Description
A BOUT WITH DOUBT
A Bout With Doubt
March 16, 2014
Ben Young
In our self-sufficient society, we think we need all the answers about what we believe. After all, we’re told, if we doubt then our faith must not be real. And if we don’t have all the answers, we should certainly never appear that way. Doubt is seen as a sign of weakness and indecisiveness.
But in this power-hitting message, we discover the truth about doubt. And we see that faith isn’t a fight against doubt. Instead, our bout with doubt can actually become an asset to strengthen our faith and our lives!
OUTLINE
Matthew 28:16-17 (NIV)
16 “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee,
to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.
17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.”
“We all want to be certain.
We all want proof, but the kind of proof that we tend to want
scientifically or philosophically, demonstratable proof
that would silence all doubts once and for all would not,
in the long run, I think, answer the fearful depths of our need at all.
For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists,
not just that beyond the steely brightness of the stars there is a cosmic intelligence
of some kind to keep the whole show going,
but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives
who may not be writing messages about Himself in the stars,
but who in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness
as we move around here knee deep
in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world.
It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want,
whether we use religious language for it or not.
What we really want is the experience of God’s presence.
That is a miracle we are after and that is also,
I think, the miracle that we really get.” Frederick Buechner
“Jesus has a very special love for you.
As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great
that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear,” Mother Teresa
“I feel just that terrible pain of loss,
of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.” Mother Teresa
“Faith is taking the first step
even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Martin Luther King Jr.
Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)
18 “Then Jesus came to them and said,
‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
19 Therefore go (Except the doubters?!?) and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”
“Now that I am a Christian,
I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable;
but when I was an atheist I had moods
in which Christianity looked terribly probable.” C.S. Lewis