Dealing with Doubt

Thankful to have the Sharp family in our congregation and Justin did an excellent job teaching us God’s truth last week.

Rather than blame someone else, let us take responsibility for that which we are responsible for (Sin in our life) bring that to Jesus and let Jesus handle it.

Christ did not go to the cross so we could manage our sin problem. Christ went to the cross to completely and totally set us free from the sin in our life.

So what happens in our life when we are seeking to come closer to Jesus but it just feels like the closer we get the further away we feel.

How do we handle this?

Sometimes in our lives we go through periods when we begin to question God’s plan for our lives.

No matter where you are in your Christian walk, a time will come where you might ask God where are you or how are you working?

Perhaps you are here this morning and Christ is not the Lord of your life and you are questioning God are you even real. Even those who believe in him have times of doubts in our lives.

In times of doubt have you ever sought the Lord more and in seeking him felt as though as you seek he is withdrawing himself further from you.

I am praying but I’m getting no response.

God we are seeking you as a church we are desiring to see lives transformed but the more we seek to do this if often feels that we are not truly making a difference.

This morning we find John the Baptist in the same situation and we have the opportunity through the Word of God to learn from him and his encounter with Jesus.

John the Baptist

Background info:

I like how scripture describes John the Baptist.

There was a TV show on Discovery channel that started airing in 2006 called Man vs Wild. On the show, the ultimate survivor Bear Grylls would face intense situations and he would walk us through surviving.

When I read about John the Baptist, I think of Bear Grylls.

In Matthew 3. Scripture describes John the Baptist

Matthew 3:1–4 HCSB

1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!” 3 For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make His paths straight! 4 John himself had a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

He is preaching repent! Justin mentioned this last week. John the Baptist brought the message of repentance as well as Jesus. He is boldly preaching repent.

He has a camel haired garment with a leather belt around his waist.

He is eating locusts along with wild honey.

To my knowledge, they did not have those cool bee keeper suits. Perhaps maybe someone harvested the honey for him but more than likely not.

He is eating crickets dipped in wild honey. On Bear Grylls show Man vs Wild, he would show how to eat different bugs in order to survive.

Before the TV show John the Baptist is walking around in a camel haired garment and eating crickets with wild honey preaching the message of repentance.

It was John the Baptist who when he saw Jesus said in John 1.

John 1:29–30 HCSB

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the One I told you about: ‘After me comes a man who has surpassed me, because He existed before me.’

John the Baptist also said

He must increase and I must Decrease

John 3:27–30 HCSB

27 John responded, “No one can receive a single thing unless it’s given to him from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of Him.’ 29 He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John the Baptizer is saying Jesus’s crowd must get bigger and my crowd must get smaller. Jesus must increase and I must decrease.

Here is John the Baptist who preached repentance boldly. He sees Jesus coming and says Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the Sins of the world. He says Jesus must increase and I must decrease.

Jesus said there is no one greater born among women than John the Baptist!

John the Baptist in prison

Reason he was in prison:

King Herod had taken his brother Philip’s wife from him.

John the Baptizer goes around preaching a message of repentance and he says it is not right for King Herod to have his brother Philip’s wife as his own wife. He is using the kings situation as an example of what not to do.

Doing what is right is not always easy!

I was discussing with a friend this week how challenging opening the Mercantile has been because it is a unique project that we are trying to go over the top for the benefit of our community. We set this project up to collect sales tax and it currently also pays property tax. One guy said online about the church that we need to get the church to stop buying property because it is causing the people of the community to have to pay more taxes because the church does not pay taxes.

We chose the hard route with the Mercantile project. It would have been easier to just follow the pattern of thrift stores but we wanted to do things different and bless the city by collecting taxes in our main downtown commercial district.

He confronts the king on the issue and is arrested as a result of his stance on the truth.

Matthew 14:3–4 HCSB

3 For Herod had arrested John, chained him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 since John had been telling him, “It’s not lawful for you to have her!”

Jesus

After Jesus had been tempted in the dessert he returns to find out that John the Baptist has been put into prison.

Jesus begins his ministry after John the Baptist had been put in to prison.

Matthew 4:12–13 HCSB

12 When He heard that John had been arrested, He withdrew into Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth behind and went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.

John the Baptizer was imprisoned at Machaerus which is located fifteen miles southeast of the mouth of the Jordan river on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. According to Flavius Josephus this was the location of the imprisonment and execution of John the Baptist

Think about that for just a moment. The one you were sent to testify about begins his ministry and you are stuck in prison.

Not only are you stuck in prison but the one you came to testify about is getting further away from where you are in prisoned.

We can liken this situation to times in our lives when we are seeking the Lord but it feels as though he has withdrawn himself from us and our situation.

We find ourselves asking God Where are you at in this? Is the vision or plan you called us to working?

And often asking God are you real and do you exists?

Surely the hero of the faith John the Baptizer never asked questions like this.

Matthew 11:2 HCSB

2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent a message by his disciples

While Amy and I were in Israel we had the opportunity to see both the area close to Machaerus and Capernaum. Picture this:

Machaerus was in the dessert near the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea was an interesting place. There is 1 city at the dead sea and all that is there is resorts for the Dead Sea that’s it. They have a hard time keeping employees in this area because that is all that is there.

Capernaum was a beautiful place. The Sea of Galilee was just amazing. So John is stuck in prison for speaking the truth and Jesus is on the beach of the Sea of Galilee

Matthew 11:3 HCSB

3 and asked Him, “Are You the One who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

This is John asking if Christ was the Messiah or should he be expecting someone else to come.

This is John the Baptizer whom Jesus said there is no one on earth greater than him born among women asking if Christ was the Messiah.

We find him in the middle of God’s plan wondering if Christ is even real. Is He the real Messiah?

Matthew 11:4–5 HCSB

4 Jesus replied to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the blind see, the lame walk, those with skin diseases are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news.

Jesus’s response is interesting because he does not answer the question directly but Jesus tells John’s disciples to go tell John what I’m doing for everyone else.

You tell him the blind see, the lame walk, those with skin diseases are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news.

Jesus is doing everything that the coming Messiah was prophesied that he would do.

Here at Bridge of Faith we may not be seeing overnight results but we know that God is at work.

· A few years before Bridge of Faith was planted kids would sleep in the park at night

· Before the bus ministry started students would show up in cars with people sometimes 10-15 people to a car load. (It was not safe)

· Our food pantry started out of a small closet

· Wednesday nights were so difficult as the students wanted to revolt every week and not just one student but all the students (one night I had to call the cops as they were cussing out our staff walking out the doors)

· We took them to a disastrous super bowl party in Kimberling City were all I did was get on to our students that night.

· The days I dreamed of doing something for students for the summer have now been fulfilled. (Summers at the Beach)

· To think that in my life time God would use you all to provide a fully stocked food pantry with convoy of hope sending trucks to us, to a thrift store that we could constantly supply clothes to our community through it (I believe this has to some degree impacted the dress code of our area), a community garden where people can learn to garden come on, a bus ministry with transportation, tball field, mountain biking, 20somethings, out of classroom space on Wednesday night with new building, jobs for local students, mowers and equipment

Lives changed

Matthew 11:6 HCSB

6 And if anyone is not offended because of Me, he is blessed.”

The one who does not stumble on account of the Lord’s silence in our lives will be blessed. Think for a moment how many people you see fall away because God is silent and does not answer the prayer in the way that they want it answered.

The real question of is he real and this doubt comes back to who we believe Jesus is and His word.

There is always room for improvement in what we do, but we must not stop doing what scripture calls us to do.