Doubt

Have you ever doubted something? I think we all have had doubt. Maybe even today doubt crept in. Doubt can be a lonely road when we are left wondering how to handle any situation. Or, if we’ve made the right decision or choice in our current situation. What I’ve learned in my 40 years of life was that doubt is always going to be there. It’s always going to be a part of my life.

But the hardest thing I’ve learned was that I’m not the only person in the world that doubts. Barna did a study a couple years ago, right before covid hit and they discovered that out of those who self identify as Christian. Just over one-quarter, or 26% of them said they experience spiritual doubt. Those who have been through College and encountered an array of ideas, philosophies and worldviews were twice as likely to experience doubt as those who have a high school education or less (37% vs.

19%). The study would go on and reveal how people would respond to their doubt. When faced with Spiritual doubt… The highest response was 45% responded by leaving the church. 3 out the 10 adults stopped reading the Bible and praying. While another quarter (25%) quit talking with friends or family about spirituality, God or religion. So when faced with doubt, instead of coming to church and talking about it among trusted friends and family, reading their bibles and praying, they dealt with doubt by leaving the church and figuring out their doubts either alone or perhaps not even at all.

When I think of faith and growing faith in Christ, I remember that faith grows. It’s alive. It’s active. It’s living. But also, Faith isn’t a light switch that is either on or off. It is more like a muscle; it gets stronger the more you use it. All of us are somewhere between complete faith and complete doubt. Like the father in Mark 9:24, we cry out “I do believe; help my unbelief.” And so, I realized this week.

Doubt isn’t bad because I face it, doubt is only bad if I run from it, or I don’t take care of it when it arises in my mind and my heart. Asaph in Pslam 73 is dealing with doubts. He’s not just some average guy. We’re talking about a major leader in the temple of God. And so, we find in this Psalm a leader and a teacher who faces real life tests and battles that we all face.

And he shows us how to deal with doubt in our faith. Because this Psalm isn’t just about doubt… it’s about how we deal and face doubt when it’s before us with faith. The first things we learn is to face our frustration….. Asaph I would say is lamenting. He’s writing out what’s bothering him. He begins in verse 3 and goes all the way to verse 14. Theses evil people..

They’re prospering in their wickedness. v.3 Their bodies are not bothered by arthritis and callouses and back and knee issues. They’re healthy and strong. v.4 Their not plagued with trouble or problems like everyone else. v.5 I love what the NLT says in verse 7.. these fat cats have everything their hearts could wish for. Honestly, he’s saying these people are living their best life now and it’s not fair because those who are living by righteousness, they don’t seem to have a reward.

v13 What’s the point to live righteous lives when those living wickedly reap all the benefits and the righteous are “stricken all day long and chastened every morning.” V.14 It’s a real question and it’s a real doubt by Asaph. So what does he do… he lays out a buffet of doubt onto the lap of God. He get’s it all out… I was sitting at the dinner table this week and of course in the course of my study for today, I came across a really amazing fact that I shared with our family while we were eating dinner.

I looked down at Alicia’s Zucchini that she had fried up for dinner … and I said, Hunny. Guess what I learned today… I learned that sea cucumbers throw up their guts and let the predator who’s attacking them eat their guts until their full and swim away. Now you can imagine the look on our families face as I lay out this amazing graphic scene to my wife and kids as we eat Dennies Zucchini.

But I found it fascinating… And here is what’s even cooler… they do this, knowing that once they get it out there, they can suck it all back in and regrow their guts incase another predator comes along. Now that’s a weird fact, but it’s true and an amazing fact when we consider that sometimes in our doubt we just need to get it out there. We need to share it and since we have a god that’s relational, he wants us to bring it to him, and trust in him, that he will take care of what needs to be taken care of.

I wanna believe Aspaph learned this from his king, which was David. David in Pslam 62:8 says, “Trust in the Lord at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him.” It’s hard to deal with a problem or a doubt if we’re not willing to put it all out on the table. I love how Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 5:7, when he says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for us” He’s talking about Jesus btw…

but Some translations say, “cast your cares.” Others say, “cast your worries.” I’m sure we can add just one more to that… why not trust in the Lord at all times and cast your doubts on Him as well? Because Jesus cares for us. The second step Asaph takes is that he asks questions and he reasons with his doubt. Verse 16 says, “When I pondered to understand this, it was troublesome in my sight.” What he is doing is taking his doubt and now he’s mentally beginning to wrestle with it and ask some hard questions.

And guess what… his doubt was causing him grief. Children are amazing are they not. When piper’s over I love just watching her play and seeing little hints of her attitude here and there. I love watching her curiosity. Do you want to know one reason why I think children and grandchildren are a blessing from God…Just one out of the many… but one reason. I believe in all of God’s wisdom and all of God’s love for us.

He gives us opportunities to be around children for them to teach us the truth that asking questions is ok. It’s ok… it’s ok to doubt. It’s ok to reason through our doubt… It’s ok to Ask questions. Jesus said, “… unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3, ESV). When we are around kids I believe God blesses us with their presence because they’re to remind us that we’re never too old to ask questions.

We need them just as much as they need us. Just like we as the church body, need each other to grow and sharpen one another in our faith. That’s the value we find in discipleship. That’s why we gather to pray and to read, and to encourage and to ask questions like, how can I better serve you. How can I pray for you… it’s awful hard to let our doubts get in the way of asking questions when we’re busy enjoying the adventure to learn with one another.

And so what we find out is that there is this joy in adventuring to find something we value. What if… and I’m Just asking.. but what if what we value having the company of Jesus and each other’s company on this adventure we call faith and life? What if, When Doubt begins to rear it’s head in our life, instead of not sharing it, perhaps like the statistics show and running away, what if, God had some weird plan to have brothers and sisters in Christ share their doubt with each other, knowing that Jesus makes a way for forgiveness, and grace, and mercy and love and understanding.

We remind ourselves of having a child like faith with the wiliness to ask the tough questions? What if… it’s really not about getting the right answer, as much as it is walking life together in Christ and with each other? Well what do you mean by that pastor… what I mean is this… what if worship and relationship was the answer to our doubts? Obviously Asaph was troubled by his doubt…

I don’t think he’s trouble by his doubt because he doesn’t know the answer. I believe He’s troubled by his doubt because he’s taken his eyes off the one who holds the answer. Right… He says, I’ve tried to understand my doubt but I couldn’t… so what did he do? Well verse 17 says he went to the sanctuary. Do you know what the sanctuary is here in this text… you guessed it…

he went to be in God’s presence. Verse 17….”Then I went into your sanctuary, O God, and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked.” Asaph was having trouble understanding his doubt because he wasn’t laying it out before God, he was trying to lay it out before himself. He was trying to understand and reason a worldly problem with a worldly mindset. And no matter what he thought, or what he said, or what he did…

it all came up with the same outcome. He was still stuck in his doubt… and it was troublesome to him. So he went to the sanctuary to be in God’s presence and that is where transformation happened. Because once he begins to align his heart and mind through worship. All the things he was troubled over began to find their proper place in relationship to who God is. That’s because, Worship reframes the way we see God, the way we see ourselves, and how we see others.

What kind of benefit do we gain when we are near God? Well, first Asaph tells us that despite our jealously and bitterness, God is still present with us. Verse 23 says, “Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand.” I love the fact that we have Jesus praying in the garden in our foyer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked over here to be alone in the sanctuary and I come into the church and I take a moment to look intently at our painting.

I stare at that painting more intimately now because God opened my heart to the truth and the power of the word yet. Jesus was about to be betrayed. Matthew tells of Jesus praying in chapter 26, verse 39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; Jesus was about to go to the cross.

He was staring at the cup of sin. He was thinking of the agony of the cross and in a split moment he asked the father if there was any other way…. But what stood in the enemies way to derail the savior onto the cross was one word… Jesus said, yet not as I will, but as You will.” Asaph said I might not understand, I might be doubting, but yet I still belong to you Lord and you hold my hand and lead me…

He’s a debtor just like Paul said he was a debtor to Christ. I’ve found in my walk that sometimes I need to learn to turn from being a doubter and focus more on being a debtor. Doubting can lead me to be self focused, while being a debtor leads me to be God and others focused. He also finds in verse 24 that God guides him when he worships. You guide me with your counsel.

He’s being guided. This is the language of letting God lead him. You hold my right hand, and you lead me. Like a parent and a child. Like a Shepard leading his flock to the cool waters and green pastures. His focus isn’t on the destination, he’s focused on who’s leading him. How do we know this… Look in verse 28.. The best conclusion to be drawn from the psalm is found in v28 28: He writes, But for me, it is good to be near God; and I have made God my refuge.

When presence matters most we find the most joy in our relationship to God. I’ve found that sometimes as we seek God, He can seem difficult to find at times. Sometimes in our doubt we try seeking God but we don’t sense his presence. We don’t sense him coming along side of us and holding our hands and leading us through the crossroads of our doubt. And in the pursuit of our seeking, it can be easy to doubt that He’s there at all.

But what I have learned is that sometimes it’s not about God making himself known to us, as much as it’s about the joy and the delight of the Journey to find Him. I want to end our time together with something I thought was very interesting about the statistic I first shared about doubt. When those people who were polled faced doubt, they were asked a very simple question… Where did you go to find help and answers.

What do you think the highest answer was this… 40% of the people polled said that they went to Friends and family to help deal with their doubt. What if… the journey to find God was never meant for us to journey it alone? What if the journey was meant for us to gather together in a sanctuary, just like Asaph had done, to worship, to yearn, to seek Jesus…. together with others?

When Mary and Martha called Jesus to come because the one he loved, Lazarus had passed away. What did Jesus do… he stayed where he was for a little longer instead of going at the request of Mary and Martha… You see, when Jesus arrived in their mourning people had gathered. What if instead of us walking this crossroads of faith alone, we instead gathered together as a body, worshipped together…

and God took us all by the hand and led our hearts into the intimate relationship with Him? You see… this is how I see the church. This is what I pray for every day for us at Twin Hills. That we would yearn to be here, that we would yearn to pray for one another, and that we would yearn do this faith walk together, while finding the joy of HIs presence.

Everyone of us has exierenend a time when we Thought God was unfair, or being righteous is pointless, or your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. These times become harder if we think we are alone and are the only ones to ever ask these questions or walk these paths. When we gather in the sancusary were not jut worhispping God, but were also Sharing our stories and asking questions. It’s a place where we can have the confidence to ask some tough questions.

And when we do life together, It also gives us opportinuesi for us to share with others the paths we took to find answers. Because This psalm, Psalm 73… is a testimony of the importance of sharing our story for the purpose of helping others. Because 53% of those polled said that when they went their friends, when they asked questions, when they went to the church and the Bible… 53% said their faith grew stronger.

I dont know what kind of doubts you’re dealing with today.. but I can assure you… you’re not alone. Perhaps what you need alone with all of us here… is to worship. *