Doubt and Faith

Grab your message notes that look like this and faith building has been our six week fall series, and it has tied into our whole campaign here because for six weeks we've been talking about faith and the advantages of faith, the benefits, the blessings of faith. But today I want to address something very real. We're going to talk about faith and doubt. Faith and doubt. Faith is great, but what if I still doubt? What if I'm not a hundred percent sure? What if I still have some real questions? You know, I wish I could have faith, but I have all these doubts.

Let me tell you something; if you have never felt like that, you will, especially if you're going through a time of transition in life, like you're a student transitioning into college, and maybe some English lit teacher raises a bunch of questions about your Christian faith, and you're blown away. You're like, how can I believe this anymore because my English lit teacher is telling me that it's bogus, and your faith is shattered. Or you go through another transition later in life, and you experience real pain in your life. You go through a real loss, some real grieving, and you start to question, is all this stuff about a loving God? Is that really true? We all go through times of doubt, and for a lot of us, there's a low hum of doubt in the background our whole lives. So what do we do with that?

Well, I want to give you a biblical answer, and I think it will surprise you because the answer to how to deal with faith is not to ignore doubt or even to eradicate doubt; it's to embrace doubt and live with doubt and actually use doubt to your advantage in developing your relationship with God. I'll tell you what I'm talking about. If you look there in your notes, you'll see that there's two doubt myths, two misconceptions about doubt that most people have. Jot these down. Myth number one is that God hates doubters. You know, God just wants everybody to just agree with him and stop asking so many questions, right? Is God like, is God kind of like how many of you have ever seen a Star Wars movie? Can I see a show of hands? Is God like Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies? I find your lack of faith disturbing—a force choke. Is that God and you?

Well, that's not what I see in the Bible, right? In the Bible, Jacob wrestles with God. Moses argues with God. Job debates with God, yet they're all named as heroes of faith. David says things repeatedly in his psalms like, why, our Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? And yet he is named a man after God's own heart. Even John the Baptist doubts. There's a great scene. John the Baptist is the one who told the world that's the Messiah, and then later he's in prison, and he goes, are you the one? He sends messengers to ask Jesus, are we supposed to expect somebody else, or are you the guy? He's starting to have these doubts, and Jesus says, why don't you go back and report to John what you hear and see—the miracles, my teachings. And then what does he do? Does he criticize John? Does he say John should know better? How could John doubt? John, I'm going to judge John for doubting. No, he says, I tell you the truth, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.

Not only does he not get all over John for doubting, he says John's awesome. I love that about John. John's great. Why? Well, the truth is God wants a relationship. He wants a relationship with you, not a robot, and a real relationship has real dialogue. Not just, you're awesome. Everything you do is awesome. I can't think of any reasons to doubt you or have any questions because you're just awesome. Doubt is a vital part of any relationship—conversations, dialogue, real dialogue. And if your faith is going to be a vital relationship, it's going to contain this element. And that leads right into myth number two, which is that God requires doubt-free faith. That if you're going to be saved, if you're going to go to heaven, if you're going to get any blessings from God, you've got to have absolute doubt-free faith.

But what does the Bible say? Do you remember how a guy tells Jesus, I do believe; help my unbelief? And Jesus goes, okay, that's good enough. Remember how Jesus said you just need a mustard seed of faith? Or how one time Jesus is being abandoned by all the crowds, and so he asks his disciples, you don't want to leave too, do you? And I love Peter's reply: well, Lord, where would we go? Not exactly a ringing endorsement, right? It's like he's going, yeah, we, the fellows and I, thought about it, and not saying that you don't confuse us, but there's kind of no better option right now, so you're stuck with us, right? And this is why Jude 22 says be merciful to those who doubt. Doubters should feel welcome in the faith. Why? The truth is it's not about the amount; it's about the object of your faith. It's not about the amount; it's about the object of your faith.

It doesn't matter at some level how strong or weak your faith is; what matters is who you're putting your faith in. Jesus said you just need a mustard-sized faith, and so if that's true, the question is, so then what do I do with my doubts, right? That's page two. So I have mustard seed-sized faith, but I've also got a bucket of mustard seed-sized doubts. What do I do with all of these? Well, it's not just about ignoring them. I think there are some very constructive ways to handle all your doubts and uncertainties and questions. Here's what I suggest: five steps in an acronym FAITH, spelling faith, and I got this idea of a faith acronym from a great book by Lee Strobel. I'm going to be recommending in a minute. I changed the content around here, but I love the idea of this memorable acronym based on the word faith.

Jot this down. First, F: I need to face the root of my doubt. You need to face the root of your doubt. Unmask your doubt and see it for what it really is. Get underneath it. Now here's what I mean by this. We get this idea, watch this, that there's this secular idea of the world and there's this religious idea of the world. There's a secular way to approach the world, and that's all about logic and proof, and there's a religious way to approach the world. Now that's all about faith and imagination and dreams and vision, and so it's faith versus reason. It's faith versus logic. But if you think about it for just a minute, it's not really between faith and doubt. It's between faith in one thing and faith in another thing.

You've got to recognize that all doubts are rooted in an alternative faith. All doubts are rooted in an alternative belief system. It's not faith versus reason; it's one faith assumption versus another faith assumption. You say, what are you talking about? This is too heavy for me. Listen, maybe you think, I don't know if I can believe this Christianity stuff because how can there be just one truth, one way? Well, that statement itself is a faith statement. That statement, there can't just be one way, that is a leap of faith because you can't prove that, and there's about a billion Christians and Jews and Muslims and others who would actually disagree with you on that metaphysical statement. It's a faith assumption.

Every doubt is based on another set of assumptions about the way the world works. Even Richard Dawkins, probably the most famous atheist in the world right now, he was interviewed in the New York Times, and the interviewer for the Times really pursued this line of reasoning and said, how can you be so sure that there isn't a God? And finally, in the New York Times, Dawkins said, well, I cannot know for certain, but I believe God is very improbable, and so I live my life on the assumption that God is not there. That's a great quote right there, very candid in the end because he has admitted here that he's a person of faith just like me and just like you and just like all of us are.

There are dots, certain facts that we know about the world, but how you connect the dots to make your worldview, to make your philosophy of life, to create the operating system, the set of values by which you live by, connecting the dots, that's your faith system. Nothing could be more important because how you live your life, how you spend your time, how you spend your money, how you decide to leave a legacy, what you value, it all comes down to what set of faith assumptions you choose. So what I'm saying is you examine the alternate belief system that's underneath your doubts, and you ask yourself, how do I know that's true, and where is that going to lead me? And if you think about it that way, then you'll find that Christianity actually is a very attractive belief system, both from proofs and also from results.

And that leads me to A. A: I need to ask questions of my doubts. Ask questions of my doubts just to clarify what's going on in my head and in my heart. Now, there are three questions, three main questions that I want to encourage you to ask. These are very important, and the first one may be the most important of all, and it's this: Am I seeking 100 percent unattainable certainty? Am I seeking 100 percent certainty here? Because that is impossible to find outside of pure mathematics—100 percent certainty—and yet a lot of us, when we say, well, I don't know whether I can move forward in faith, what's keeping us back is we're waiting for 100 percent no doubt certainty, but you're never going to find that in any area of life. Not about what car to buy, not about who to marry, nothing.

Yet, listen, a lot of us make an idol of certainty, especially in the church, and this is kind of one of my pet peeves. We tend to hold up people who, by virtue of their personality, tend not to be very conflicted people, and when they say things like, you know what, I just knew the minute I laid eyes on her that she was going to be my wife for life, and I have not doubted that for one minute ever since the minute I saw her, and we go, wow! Or we hear somebody stand up and give their testimony in church and say, I have never doubted God or anything about God or anything about the Bible, not for a minute of my whole life, and we hold these people up as heroes. And that is true for some people, but my suspicion is most of us go secretly, I have never been that certain about anything in my whole existence, and we feel guilty and less than because we feel like I'm not 100 percent certain, so I guess I don't have faith.

But you know what? Let me just put you at ease here; the Bible does not ask you to have that kind of 100 percent certainty. Think of the people in the Bible. The heroes in the Bible, listen, they're the ones who were just certain enough to move forward in faith. Abraham struggled, but he was sure enough to move ahead. Moses debated with God, but he was certain enough to move forward. Now, why is it that we almost make an idol of 100 percent certainty? I think it's because we have this mental image of what it means to be a person of faith that's completely off base.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you two pictures. These are two models of faith, and the first one is the model of faith that I think most Christians have. Let me explain it. This is a picture of a house of cards, right? How many of you have ever built a house of cards? You ever tried that? I did just this Saturday morning; that's a ton of fun, right? But in a house of cards, every single card is important. You pull out one card out of a house of cards, the whole thing falls down. And this is how a lot of Christians design their faith. They have maybe 30 or 40 or 50 beliefs that they think are all equally important, and they're all cards that are holding up this thing up. Important cards like Jesus is Lord are cards in the south of faith, but maybe less important cards are also in there depending on what church you were raised in.

Other cards in the house of cards might be true believers will speak in tongues, or true believers will get to the point where they will be sinless, or the earth is 10,000 years old, or the leader of our church is the only true leader of the Christian church on earth, or the rapture will be pre-tribulational, or it could be dozens and dozens of other cards. Then when in college or through a conversation at work or something, one of those cards gets pulled out, and you find you don't believe in that card anymore. You know Christians don't smoke or drink or chew or go with girls who do. You know a lot of us have that card in our house at one point, and you go, oh, I don't believe that anymore. Now the whole house of cards is falling down.

I have talked to so many people who've told me, yeah, I used to be Christian, and I don't go to church. I'm better my faith. Why? And I find out it's not because they had really any doubts about major things; it's because one of the cards got pulled out, and so the whole house falls down. So what do we do? What's the alternative? A lot—watch this—a lot of us as Christians go, okay, so that's not an essential card; I don't believe that anymore, so I'm going to build—listen—I'm going to build a smaller house, and my house of cards just has these eight cards in it. These are the only essential cards. But then we're always living in tension that one day one of those cards is going to get pulled out too, and then we're going to have to start all over again.

My contention is that there's a much better model, a much better way to look at your faith, and it's much more biblical. You see this on every page of the Bible, and that's this: think of it more like an archery target. And when you think of it more like an archery target, the concentric rings of a target—Jesus Christ is at the center. Our relationship with my love for my trust in the character of God as revealed in Jesus Christ—that's the center of the target. And then in the second ring, important doctrines that stem from that, that God is the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, the sovereign grace of God that stems from that. And then in the third ring, opinions about things that doctrines the Christians disagree with, and in the fourth ring maybe political and other peripheral things that Christians disagree on.

Now, if you focus on the center of the target, Jesus Christ and his redemptive work for us, you don't have to worry about the edges. Do you see that? Now keep that in mind as we get to the next question: am I really asking a core question? Am I really asking a core question here? So many doubts are about peripheral issues and not the core, and that's why you might have noticed here at TLC we emphasize the center of the target and why I don't talk about politics or other things. Do I have opinions about politics? Of course I do. But listen, if the answer to our lostness is Jesus, then I don't want to keep a third or a fourth ring issue. I don't want to let that keep somebody from the center of the target, right? We can have all those discussions and disagreements and debates post-commitment to Christ because it's the center of the target that matters—Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Now, there are issues that really do matter, and that brings me to the third question: is this doubt really a correction of an unbiblical concept? Is it really not doubt but correction? Let me tell you what I'm talking about. I was reading this week a biography of Gene Kelly, the famous dancer, you know, from Singing in the Rain, and I'd never known this before. He was very involved in his church down in Hollywood—super involved, like he was on the board and everything. But then he went down on vacation to Mexico; he saw a bunch of poor people there, and he came back, as a Christian should, and he told his pastor there, he said, hey, what are we doing for the poor people down there? And his pastor said, we don't do anything for poor people; Jesus said you'll always have the poor among you. Why should we do anything for the poor? And Gene Kelly's like, that doesn't sound right.

The next weekend in church, this was during World War II, his pastor from the pulpit preaches a political sermon endorsing the fascist governments of Europe, and at that, Gene Kelly just goes, that's it; I'm not a Christian anymore. For the rest of his life, he called himself an agnostic because his church wouldn't support the poor and because they endorsed fascism. Now, I don't think those were doubts about the core of Christianity; I think they were healthy corrections about a wacko church, right? I mean, if I could talk to Gene Kelly when he was going through that crisis of faith, I'd say to him, well, first I'd say, can you do that dance from Singing in the Rain? That's the first thing I'd ask him, honestly. Then secondly, I would say, I don't think you're having doubts about the core here. I think you're—Jesus Christ is whispering to you corrections about what he wants his body, his church, to look like.

And I think we could have preserved his commitment to the broader body of Christ by saying those aren't doubts about core issues; those are corrections about wacky things. It's nice; people will tell me, you know, I don't believe in God, and I said, well, tell me about the God you don't believe you've stopped believing in, and they tell me, and I go, you know what? I don't believe in that kind of a God either. Their doubts were corrections of an unhealthy, unbiblical view of God. So you've got to focus on the center, face the root of your doubts, ask questions of your doubts, and I've taken most of my time to look at these first two points. The last three very quickly: I investigate answers. Faith is so important, but we spend more time investigating what new mobile phone we're going to buy than we do answering the questions we might have about our faith when there are so many great resources.

Here's two that we always have available for you at the book cart in the back—inexpensive paperbacks because they're so good: Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith and Tim Keller's The Reason for God. These are great; their chapters are all about things like how could a loving God ever send anybody to hell? You ever wonder that? Well, don't just wonder it; look up what great philosophers and scholars have thought about the answers to that question. These books are both fair, smart books. How come there's so much suffering in the world if there's a loving God? Never wonder that? Hasn't science disproved the Bible? Ever wonder that? Don't just wonder; investigate. Take advantage of the fact that there are people smarter than your English lit teacher probably who've looked at these questions and have said, well, here's how we answer these questions as people of faith.

And then T: turn my focus on Jesus. Look at Christ at the center of the target. There's this great verse in 1 Corinthians 2 where Paul says, for I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. What's this all about? The context here is that this church in Corinth was a mess, and they were being split apart because of internal political struggle in the church. And so when the apostle Paul goes to that church, does he get in the pulpit and choose sides? No. What's he saying in this verse? When I was with you, I stayed focused on the center of the target. When I was with you, I resolved to know nothing about those peripheral issues but only Jesus Christ and him crucified.

God loves the world so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross for your sins, and he rose again to give you power to live every day. So you intentionally turn your focus on the center of the target. And then H: I hold my remaining doubts in tension. Mature people learn how to live with some cognitive dissonance, some tension in every relationship, even your relationship with God. Now, don't get me wrong; this doesn't mean don't keep asking questions. Keep asking questions, but be willing to go more than, you know, a day without those questions answered. Be willing to live with some uncertainty. You see, that's the bottom line. God calls us not to a hundred percent certainty but to commitment based on his character. He's not calling you to a hundred percent certainty; you don't have to fake that. He's calling you to voluntary commitment to him based on his character, and then you can work through a lot of those issues in relationship with him for the rest of your life.

Now, to give you an example of what I'm talking about, I'm going to close with a living sermon illustration. Somebody emailed me about their own history with faith and doubt. I thought it would be great for you to hear from her, so would you please welcome to the stage Kathleen Murray as she comes up to share with us right now? Kathleen, good to have you here. Kathleen, you struggled with doubt. Let me move this over here just a little bit, and you emailed me and said it started as a young adult when a lot of struggles with doubts begin. You're still young, but about a year and a half ago, what happened?

Yeah, I grew up in a Christian home, going to church. I went to a Christian school, and about—well, I never really doubted ever growing up. It was always my—just my life was in the church and everything. And then about a year and a half ago, just a combination of events and the classes I was taking all just at once kind of sent a flood of questions and doubts, and it was really crippling. I didn't know how to handle it. Like I said, my just my foundation was kind of stripped, and I—yeah, it was pretty in the dark. I couldn't pray; I couldn't read my Bible because I was like, I don't even know if I believe in this right now.

And then something happened that made you kind of think I better deal with these doubts, and what was it? You were called to be a counselor at Camp Hammer? Yeah, well, I worked in the kitchen, but yeah, I—in the midst of all this, it was time to work at camp, and I was like, oh man, like how is this going to work out? How am I going to minister to kids when I hardly know myself what I believe? And I wanted that faith so badly. I wanted it back. I missed God, and but I knew that I couldn't just go back to the faith I had before where I didn't ask. I knew I couldn't just be like, okay, I believe, I believe, and like push myself into that when it wasn't really authentic.

So I was like, okay, how do I do this? And there was a—you said there was a central metaphor of a hand and who's holding who that was the real key for you? Yeah, I had a conversation with one of my friends up there who worked with me, and I was like, I feel like I'm just trying to grasp onto God. Like I feel like I'm trying to grab my faith and hold on to it so badly, and he was like, Kathleen, like he's already holding you. And like in that, I just found so much freedom to ask those questions knowing that I'm already held. And from here, I can grow in an authentic relationship with God.

That's awesome, and you in fact wrote a song about that. And so as you get ready to sing that song, this will be kind of the close of the message here today. I really wanted you guys to hear this. I heard Kathleen sing this, and I thought you've got to share this with the whole—the entire congregation. This song is a dialogue between her and God, and she's just, in a very biblical fashion, honestly just saying, God, I don't get this. The world is crazy, and are you really there? And then God responds to her, moving her toward the center of the target—a relationship with him in which she can ask all these questions. And so I know you guys are going to enjoy this. Encourage her and welcome Kathleen as she sings for you.

Call alive on a fishing wire, you better do some explaining why you want me so. Never been here for the world knows I'm changing, full of stone. She died, fight it if I'm not comfortable. She died, fight it if I'm not comfortable, comfortable. And he said, settle down; you won't figure out why the world is turning. You're wandering; hard is slowing it down, and I can't watch it anymore. I won't watch this; I'm full. So even if you're not comfortable, let me hold, let me hold you. The greatest love in all of history is mine for the taking. Smothers me, and I still hesitate. Smothers me, but I can't walk away. Smothers me, suddenly I say she died, fight it if I'm not comfortable. She died, fight it if I'm not comfortable, comfortable.

Oh, he said, settle down; you won't figure out why the world is turning. You're wandering; hard is slowing it down, and I can't watch it anymore. I won't watch this; I'm full. So even if you're not comfortable, even if your heart is cold, even if your mind isn't, so let me hold, let me hold you. Hold me like I'm your cherished one. I don't need someone else to complete my longing heart; you satisfy; you set apart. Hold me like I'm your cherished one. I don't need someone else to complete my longing heart; hold me like I'm your cherished one. I don't need someone else to complete my longing heart; you satisfy; you set apart. Oh, you set apart.

So even if you're not comfortable, even if your heart is cold, even if your mind isn't, so let him hold, let him hold you. I would love to just have us pray together as a church and just as a church approach God and say, hold me. Would you bow your heads with me? With your heads bowed, think back to that answer of Peter to Jesus when he says, are you going to lead me too? And he says, well, to whom shall we go? And then in the next verse, he says, you have the words of life, and we've come to believe and to know that you're the holy one of God. Now, Peter could only say that after three years of walking with Jesus, and I would encourage you, if your next step is just to decide that you're going to follow Jesus to see what he's all about, just take that step and say, I'm willing to follow this man. I'm willing to investigate his claims.

Or maybe you have been looking at Jesus from afar for a while, listening to his words of life, and you have come to believe and to know that he's the holy one of God. All your questions aren't answered, but this morning you want to say, Jesus, as this faith series gets ready to wrap up, I want to place my faith and trust in you. I want to give you myself and say to you, hold me in your arms as my Savior and as my Lord. Jesus, thank you that you made yourself the most trustworthy person ever. And so, in the midst of a life full of questions and things we don't know the answers to, help us to choose to place our trust in you as our Savior and as our Lord because you have the words of life. And Lord, we do believe; help our unbelief. Increase our faith, we pray these things as individuals and as a church in Jesus' name. Amen.