Future-proofing Against Doubt

Future-proofing Against Doubt :: Exploring Israel’s Life in Exile

VERSE: Jeremiah 1:1-3 (cf. Jeremiah 29:4-7, Isaiah 40:28-31)

TBI: Doubt is what happens when you are not prepared for exile. This class builds the world of Jeremiah and the Babylonian exile as a mirror for the world students are living in today, explores the seeds of doubt that crept into Israel's faith during their time in Babylon, and equips students with practical tools to build a foundation strong enough to stand when doubt arrives — and to find their way back when it already has.

The Ministry Summit 2026

Conference Summary: The Ministry Summit Youth Track explores what it looks like for teenagers to live as people of God in a world that does not share their values, their hope, or their home. Across six classes, students will wrestle with questions about faith, doubt, relationships, the church, and influence. Here is the world you are living in. Here is what God says to do in it.

Introduction

If you were preparing to set out on a journey, hiking/camping, what kind of things would you want in your survival pack?

Things like: Bandages, food, clothes, flare, radio.

By the very name, a survival pack, what are you preparing for: survival! Thinking of the worst case scenario, and preparing for it.

Now think about this | If someone handed you a survival kit for the hardest season of your life, what would you want inside it?

Not a literal kit… Things like: a support system, a strong Biblical foundation, hope.

In a very real sense, sometimes we can get so fixated on the worst case scenario that we’re frozen. Not a topic for this class.

I want to tell you this morning that there will be a season in your life where you need to survive. Not to scare you. Jesus assures as much.

That foresight shouldn’t be overwhelming, instead count it as a blessing.

By the grace of Jesus, you can be prepared.

The Ministry Summit Youth Track

Across the day, students are exploring what it means to hold onto faith, build influence, and serve God in a world that is not their home.

I’ve been tasked with two classes that go together in this effort, the first, about doubt. The second, about influence.

Where We're Going

You’re going to hear a lot of great classes today, but in my two: we are going to meet the prophet Jeremiah, understand the world he lived and served in, and use that world to talk honestly about our world.

Seeds of doubt can creep into our faith, which is not necessarily a bad thing. To have doubts.

But what you do in your doubt has a great deal of influence on your walk with God.

Introductory Questions and Thoughts

We’ll get to Jeremiah in just a moment, let’s think through this first concept together: doubt.

Your first thought about having doubts might be that doubt means a lack of faith. That’s not the whole story.

Doubt is a motivation to further understand something in which you lack conviction. Again, not a bad thing.

It is what you do in your doubt that informs the future of your faith.

Take Thomas for example, the doubter. He gets a lot of shame / how he’s written / needs a pr team. Because where is Thomas? Thomas came. Gathered. With his support system. He could have ran! … Where was Judas? … Thomas doubted, but Thomas looked for Jesus.

It is my sincere hope and prayer that at this age you have doubts. And that in the safety of your home congregation, you can look for Jesus and see Him. I know that I did.

Doubt is not a lack of faith. In fact, overcoming doubt actually produces deeper conviction!

Imagine that person in your congregation… strong faith… how did they get there?

I’ll go ahead and tell you that they didn’t grow in spiritual maturity because they were never tested and tried.

You already heard about some of the reasons why young people walk away from their faith.

Doubt, unfortunately, is one of those. But it doesn’t have to be. Not if you’re prepared.

Let’s look at the prophet Jeremiah to add to our spiritual survival kit.

Getting Into The Text(s)

Look with me at Jeremiah 1:1-3. We are introduced to Jeremiah in these opening verses.

He is the son of Hilkiah the priest — he comes from a good home, a faithful family.

He begins his prophetic ministry during the days of King Josiah. Go read about him in 2 Kings 22.

Q | What do we know about King Josiah? Was he a good king or a bad king?

Josiah became king at only eight years old, during a time when the kings before him had done evil in the eyes of the Lord.

With a pure heart, Josiah rediscovered the discarded Law of the Lord and tore his clothes at the evil he found in his kingdom.

He set out to reform the land — tearing down idols, calling the people back to God.

This is the world Jeremiah begins in. But that is not the whole story.

After Josiah was killed in battle, his sons took the throne one after another. Each one did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Then the Babylonian armies invaded. Jerusalem fell. And one by one, the people of Israel were taken from their homes and carried into exile in Babylon.

Jeremiah has seen it all — the reform, the corruption, the invasion, the exile.

Is it better to have something good, and lose it? Or to never know the good in the first place?

Imagine for me, to be a young Israelite who had grown up hearing about Josiah's reforms and God's promises, what would it feel like to watch all of that collapse around you?

Jeremiah writes a letter to that group of young people. Let’s read a part of it, in Jeremiah 29:5-7.

This is Jeremiah's letter to the exiles — the people who have been torn from everything familiar and dropped into a foreign city.

He does not say God will bring you home soon. He does not say lay low and keep your head down.

He says: build houses. Plant gardens. Have families. Find work. Pray for the city.

Something to think about | God's instruction are to settle in instead of wait it out. What’s the difference?

We’ll come back to this letter at the end of the day. Here’s what I want us to know right now: they don’t do this.

The exiled-Israelites hear this word of the Lord and for the most part, so many don’t obey.

At least, not entirely. The exiles semi-follow these instruction. They do build. And they do settle. But they get comfortable. And they adapt.

We do have a notable remnant, guys like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Read about them in the book of Daniel.

One of the reasons the book of Daniel is so impressive is because… a great many Israelites grew comfortable in exile.

So comfortable, in fact, that when God eventually opens the door to go home — they don't want to leave.

This is what the middle section of Isaiah is largely about. God, through Isaiah, has to invite His own people back to the Promised Land. And there’s some resistance.

Read Isaiah 40:28-31.

Isaiah is writing to a people who have forgotten who God is. They have grown so accustomed to Babylon — its stability, its systems, its strength — that they have started trusting in those things instead.

How could Israel forget God and actually want exile?!

Hebrew writings talk about this kind of earthly security as trusting in chariots. (cf. Psalm 20:7, Isaiah 31:1)

Remember when Israel leaves Egypt and the get thristy, and long to go back? Moses, why would you lead us out into the desert to die of thirst!

This is that same kind of thing.

And it isn’t a uniquely Israelite problem, think about it :: what kind of chariots do people trust in today?

Maybe [more here]

That feeling, when you start to feel insecure is the motivation we’re talking about here: doubt.

Israel enters exile in disbelief about all that they had lost. But very quickly, they’ll grow to doubt that God has more to offer. And very quickly, in their doubt, exile (away from God) becomes home.

Israel's doubt did not arrive all at once. It crept in slowly, through comfort, through familiarity, through looking at the world around them and starting to believe it was more reliable than the God they could not see.

That is how doubt usually works for us too.

Discussion / Breakouts

Give students approximately 5 minutes to discuss the following prompts with the people around them. Place prompts on screen. No report-back required.

With the people around you, talk through these questions:

Q | What is something the world around you tells you to trust in that you know, deep down, isn't solid ground?

Q | Have you ever noticed your faith starting to drift without a single big moment that caused it? What did that feel like?

Q | If a friend told you they were starting to doubt whether God was real or whether any of this mattered, what would you say to them?

Conclusion & Takeaways

With the time we have left, I want to give you some tools to prepare for that season of doubt.

How do we future-proof against doubt? And how do we find our way back when doubt has already moved in?

Know what good looks like.

There are going to be a lot of alternatives out there — alternative ways to live, alternative things to trust, alternative definitions of a good life.

Israel experienced this in Babylon. The city was impressive. The systems worked. It looked like it had everything they needed.

Know what good looks like before you are surrounded by alternatives, so you can recognize when something is a counterfeit.

If you aren’t convicted by what is good and what is of God, you will be impressed by Babylon.

Don't get comfortable.

When we get comfortable with where we are spiritually, we stop wanting God to make it better.

Don't get comfortable with what you are giving to God. Long to give more.

And it is okay to mourn. It is okay to look at your own heart and lament the distance you feel. Jeremiah did. I’ll talk more about that at the end of the day.

[point about this]

Wait on the Lord — and work while you wait.

Waiting does not mean sitting still. It means getting to work where you are. Building, planting, praying.

In your own life, waiting on God means staying in the Word, staying in community, staying in the habits that keep your foundation strong — so that when the hard season comes, you are not starting from scratch.

When that season comes, there’s really on one thing you need in your survival kit, there’s just no way to pack for every worst case:

A sure place of refuge.

Q | What is one thing you could do this week to build up your foundation before the hard season arrives?

Doubt is what happens when you are not prepared for exile. Today we have been building the world. At the end of the day, we are going to come back to Jeremiah and the people of Israel — and talk about what God actually calls us to do once we are there.