Sermon Tone Analysis

Dealing With Your Doubt

Jesus was suffering and dying on a cross.

And he looked up to heaven and declared to his Father, "It is finished.

I did everything that you sent me to do".

And he said, "Into your hands, I commit my spirit".

And he breathes his last.

And the moment that he gave his life, the earth trembled and the rocks shook, and the sky grew dark.

And his disciples, the people that had left their families, left their jobs, left their comfort, abandoned everything to follow him, they were terrified.

They were unsettled.

They were afraid.

What happened?

He said he was a Messiah, and he's no longer alive.

And three days later, according to Matthew's gospel, "Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb where Jesus was buried.

And suddenly, there was a great earthquake.

For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it".

That's cocky.

I'm just gonna sit on the stone I rolled away.

"His face shone like lightning.

His clothing as white as snow.

The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.

And the angel spoke to the women.

'Don't be afraid,' he said.

'I know that you're looking for Jesus, who was crucified, but he is not here.

He is risen from the dead, just as he said it would happen.'"

And today, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the cornerstone of our faith, the crowning proof that Jesus defeated death.

And that nothing in all creation will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

So Father, we pray today that you would be honored by our worship and the preaching of your word.

We ask God because of what you've done, that we could put our faith in you, your goodness, your grace, your power, your love, and that lives would be transformed by the risen Jesus.

We pray this in his name, and all God's people said, Amen.

amen and amen.

Before you're seated, why don't you look at the person sitting next to you and just say, "You look Easter good".

Tell him that.

Hey, even if you have to say it by faith.

Hey, look at the other person now.

Look at your second choice.

Look at your second choice.

Look at your second choice.

Tell him, "You don't look bad either".

Go and be seated, if you will.

To set the context for what will be our key verse for today, we're actually gonna stay in Matthew 28.

And I wanna give you a little insight.

After Jesus died and he rose from the dead.

In scripture, in the New Testament, there's 13, what theologians call post resurrection appearances of Jesus before he ascends to heaven.

So 13 different times in the New Testament after Jesus died and rose again, 13 different times, he appeared to people.

He appeared to the women near the tomb.

He appeared to two men on the walk to Emmaus.

He appeared to ten of the disciples.

He here to 500 of the brethren.

He appeared for a meal.

He took the disciples fishing, and he took 'em up onto a mountain.

He was a beach guy and a mountain guy.

He appeared 13 different times to his disciples.

And in Matthew 28, the disciples were on a mountain before the Ascension.

If you don't know what the Ascension is, this is when Jesus ascended into the cloud, which had to be amazing.

I don't know how it happened, but I visualize it.

By faith, I believe that Jesus just was standing there in one moment, and he went, whoosh.

And he was up.

I just see it like that, that he just, he just, whoosh.

Iron Man, Iron Jesus, ascended into heaven.

And before he ascended into heaven and was taken to a cloud, he gave his disciples their divine assignment.

He told them to do the very same thing he tells us to do.

And that was to go into all the world, and tell people the story of what just happened, tell them the gospel that Jesus is a son of God, that he was without sin, that he became sin for us, that he died on a cross, but God raised him from the dead so that anyone who knows him, believes in him, would be forgiven, would be transformed.

Go tell the whole world.

Jesus told him that.

And there is a verse in Matthew's gospel, Matthew 28:16 and 17, the very same chapter of the resurrection that so many people miss.

And it says, "Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go".

When they saw Jesus, what did they do?

"When they saw Jesus, they worshiped him, but some of them doubted".

When they saw the risen Christ, they worshiped him, but some of them doubted.

Today, were starting a new message series called Doubting God.

The title of today's message is Dealing With Your Doubt.

I wanna raise a funny observation about human nature.

I don't know why it is, but when we see something else bad in someone else's life, it's often encouraging.

Have you noticed that?

Like it's rather encouraging to me that the disciples could see Jesus, the resurrected Christ, and still doubt.

That makes me feel so much better that they were sucky too.

It's a weird thing about human nature, that when someone else struggles, it makes you feel better.

For example, this week, I posted a very transparent post on social media.

I said how most people are always like, here's the beautiful me, and here's the perfect me, and here's my filtered life.

And I said, this week, as I'm preparing for Easter, it seemed like I'm getting attacked again.

I got diagnosed with a case of shingles.

If you've ever had shingles before, that ain't no joke and that ain't no fun.

And so I said, I've got shingles.

And then I talked about how we had mold in our house and a plumbing problem, we had to dig up our hard floors and then replace our cabinets, and we got it fixed, and then now, we gotta dig up the plumbing again, and the same cabinets that we just replaced are messed up again.

And you know what people said?

They said, "Oh, it makes me feel so good".

I'm so thankful.

That makes you feel so good.

I am so glad that my pain blesses you in such a significant way.

Ain't that funny how we are in human nature.

One person said, "I didn't know pastors had problems".

Most of them don't.

But whenever God was handing out the 'pastor don't have problem' card, after I graduated from seminary, I missed that day.

I missed the card.

It's a funny thing about human nature that when we see other people struggle, sometimes it makes us feel better.

And it makes me feel so much better that the disciples saw the resurrected Christ and some of them still doubted.

Because I can feel so close to God sometime, and then still have doubts.

I don't know if you can relate.

But there are times when it's like, it's almost like God is so real, I can almost touch him.

I believe he's good.