'm trying.

I'm trying to have faith.

I have a word for you that God is alive and God resurrected from the dead.

And if God is big enough to resurrect from the dead and he is powerful enough to forgive our sins and he is powerful enough to do a great work in our lives, then your questions and your challenges and your answers, or your questions and your challenges and your difficulties, god can bring something from that.

There can be a redemption story that can grow through the ashes.

And what we have to do in this moment is we have to look at the evidence of who he is.

And number two, he would say look at what I've done for you.

Thomas knew that those nail prints in the hands of Jesus were because Jesus died for him.

He gave himself for him, because he loved him.

And when Jesus came to Thomas, jesus didn't say Thomas, I'm going to answer all of your questions right now.

Give them to me, give them to me, give me all of your questions.

I'm going to answer every Didn't do that.

Jesus says look at the evidence and look what I've done for you.

Look at the evidence around you and look what I've done for you.

And this doesn't mean that Thomas's questions weren't valid or important.

It didn't mean that.

It just meant that what was more important was the evidence that Jesus actually rose from the dead.

It just means that if Jesus rose from the dead, then he's the one that we should follow, then he's the one that we can actually trust.

And it's so fascinating to me in this text is that Thomas had these conditions.

He said, hey, I need to touch Jesus' hands, I need to touch His side.

Then I'll believe Thomas dropped his conditions.

We don't see Thomas touching him.

We just say Thomas saying my Lord, my God, like I surrender to you, like I believe, like I trust, like I follow you, why?

Because he saw the evidence and he saw what God, what Jesus, had done for Him.

And some of us in this room we have these conditions with God, like we think, man, you know God, I'll take you seriously, I'll take your words seriously, maybe I'll start, maybe I'll trust and follow you.

Once these things happen in my life over here, or once things kind of shake out, or once things settle down, or once this happens, then I'll follow, then I'll obey, then I'll join a serve team, then I'll be in a growth group, then I'll start giving 10%, then I'll start doing these things.

I know I should be doing, but I have these conditions over here.

And when Thomas saw the evidence and when Thomas saw what Jesus had done for him, you guys, thomas, dropped all his conditions.

He says my Lord and my God, and some of you are waiting for the perfect time to follow Jesus.

And can I say the perfect time to follow Jesus is right now.

You're waiting for the perfect time to obey, you're waiting for when you don't have any more questions, you're waiting for when the doubts subside.

But can I say that look at the evidence of what he's done and look at what Jesus has done for you, and when you see this, this is what it caused us to do.

My Lord, my God, I just want to follow as we wrap up.

You're in a season of doubt.

You're in a moment of doubt.

You will be sometime.

What do you do?

This is what you do.

First of all, you look at the evidence.

And number two, you look at what he's done for you in the gospel.

This is what you do.

You look at the evidence when we're in a season of doubt.

What we don't do is we don't let our feelings lead the way.

Feelings are great.

Feelings have a healthy place in our lives.

Feelings are great indicators of what's going on in our life.

But if we let feelings lead the way, it will take us to a place we don't want to go, ultimately, to an unhealthy place.

When we have to do, when we have doubts and we're feeling some sort of way, this is what we need to do.

We need to look at the evidence.

What has God done for us?

What does the gospel declare?

Look at creation.

And if God is big enough to do all these things over here, then it's possible that God might be up to something right now that I don't fully understand.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to accept what I do understand and what I cannot understand.

Based on what I do understand, I'm going to look at the evidence.

And number two, I'm going to look at what God has done for me in the gospel.

I was at a pastor's conference this week in Arizona.

It was 75 degrees, it's wonderful, so I want to pack this up in my suitcase and take this back to the beautiful Bay Area right, and I went to a breakout session.

It was powerful and the session the person that was teaching said we need to every day rehearse the gospel to ourselves and every day we need to remind ourselves what Jesus has done for us and the implications of what that means to us and for us.

What Jesus has done for us and the implications of what that means to us.

He died for me, so this is what that means.

That means I'm unconditionally left.

He died for me and when I put my faith and trust in him, that means I am completely forgiven, so I don't have to live in shame and guilt.

He died for me and he's given me a new identity, one of being welcomed and accepted and made whole.

This is who I am, and he was talking in the context of the session was about helping us, helping people understand the power of their identity in Christ.

He says the foundation of all of this is looking every single day he uses the word, rehearsing the gospel to ourselves.

And if you're at a place of doubt in your life, can I say look at what Jesus has done for you.

He died for you, he gave himself for you.

And maybe you're at a place right now where you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus.

Maybe your view of Jesus is like he's some mean guy that wants to get me, or maybe you have some really hard church experiences and some really hard church background.

You're like I don't get all this.

This is what you need to understand.

Jesus loved you, he died for you and if you come to him just as you are, he will accept you just as you are.

And I want us to end with this verse in Hebrews, chapter 12, and all of this.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

It says Hebrews 12, verse 2.

Hebrews 12:2

It's keeping our eyes on Jesus, it's looking at the evidence of what he's done and it's remembering they did this for us.

Let me pray.