Permission to Doubt // Help I Have Doubts About my Faith

Matthew, chapter 11 this morning, matthew, chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention Matthew 11 · chapter mention

Got a question for you guys I want to open up with.

Did you ever, growing up, ask permission to do something by maybe ask your parent or an adult or teacher, and you were told, no, raise up your hand, raise up your hand.

Okay, I want you to leave your hands up, leave your hands up.

Okay, lord Lord, leave your hand up.

If, even though you were told no, you still went ahead and did it, okay, all right, you put.

Now some of you are like raising both hands.

You're like this this was okay, see center here.

See center here.

Yep, that's right, it's happened to all of us.

Right, we've all done that one through, twice or three times or a hundred times.

But we're actually, we're actually starting a series.

Today.

We want to give you permission to do something that's a little unusual, at least in the church world.

We're starting a series entitled permission to doubt.

There's in the church, there's been like this sometimes expressed, sometimes unexpressed idea that that you can't have any doubts, at least you can't say your doubts.

So in turn, we kind of feel like we need to suppress our doubts and in the series we just want to talk about doubts and what they are and can we just say in life doubts are kind of a normal thing.

I mean, for example, have you ever heard the weatherman saying?

I mean, for example, have you ever heard the weatherman say something and you're like I don't know about that?

Or you like me, I don't really do the weatherman thing.

I look at my app and it'll say tomorrow the weather is supposed to be like this, so I get off the proper clothes or whatever.

And then the next day I'm like what's going on with this thing?

You don't bring doubts.

Or have you ever heard a politician say something?

Scratch that.

Have you ever heard a politician say anything and you're like I don't know about that, you doubt it.

How about this?

Have you ever doubted yourself, maybe?

Maybe you started a new job or you got into a new life stage or you moved to a new place and you were like I just don't know if I can do it.

I just don't know if I, if I have what it takes, you feel unqualified.

We've all been there.

And the thing about doubts is they're really multifaceted.

So doubts aren't always just intellectual, although they can be intellectual doubts, but sometimes we can have doubts that are more emotional in nature, like we feel a certain way.

Sometimes we're going to have moral doubts where we're like I don't know about this over here, and we can even have doubts in our Christian faith and our Christian journey.

We can ask things like God really good?

Does God really love me?

Does God even exist?

God even exists?

And our gut response to these is we want to run far away from them and we want to get away from these doubts because we think our doubts is the enemy of our relationship with Jesus, like these are at odds with each other.

What I really want us to do over these next few weeks is I want to flip that idea on its head.

And the big idea of this series that we're going to see throughout scripture this, this, these next several weeks is doubt is not the enemy of faith.

Doubt and invitation to a deeper faith.

Is that doubt is not the enemy of faith.

It's an invitation to a deeper faith.

And what I want to show you this week and next week and the next few weeks is that if you will handle your doubts properly, they can actually be a catalyst to a deeper, stronger, more robust faith.

That's what we're going to see Now.

Today we're going to talk about somebody that that is an unlikely doubter.

In fact, if you've been around scripture, been around church, whenever you think of a doubter in scripture, who do you usually think about?

You usually think about Thomas.

We're not going to talk about Thomas today.

We're going to think about somebody that talk about something that you don't think.

This guy's a doubter.

In fact, he was really strong in his faith At one point.

He, he was a mighty preacher.

He baptized people.

He even baptized Jesus.

He, he was called the greatest among women.

This dude was the goat, according to Jesus.

He was faithful to the Lord.

His family, heritage, his family, followed God.

His dad, his mom, they followed God.

And this guy, his name was John the Baptist.

This guy was completely unlikely person to have doubts.

I mean, come on, he stood up in front of crowds and he preached.

He had strong faith.

He had doubts.

Why do you have doubts?

Because he had an experience that did not match his expectation.

He had an experience in his life that did not match his expectations of life and there was a gap here and in this gap of his experience versus what he expected was a season of intense suffering, and in this gap right here between his experience and his expectation.

He doubted because of what he was experiencing.

And this is what happens in our life for all of us we're going to have an experience and experiences that do not match our expectations.

We don't expect that church leader to disappoint us.

We don't expect that church leader to disappoint us.

We do not expect this relationship to go bad.

We do not expect for us to experience this over here.

Yet we experience it.

And what can happen if you're normal is sometimes when your expectations and your experience, when there's a gap here, there can be doubts, and there can be doubts about yourself and there can be doubts about other people.

There can be doubts about God, because if it happened to somebody that Jesus said was the greatest among women, well, hey, it can happen to me and to you.

And what do we do about him?

Let's look at it.

Matthew, chapter 11,.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

If you're ready for the word, would you say amen this morning?

Amen, when Jesus had finished giving instructions to his 12 disciples, he moved on from there to teach and preach in their towns.

Now, when John had heard in prison what Christ was doing, stop John.

This is John the Baptist, not John the apostle.

He's in prison.

He's in prison.

Why is he in prison?

Matthew 14 tells us John John the Baptist is in prison because the king at the time, his name was Herod.

Everybody say Herod ready.

Herod had a brother who in the room's got a brother Brother.

Okay, all right, herod's got a brother.

Now Herod was married.

His brother was married as well.

Herod was kind of getting a little bored with his wife and he saw his brother's wife and he was like it's not hot, this is what he did.

He divorced his wife and he stole his brother's wife and she became his wife.

And Herod's like I'm good, I'm the king, I can do whatever I want.

John the Baptist is like bro, that's not good, dude, I can't do that, can't just do that.

Herod's like oh, you're telling me that I can't just leave my wife and take somebody else's wife.

John's like no.

He's like, oh well, I'm the king, so now you're going to jail.

So John the Baptist is in jail just for speaking the truth.

And John the Baptist did not expect that he would experience jail just for speaking the truth.

This is where he's at.

He's in the gap right now.

And so what does he do?

He sends a message through his disciples.

He's sending a message to Jesus.

He wants to know something about Jesus, he wants to find something out about Jesus.

It says in verse three this is what he asked him Are you the one who's to come, or should we expect someone else?

Mm, mm, mm.

The one to come?

He's talking about the Messiah, the one who could forgive sin, the one who is the deliverer.

He says John the Baptist says are you the one that is to come?

Now, here's the thing John the Baptist had preached that he was the one.

John the Baptist had confidently proclaimed the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

And now there's this gap.

In this gap there's personal challenges, there's suffering, there's a, I would say, a dark night of the soul.

And in this season he's doubting.

I don't know if his doubts are intellectual or if his doubts are emotional.

He's like I just feel so bad right now, like life is just so heavy and overwhelming right now.

He's has doubts.

Maybe you can relate.

And he says can you, can you go ask Jesus if he's the one?

I mean, I think so, pretty sure, but ask.

And this is what Jesus says.

He replies to him go and report to John what you hear and see the blind received their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor are told the good news.

Now Jesus is telling John that what's happening is all these messianic prophecies that were fulfilled.

He's doing them.

So Jesus is like all right, john, I understand you're having some doubts.

Let me give you the evidence of all these.

Things are happening.

Let me give it to you.

Thank you, this is what's happening.

John the Baptist knew this is what was going to happen and Jesus is reminding him.

Jesus is reminding him of what he's doing, which shows who he is.

Like we've said before here, the greatest enemy to faith is forgetfulness, because when we stop, when we forget what God has done, we'll stop believing what God can do.

Right, the greatest enemy to faith is forgetfulness.

When we stop, when we forget what God's done, we'll stop believing what he can do.

But in John the Baptist's case, it's not just believing what he can do, but it's believing who he is.

So Jesus reminds him.

This is what I've done.

Jesus leaves him with one other thing.

In verse six he says by the way, blessed is the one who isn't offended by me.

You ever read a verse in scripture and you're like what does this verse even mean?

Yeah, I'm studying this this week and I'm like, blessed is the one who isn't offended by me.

I'm like, what in the world does this verse mean?

So I'm wrestling with it.

What I do is I have some different apps and some different commentaries that if I'm struggling with the verse or passage I go to to get some more light on it.

So I'm like guys, will you please tell me these different commentators smart people way smarter than me what does this mean?

Here's the general consensus, although some guys, they have a few different and different viewpoints.

The foundational thing is that Jesus is telling John the Baptist blessed are those who stay faithful to me, blessed are those who are faithful to me.

And when I read the story, it's just so fascinating to me that a person of the spiritual caliber of John the Baptist he baptized Jesus for crying out loud he has doubts.

I mean, he's not your nominal Christ follower that comes to church one time a month, no offense, it's not.

He's on stage.

He's leading your growth group.

He's your ministry leader.

He's posting Jesus stuff on Facebook.

He's watching TikTok.

His TikTok algorithm is nothing but Jesus and God stuff Right.

And now there's this gap between experience and expectation.

He's suffering and he has a doubt.

He has doubts and this is what this tells me.

The first statement today of three is that at some point you will experience doubts in your Christian journey to some degree.

To some degree, if John the Baptist struggled, what makes us think we won't ever struggle?

Now John the Baptist?

He didn't have a constant struggle with doubts, man, maybe he will.

I don't know.

But we see a season between the experience and the expectation when he's suffering and there's doubts.

And it's interesting that God actually put that in here.

Like he put in there that John the Baptist doubted, you would think that God would be like no, we're gonna leave that John the Baptist doubt part out.

John the Baptist, he baptized Jesus.

This is what we're gonna do.

We're gonna make John the Baptist look like he's perfect and he doesn't have any doubts and he has his life altogether and he has this perfect life because he baptized Jesus.

So we don't want the person that baptized Jesus to look like he has any struggles.

We're gonna make him look wonderful.

God was like now, let's put the doubt part in there.

That's encouraging to me.

That shows that he's a real person.

And if you look through scripture, you see doubters, you see people that doubt it, even the Psalms.

I want to give you just one Psalm where there's doubts, psalm 42.

I will say to God, my rock, why have you?

What's that next word?

Why have you Forgot?

He said God, you forgot me, god.

I feel like I'm all alone.

Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy's oppression, my adversaries, they taught me, as if crushing my bones All day long?

They say to me where's your God?

Why am I so?

Are you so dejected?

Why are you in such turmoil?

Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my savior and my God.

And the Psalmist is honest about his feelings.

He's honest about our doubts, and we can be honest about our doubts too.

It's easy to think that doubt is a sign of weak faith, but it's not.

In fact, I want to say something that might surprise you is that God isn't afraid of our doubts, so we don't have to be either.

We don't have to be afraid of our doubts.

Sometimes people look at me as a pastor or other pastors because we stand on stage and teach or sit on stage or whatever, that we don't have any problems in life.

It's like when you graduated Bible college or seminary, on your way out they gave you a here's the problem free card.

Go ahead and grab it on your way out.

I mean, maybe, maybe they did pass that out, I just wasn't there.

I missed that line or something.

Right?

You think, ma'am pastors, they don't, they'll struggle with this stuff.

I mean, they're, they're pastor.

But here's the reality.

I'm a normal person.

I got real struggles Sometimes my faith, honestly, is on fire.

I'm like worshiping.

Like I'm in the car, I'm singing super loud, I don't care who sees me.

I like can't get enough of scripture.

I'm like feeling it, I know God's good, I'm resting in his love, like if you were to tell me God's not real, I'd say your mom's not real.

That's right, but that's not every day of my life, that's not every moment, every season of my life.

When I was in college, I studied intellectually the events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, like did this actually happen?

Because the Christian faith is based on the resurrection of Jesus.

That's the cornerstone of the faith.

It's not even based, it's not even based, on what Jesus said.

It's not based on what a church says, or what a church did according to, according to Paul.

According to Paul, according to Jesus, it is based on did Jesus resurrect or not?

So I was like I want to see if this actually happened.

So I studied it it's Israel.

I read all these things outside of Scripture and came to a place where it's undeniable that Jesus resurrected from the grave.

Like intellectually, I don't have doubts about that, and maybe you're in this room and you're like I want to have a relationship with Jesus.

I want to know what it means to follow him.

I'll say this like fill out one of those green cards or scan a QR code.

I would love to talk with you and meet with you, or, ed, you're one of us and just help you.

What does it mean to follow Jesus and trust him?

Because he did resurrect from the grave?

And for me, my doubts are not intellectual.

They haven't been intellectual because I've studied this stuff.

My doubts are emotional and experiential in nature For me I'm not saying for you, I'm saying for me Times where I don't feel God.

There are times where I'll pray and pray and pray and I literally see God do great things.

There are other times I pray and pray and pray, and pray and pray, and pray, and pray and pray, and I'm like I think this one's hit in the ceiling, which is melting back.

I'll feel like it's working.

There are times where I see people like yourselves like going through hard times, and I hurt for you and I want to help you so much and I can't and I say God, if you're all powerful, why are these people hurting?

I want to help them when I can't, but you can't, I don't get it.

And I experienced this and it's, and I know that I'm not alone.

I know that there are times where, whether it's intellectually, maybe, or whether it's experientially or maybe it's emotionally, like I'm feeling this.

I know we have doubts and here's what I want us to do I want to destigmatize those and say they're normal and say it's okay.

Yes, in a church building, I'm saying it's okay to doubt and I want to talk to parents for a second in the room.

I was a kid that grew up in the church.

If the doors were open, church service was happening.

I was there.

I was a drug baby.

I was drugged to church every Sunday and when the church doors were open, I was there for something.

And sometimes what will happen is as your child is growing.

Maybe they're a small kid or maybe they're a teenager, maybe they're an adult and they start asking questions, maybe hard questions.

They start having doubts and they start wondering about things.

They see something in the world.

Then they see the scripture says something, or Jesus says this, but this happened to me.

When those moments happen, don't panic.

Be thankful that they're coming and talking to you.

Be thankful that they're coming and what they're saying really is help me understand this.

I want to own my own faith, like help me get this.

In those moments it's not like press the panic button or I don't know what to do, or you have to do everything that I did.

No, here's what we do.

We say let's process this, let's talk about this, let's watch maybe a right now media study, let's go through like a U-version devotional about this, let's kind of study this and let's talk more about this.

The home and the church should be the safest place on the planet to talk about doubts.

The safest place on the planet and the strongest faith.

It's not a faith that doesn't have doubt.

The strongest faith is a faith that grows through your doubts.

So if you ever get to a point where you're like when I'm never doubting, then I'm going to be like the strong faith.

Nope, this is what it is it's.

I have these doubts, but I'm leaning into Jesus and I'm actually going to grow through these doubts, because statement number two, which is the big idea of this series, is that doubt is not the enemy of faith.

It's an invitation to a deeper faith, and for some of you, you're not yet a follower of Jesus in this room, and your doubt is an invitation to begin faith with Jesus.

When you have doubts and you're a Jesus follower, this is what allows you to do to strip down all the fluff that isn't Christianity and truly discover what do you actually believe, and truly discover what is Christianity and truly discover who is Jesus.

Is my Christianity, is my faith, based on Christian leaders?

Is it based on me following Jesus as long as I'm comfortable?

So now I'm not comfortable.

So now my faith is destroyed.

So then does that mean that my faith the whole time is based on my personal comfort and my convenience and the amount of money I have in my bank account?

Is that what my faith is based on?

Is my faith based on my emotions?

So I had the Jesus feels.

For a while I was whoo-hoo-hoo.

I went to the Bible conference at Bayside Church in Sacramento, or I went to youth camp, or I went to the Humalake Young Adult Retreat or whatever, and I was.

Now I just I'm trying.

It's not there, don't have faith anymore.

Is that what our faith is based on?

Because my faith, based on my family, heritage Guys, my dad was a preacher man.

They're came.

I had, oh, my own faith.

Like is this his faith or is this my faith?

Like is your faith based on your family?

That's a weak faith, bro, bro, it is.

That's a weak faith.

And this is what happens when we have doubts.

It causes us to get rid of the fluff and scrape away all the other stuff that isn't the Christian faith and say who is Jesus?

What does the scripture actually say?

Yes, this Christian leader disappointed me and that's a terrible thing.

Yes, I experienced church hurt and that's a terrible thing.

Yes, I experienced this over here.

But that is not what my faith is based on.

And what doubt causes me to do is to say what is my faith truly all about?

Who is Jesus?

And when you have these doubts and you're unsure, it's an invitation to say what is this truly all about.

It's an invitation to a faith that you can own, a faith that you can possess, a faith that is robust and durable enough to handle your life when your life sucks.

That's the kind of faith I'm talking about, and doubt is an invitation to lean in and grow.

But statement three and we're done with this statement is that the devil wants to use doubt to draw you away from Jesus, but your doubts can be tools to draw you to Jesus.

The devil wants to use your doubts to draw you away from Jesus, but they can actually be tools that draw you to Jesus.

In Mark nine there is a father that was hurting and he was going through a really difficult time because of something his son was experiencing.

And he goes to Jesus and this is what he says.

He says I do believe, help my let's say that last word together I do believe, help my unbelief.

He leans into Jesus.

He's like I do have faith in you, but I kind of have unbelief too.

I kind of do, but I don't.

And what Jesus didn't do, jesus didn't say you gotta wish you washy faith.

Buddy, I'm really disappointed in you.

I'm super disappointed in your weak faith.

In fact, if you had more faith, then I would heal your son right now.

Jesus didn't do that.

Jesus entered his world In Mark 9 study it's beautiful.

And Jesus asked him.

He was like how long has your son been going through this?

What are you experiencing right now?

And this man leaned into Jesus with his unbelief and Jesus met him right there.

And Jesus leaned back into him, because Jesus is a pursuer of people.

When Jesus sees our doubts, he doesn't push away from us, he leans into us.

He doesn't push away, he leans in.

This is why we don't have to sweep those doubts under the rug.

This is why we don't have to suppress those deep, deep, until the end of our big toe.

Please don't ever come back up again.

No, we can lean in and, at the end of the day, every person in this room and every person online, you're going to trust something.

Now, maybe you experienced some things in your life like most of us have and you say something like the only person that I can trust is myself.

And 99.9% of us would say watch out, buddy.

Trust in yourself, man.

That's a dangerous road.

You're going to trust somebody.

It could be yourself.

Just look at your own personal chart record if you think.

That's a good idea, right, you can trust.

You can trust your favorite tiktoker.

You can trust your favorite YouTuber.

You can trust Ben Shapiro.

You can trust Jordan Peterson.

You can trust whoever it is that you follow.

You can trust a philosophical idea.

You can trust an ideology.

Yet you are going to trust something because, at your core, you are made a worshipper and you are made a person that has to direct your trust somewhere, which that alone should show us that there's something out there that's drawing us somewhere.

You're going to trust something.

Why not trust a resurrected savior that loves you and cares about you and gave his life for you?

He is the only one that you can completely turn your back on him, and he's still there.

He's the only one that you could do all these things to hurt him and he still pursues you.

He's the only one that will meet you in your doubts.

You might say I just have a little bit of faith.

Okay, that's enough, because small faith in a strong object is more durable than big faith in a weak object.

You say I only have a little bit of faith, that's okay.

That's okay because if you're a little bit of faith, it's in Jesus, a strong object that's way more durable than big faith in a weak object.

If you faith this week, that's okay.

This is what I invite you to do this morning To come to Jesus wherever you are, and to bring whatever you have to Jesus.

You have doubts?

Lean in and bring those to Him.

Do you feel overwhelmed in life?

Lean in to Him, bring those to Him.

Do you have uncertainty?

Do you have anxiety?

Do you have mental health struggles?

Do you have a lot of unknowns?

Do you feel guilted with shame because of things that have happened in the past?

Do you have addiction?

Do you have sexual baggage?

Do you feel like you can't go on anymore?

Listen, you're not alone.

And John the Baptist and the father in Mark, chapter nine you know what they did they leaned in.

They leaned in and this is what they found Jesus meeting them right there.

But they chose to lean in.

And what do you need to bring to Jesus this morning?

That's the question I want you to ask.

What do you need to bring to Jesus this morning?

What do you need to bring to Him?

And I'm going to pray in just a moment, and this is what I'm going to invite you to do.

I'm going to invite you to pray too, not in a religiosity way, not in a way where it's like I have to act like I have myself together.

Bologna Bull, I want you to pray this prayer in a humble, honest, sincere way, maybe in a way you haven't prayed in a long time.

Jesus, I'm bringing my to you.

Jesus, I'm bringing the gap between my experience and my expectation to you.

Jesus.

I'm bringing the disappointment between my experience and my expectation to you.

Jesus, I'm bringing the heaviness of my soul to you.

Not keep me in the dark anymore, tired of it.

I'm not hiding this.

I'm bringing it to you.

Let's bring it to Him even right now.

Let's talk about our heads and close our eyes right now.