It’s Okay To Have Doubts

Of course you'll have doubts, just don't let them be

dead ends. And a lot of people stand at the

dead end of a destiny that God is bringing them

into because they will not walk through the doubt to.

Get to the promise.

I meet these people and they say things to me

because of my profession. I guess they make assumptions about

me because there's a reve in front of my name.

They make assumptions about me that I don't have real doubts.

One gentleman that I was doing business with, they put

it this way. He was like, I envy you because

I would love to have faith. I always wanted to

believe in God, but I just always am the kind

of person that doubts a lot, and I envy you

that you don't have those doubts.

Now here's what I should have said back to him.

It only took me four months to come up with this,

because he is assuming that faith is the absence of doubt.

For me, faith has never been the absence of doubt.

Faith is not the absence of doubt. It is the

means to overcome it. Do you hear what I'm saying?

Because we get in church and we just all go

into this walking dead, willing suspension of disbelief, and we

just believe things that have no impact on our everyday life,

just like we're binge watching Netflix, like I'm just gonna

watch this for a little while and hear this little

comforting word.

But then we go out into the world and we

doubt the stuff.

But we can't say we doubt the stuff because doubt

is bad, because.

Isn't doubt bad.

One time, I even had a keptist pastor who was

giving an invitation like, we will give in a moment

for people who want to place their faith in Christ.

And when we do it at our church, we have

people repeat a prayer.

It's just a means of allowing.

Them to express their heart to God so that they

can have a moment that they look back on and say,

I placed my.

Trust in Christ.

And to me, that prayer is a very sacred moment.

It's not a time for people to get their person

get out and beat the parking, and it's not a

time for someone who's preaching to start sharing their opinions.

That is a time to present the gospel and get

out of the way because only God can save a person.

And now, well, I believe.

This Campus Pastor mintwell, but what he said I had

to correct him on later. And I'm not a mean guy,

and I make mistakes up here too, But to me,

he made a really big mistake when he was praying

the prayer, because he was inviting the people to pray,

and he said, if you want to give your heart

to Christ today and know for sure that you have

a relationship with him, pray this. You know, Lord Jesus,

I believe that I'm a sinner in need of a savior,

and I believe without a doubt that's the part he

should have left out. I believe without a doubt that

Jesus Christ, the Son of God and.

The savior of the world. Today, I give you my life.

All of it was good, all of it was appropriate,

and there is.

No other way to be saved but to confess with

your mouth, Jesus' lord, believe in your heart God raised

them from the dead.

You shall be saved.

But that one parenthetical insert, without a doubt, I told him,

never again, when you stand in the pulpit at elevation,

do I want you to put people in a position

where you're telling them to pray something that they can't

honestly pray.

As a matter of fact, don't.

Put them in a position to pray something that you

can't honestly pray, because there is not one of you

in the room, even with tabs in your pink Bible,

that can honestly say without a doubt.

Not a one of you.

And if you can hang on, you hadn't had teenagers yet.

Somebody to my backside back me up on this. The

triumph of my faith is not the absence of doubt.

The triumph of my faith is the ability for the

light to shine in the deepest, darkest recesses of my heart.

I got doubts, but I trust him anyway. So my

faith can say, even though I walk through the valley

of the shadow of death and the shadow of doubt

and the shadow of dysfunction, I will fear no evil.

It's not that I don't go through valleys. I don't

die there, even though I walk through the valley of

the shadow of death.

This is Christmas person, people. Even though.

Throw us in the fire, is able to deliver us.

But even if he doesn't, we will not bow our

knee to you, Oh King, never conness her.

I know Lazarus is dead.

But if Jesus is on the scene, every ten end

is a destiny waiting to begin.

Even now, I have my doubts.

I don't believe this because I don't doubt it. If

you don't doubt it, you're not reading it, or you're

reading it with no intent to live it. My doubt

is the evidence of my growth. The closer I get,

the more questions I have. I struggle to believe it

that I'm forgiven, that He forgives me, not only for

what I did before I accepted him, but for what

I still do. Oh, y'all are gonna look at me

like that on Christmas?

That's what you brought me? That face. Maybe he could

forgive the past stuff, but what about the present stuff?

What about that?

Yeah?

I have my doubts. I have my faith, but I

have my doubts.

My man thought he couldn't come to Christ because he

had the house. He thought that belief was the absence

of doubt.

He didn't have the.

Revelation that real belief is the willingness to stand on

it even when you can't see it, feel.

It, or explain it. I have my doubts.

I read that if any man is in Christ, He's

a new creation and the oldest.

Gone and the newest come.

But that versus still in progress in my life, there's

still some old stuff in me comes out in traffic.

Hello.

I have my doubts. I have my dowts.

I have my doubts.

I've read that whom the sun sets free is free indeed,

but sometimes I feel bound by stuff.

I have my dowts. Is that alright?

Do you need to find another church now that you

know that the dude with the mic has some dowts.

I have my doubts. I have my doubts.

And Abby is already doing the thing that you all

we all do at some point in our life if

we try to be religious.

Where she's going?

Well, she said the other day where did God come from?

And I'm like, you're six. Can he just have always

been there at age six? Do we really have to

start this now? But that was about the same time

I did it, and she said it so funny.

It was like she had me on a witness stand

or something. She said, Uh.

She was waiting for me to get home from work

because she asked Holly.

If Holly said, You're gonna.

Ask your dad that about that he'll be home in

a couple hours. And she said, Abby's got a question

for you. And Abby said, where did God come from?

And who made him? And don't just say he's always

been there? And I'm going already, yeah, already. This is

the first gift of mystery that Heaven is giving to

my daughter. It is the beginning of a lifetime of

learning the art of faith, which Richard Roh suggests is

patience with mystery, not.

The absence of it.

Patience with it to take Mary home, even when you

don't know where this is headed. So I did not

give her a cookie cutter answer, partially because she's smarter than.

Me and would have seen right through it. And said,

I welcomed the mystery.

And I said, I used to lay awake in my

bed too thinking about that when I.

Was a little boy.

I was probably seven or eight, because boys are two

years behind, but I had that same thing. I just

couldn't never make sense of it, and I still haven't.

I have my doubts, but I believe it. I believed

that while I was watching my dad die and I

had to preach my stuff back to myself, and I

didn't have the protective insulation.

Of this to stand behind or this to hold.

Yes, it's a real problem because a lot of people

are waiting for the doubt to disappear.

Let's take the next step the faith.

If the absence of doubt was a prerequisite for being

used by God, Mary could not have been the mother

of Jesus. Over Here, the Angel is talking to Joseph,

but before he came to Joseph, he spoke to Mary.

He spoke to them separately, because you have to experience

faith for yourself.

You have to make your own decision as to who

God is and what he means to you. So while

he was speaking to.

Joseph, who had to endure the embarrassment of walking through

this next season, he was speaking to Mary. And you're

familiar with the story, but just put it on the

screens real quick. This is Luke one where he said

to Mary, greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord

is with you. That's the verdict. Before I give you

the particulars of the situation, I want to bring you

back to the thing that you can always know in

every season of your life, if you choose to believe it,

your verdict should you choose to accept it, God is

with me.

God is for me. You are highly favored. God is

for you, and he is with you in this moment.

Now I got something I got to tell you.

The Angel starts off by reminding Mary of his presence,

and it says that Mary was greatly troubled at his words.

Now, what's there to be troubled about?

All he said was Hello, God likes you. Seemed like

she ought to high five him fist pump, but she

wondered what.

This greeting might be.

Often the first impulse when God really shows up in

your life is fear, and it is only in pushing

through the fear that you find the love of God

on the.

Other side of your fear. What's this all about? But

the Angel said to her.

Don't be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.

You have found favor with God, and I got an

assignment for you.

Because you find favor with God, you will be with

child and give birth to a son, and you are

to give him the name Jesus.

And he will be.

Great and will be called the Son of the Most High,

and the Lord God will give him the throne of

his father David, and he will reign over the house

of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end. Now watch

Mary's response, Well, praise the Lord, and glory to God

in the highest, and peace on earth, and goodwill to

men on human's favor rest, and your words to me

are like drops of gold assurance. In a half of

note Mary's That first thing out of her mouth was,

how I know how pregnancy works? How am I pregnant?

I promise God, Me and Joseph been keeping it clean.

I promise God.

We have not been in the backseat of a camel ac.

I promise God. How her first instinct is not yes,

it's how.

That is always the response when God really knocks.

How how can I really be forgiven by someone who

died on the cross before I was ever born? How

can somebody else's death really affect my life?

How that's a good starting place? How can you really

use me? Look at me? I'm nobody? How How how

can I move forward after this?

How can I believe that I still will see the

goodness of the Lord in the land of the living?

How?

How how see the greatest gifts that God ever gives

are on the other side of your How on the

other side of your question? On the other side of

your I don't get it, on the other side of

your I don't understand, on the other side of who me,

on the other side of what now, on the other

side of why this, That's where the gift is, and

you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and

lying in the manger. God wrapped his son in something

that looks so common that you would walk by it

if you weren't looking for it. Because the greatest gifts

that God gives are wrapped in doubt. Wow, when the

promise is wrapped in doubt for a reason, because if

He gave you proof, you wouldn't need faith.

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