Let your light shine
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Struggled with coming up with something worthy for an Easter message, I was doubting God’s plan, was subconsciously making the message about what I thought was needed.
Motel 6
“I’m Tom Bodett from Motel 6, and we’ll leave the light on for you”
Prayer
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What causes us to hide our light
What causes us to hide our light
I would like to talk about doubt this morning, because when doubt comes into our minds we tend to hide the light of Jesus that shines within us as children of God. But first let’s define what doubt is and is not. What I want you to see this morning is this pattern of doubt in every believer that God has used. You see doubt is a normal part of our walk with God even though some may look down upon it. I want you to see today how doubt can actually be used to strengthen the faith in each of us.
Doubt as defined is a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction. When we doubt we become skeptical or maybe we think we misheard some instructions. For example let’s talk about the Garden of Eden.
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1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
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2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
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4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
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6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
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7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Satan came into the garden and used doubt to coerce Eve into disobedience. Eve still believed in God and that He was the King of everything and ruled over her, but Satan helped create a selfish desire in her to want more than what God had granted Her and Adam. Now notice in verse 7 both Adam and Eve experienced shame immediately as a consequence of their sinful act of disobedience. What happens next though is Adam and Even after receiving the punishment of removal from the Garden and having to now work for their living, God allows them to experience His grace and reconciliation. Genesis 3:21
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21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Adam and Even tried to cover their sins themselves with leaves that would crumble and need to be replaced, but God gave them a more permanent garment of clothing to cover their sin and shame displaying His fatherly love for them on a whole new level than what they had before.
Now doubt can also come from fear and anxiety. Any of you roller coaster enthusiasts? How many times have you seen roller coasters actually fail and cause significant damage? It’s a pretty rare right? But before the ride, how many of you think of all the things that might go wrong? Another example of doubt coming in fear is when I used to climb poles. I’ve climbed poles hundreds of times, but every once in awhile I would get frozen with fear and get stuck.
Peter is a great example of doubt due to fear. Let’s turn to Matthew 14:28-32
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28 And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
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30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”
31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
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32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
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This moment of doubt by Peter caused him to sink away from the Lord, but it also caused him to realize where his faith belonged as he cried out Lord save me.
Let’s go to moments after Jesus’ arrest before he was to be placed upon the cross and we will see another moment of Peter’s fear.
69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.”
70 But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.”
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71 And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.”
72 And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.”
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73 After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.”
74 Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed.
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75 And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
Peter denies Jesus out of the fear of being the next to be captured. But notice the remorse at the end of verse 75. And the hope for Peter is because he didn’t lose faith and only stumbled in this moment of fear it taught him how to stand more for Christ and Peter becomes the one that Jesus uses to found the Church. Isn’t it amazing how God uses broken people?
What causes you to be afraid like Peter was to openly speak of Jesus? Think about the workplace or our kids schools today for instance, we have rules put in place that are called “harassment” if we freely speak the name of Jesus. We have twisted the phrase “separation of church and state” to mean that God cannot be discussed in these places, when this is actually speaking of the First Amendment right that gives us the freedom to worship openly without the government infringing upon those rights. Not only was Peter afraid here of the Pharisees if he would have stated his true association with Christ, but so were other followers of Jesus. In John chapter 7 we see an example of this as the Pharisees were hunting Jesus down. Let’s look at John 7:10-13
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10 But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.
11 The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?”
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12 And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.”
13 Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.
Here even the common people of Jerusalem were afraid of the Pharisees to even speak Jesus’ name openly in fear of what may happen to them.
Other times of doubt settle in when we are feeling distant from God. Let’s look at Thomas, one of the 12 disciples lovingly referred to by us as Doubting Thomas.
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24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
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25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”
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26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
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27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
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28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Thomas and the other disciples had just spent the last few years following Jesus around and assisting Him in preaching and teaching and spreading the good news that the Messiah is here. And then in a moment, the man that he believed to be the Messiah was drug off and nailed to a cross to die. You see what the disciples including Thomas didn’t fully understand and grasp was that without the cross true salvation would not exist. The salvation they thought was coming, was for Israel to be freed from Roman rule. They expected to once again be returned to their own land and own government for good and that the Jewish people would have authority over themselves and not an outside force. They still didn’t grasp the fact that the salvation that Jesus the Messiah would bring was that of salvation from Sin, the ultimate bondage over our life. So when the other disciples showed up to tell him that they had seen Jesus, he was feeling far from God and that all they had worked in the last few years must be over because he just witnessed not only the One they thought would save them from Roman rule, but also his friend put to death. He felt defeated. Have you ever felt just defeated by life? So shaken that you begin to wonder if God even cares? During those moments how did you respond? Did it make you pull closer to God by digging deeper into finding out more about Him through study and prayer? Or did you put distance between him and yourself?
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When does doubt creep in
When does doubt creep in
So we saw examples of how doubt shows itself in our lives, but those examples were all of people who walked directly with God the Father and Jesus. So remember that when your going through those moments. The next question then is, when are those moments? When does doubt creep into our lives? Satan is very good at whispering in our ears at just the wrong time isn’t he? He preys on us during our moments of weakness in our lives. Now we are going to back up a moment chronological and go back before Jesus’ ministry begins. Here we see Satan even tried to create doubt with Jesus as well. After 40 days in the wilderness without food, and being absolutely exhausted from the fasting, this is when Satan shows up to try to cast a shadow on Jesus getting him to doubt his deity. He tries to cast doubt in Jesus that He is the Son of God.
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
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4 But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple
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6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
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7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
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9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”
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11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
Satan twice tries to get Jesus to question the fact that He is the Son of God(verses 3 and 6). And then He tries to convince Jesus that he as in Satan is in charge of what he can give authority over to(verse 9). Satan doesn’t mention the fact that in Job he had to continually ask God’s permission to test Job, not the other way around. I want you to also notice that Satan is quoting scriptures. Do not think for a moment that he does not know the word of God, because he does. But he despises it and will twist the context around to fool you. He tried it with Jesus, he will definitely try it with you too. So just like Jesus as he correctly used scripture in this encounter with Satan, always go back to God’s word when you think that you are hearing from God on a matter to make sure that what you are hearing is in the correct context. Especially if your hearing this in a moment of weakness in your life, when your feeling tired and beaten down, or after a major loss such as a family member or friend, those are the times when we are most susceptible to times of doubt.
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Remembering the cross
Remembering the cross
I want to know that when our world wants you to doubt Jesus’ resurrection as we celebrate Easter, is that doubt and disbelief are two very different things. The Pharisees were ones who showed disbelief in the Messiah and they drove him to what they thought was going to be his death. Doubt comes for moments or sometimes even seasons, then goes away. It causes us to make a response. If that season of doubt however never goes away, it will turn to disbelief as it did in the Pharisees hearts. What they didn’t realize however, was that their act of disbelief was assisting in the hope of the world for salvation from our sins as Jesus allowed himself to become that sacrifice.
Doubt can push us one of two ways, away or towards Jesus. Now I’ve told you before how those moments of loss in my life I gave in to doubt. I let that doubt fester and it turned to anger towards God and I allowed it to push me away from Christ. But when I began to sink and I let the water of my own sin that I was drowning in get up to my head, I remembered the cross. I remembered the pain that my Savior took for me so that I may live and I grabbed on with both hands. I also remembered that Jesus didn’t stay in the grave. So every time we doubt, because it will happen more than once, put your doubts in the tomb and you walk out holding Jesus’ hand.
So when we remember the cross as we go through periods of doubt, this gives us opportunities to continue allowing us to be like Motel 6 to the rest of the world allowing our light to always be on for them.
Communion
Bread:
As Jesus served this meal at the last supper, let’s today think of all the doubt that was going on right there at Christ’s table. When you have moments of doubt and you feel alone, remember that your not. Even his disciples that walked physically with Jesus struggled at times too. Allow yourself to use that doubt to hold on tighter to our Lord Jesus each day, and to become a stronger witness for him in doing so.
1 Corinthians 11:23–24 “23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.””
Blood:
As Jesus and Judas dipped the cup at the same time, Judas’ doubt had long become disbelief. Judas struggled from a greed problem and he let that consume his life. So as he joined with the Pharisees in the spilling of Jesus’ blood we gained salvation for all humanity that believes. Now the question that we must all ask ourself is, “Do I believe in the God’s provision that day on the cross and his resurrection?”
1 Corinthians 11:25–26 “25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
Closing Prayer
Lord as we come to you in moments of our doubt, lift us out of that tomb of doubt but allow us to bury the doubt itself in the grave. Make us closer to you each day as we remember what you’ve done for us because of how great your love is for us. Help us to look to your Word daily and use it to build our relationship with you. We thank you for what you did for us on that very first Resurrection Sunday.
In Jesus name we pray,
Amen
