Untitled Sermon
Doubt, good or bad?
In his response to those who want to make God responsible for all the tragedies in the world, J. D. writes, “In many cases, we have to live out our days not knowing the precise reason for terrible events. But the cross shows us what they cannot mean. They cannot mean that God is absent or out of control.”
Often when you hear someone say, “My God would never do that” or similar statements, they are not talking about the God of the Bible, in whose image they were created. Rather, they are talking about a god they have created for themselves. In the chapter titled “You Don’t Get Your Own Personal Jesus,” J. D. reminds us that God said, “I am who I am,” not “I am whoever you want me to be.”
A god small enough to be understood is not big enough to be worshipped. - Evelyn Underhill
It’s one thing to stand by a campfire and say that you’re ready to die for Jesus, and it’s quite another when you think someone is about to take you up on the offer.
Why didn’t I feel the passionate love for Jesus that others did? I wanted to be ready to die for him, but I wasn’t. Sacrifice felt like a burden. Worship felt like an obligation. And why did I struggle so much just to believe? Did I have any business on the front lines when I was still so shaky on the basics?
The god you believe in impacts your ability to believe
As Tim Keller says, “If our prayer life discerns God only as lofty, it will be cold and fearful; if it discerns God only as a spirit of love, it will be sentimental.”3 However, when we behold God as he really is—the Creator greater than the cosmos and the Savior of the cross—we become trusting, passionate, confident, zealous worshipers.
Is doubt good or bad?
Charles Spurgeon, the famed British preacher of the nineteenth century, once told his congregation that doubt was like a foot poised in the air, prepared to step either forward or backward. Yes, doubt can drive you backward into unbelief, but you can never go forward in faith until you raise your foot. God therefore puts us in situations that make us ask the questions to get us to raise our foot. Sometimes it’s the only way we will ever take a step forward in our knowledge of him.
God is really beyond our comprehension
it felt like we were seeing millions of stars. Astronomers tell us, however, that it’s only 9,096. That’s how many stars are visible to the naked eye—about 1/100,000,000,000,000,000,000 of what’s actually out there. They estimate the number of stars right now to be about three septilion, and that number is constantly expanding
A million seconds ago: 11 days.
A billion: 32 years.
A trillion: 32,000 years