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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] today's scripture reading is taken from mark 9 verses 14 to 29 when they came to the other disciples they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them as soon as all the people saw jesus they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him what are you arguing with them about he asked a man in a crowd answered teacher i brought you my son who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech whenever he ceases him it throws him to the ground
00:00:50 he foams at the mouth gnashes his thief and becomes rigid i asked the disciples to drive out the spirit but they could not you unbelieving generation jesus replied how long shall i stay with you how long should i put up with you bring the boy to me so they brought him when the spirit saw jesus it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion he fell to the ground and rolled around foaming at the mouth jesus asked the boy's father how long has it been like this from childhood he answered he has often
00:01:28 thrown him into fire or water to kill him but if you can do anything take pity on us and help us if you can said jesus everything is possible for one who believes immediately the boy's father exclaimed i do believe help me overcome my unbelief when jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene he rebuilt the impure spirit you death and mute spirit he said i command you come out of him and never enter him again the spirit shrieked convulsed in violently and came out the boy looked so much like a corpse
00:02:08 that many said he's dead but jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet and he stood up after jesus had gone indoors his disciples asked him privately why couldn't we drive it out he replied this kind can come out only by prayer this is the word of the lord good morning fbc and before we start the sermon we just want to wish happy mother's day to all mothers out there okay uh you know this is the camera when i point like this i'm looking at the zoom screen if you're a mother there and look at the
00:02:50 zoom screen and you wave mother's wave on the mother's wave any all right a lot of mothers there happy mother's day to you all right if you're a husband if you're a father all right did you kiss your wife today huh anyone uh i don't know peter you're not you're not there yet you know she do you don't get to shake your head peter davidson alex did you kiss your wife today patrick do you kiss your wife today yes oh we got some some uh pastor leon i see you uh enjoy i saw that did you kiss your wife today yes
00:03:21 wow good pastor good example wonderful you see your son agrees with it wonderful wonderful okay um we are continuing with our monthly series on a church and we did one on the traditional church we did another one on the presence of god in church and one thing i would like to do every time we do this monthly series is to introduce you to other churches you know something even evangelicals we live in what we call an echo chamber and we are not uh we're not familiar with practices of other churches and
00:03:53 sometimes we get very judgmental today i'm going to share with you a prayer from the catholic church and as you go on i'll be sharing you prayers from the orthodox church from the lutherans traditional old prayers very rich and this is a great prayer that the catholics do on the fourth sunday after easter is from the collect section they do it up for the reading of the mass so i'd like to ask you to read it together with me all right and it says this oh god who make up the faithful to be of one
00:04:24 mind and will grant to thy people the grace to love what thou dost command and to desire what thou dost promise and amid the changes of the world our hearts may be fixed where true joys are to be found through our lord and god's people say amen i'd like to thank sister camilla which is ivan's better half who shared this prayer with me such a great prayer look what it says amid the changes of the world i mean in such difficult times with the pandemic raging we really need to anchor ourselves to jesus
00:05:01 all right i don't normally watch hindi movies but one of my closest friends his brother zeshan who's pakistani i realize pakistanis love to watch hindi movies and so i'm gonna share a bit about this movie uh yes i actually watch the whole movie yeah i watch it and you'll find out why now first service nobody watched it so it shows you our chinese heavy congregation are not very open anybody here has seen this movie i i suspect nobody is shaking it if you have seen it posted okay why is ana watching a hindi movie
00:05:34 let me explain to you all right now the movie actually is very profound it's about an alien who comes to earth and uh he's brought to earth to study human beings and he's got a locket which is basically his homing device the homing device allows him to go back home and then the movie which basically is a it's a comedy which a lot of undertones gets stolen and so he goes to delhi and he finds a policeman and nibis basically says my locket has been stolen what can i be doing and police been saying i'm just a man what
00:06:07 do you want me to do you go and ask god ah that's the clincher go and ask god daily he has 20 million 200 million people something like that god asked god and then he's like paul on the road you know he has this hallelujah ask god that's it and so he goes and asks god and then he discovers india has many religions so which god should we ask the hindu god the christian god the muslim god the giant god and so to place his beds right what does he do he decides to pray to every god and that's where the movie is quite
00:06:44 interesting he prays to the hindu god he goes to the mosque praise to the muslim god and then he he brings a a a a a coconut which is a hindu way of worshiping and he takes it to the church the movie became very very controversial you know on the way to the mosque he brings a bottle of wine because he saw the wine offered at the eucharist at the catholic church so and of course he begin to realize that religions all differ everybody say they believe in god but all the gods don't say the same thing and it has this theory that
00:07:21 religion is like uh it's like a god has many companies and the company managers don't talk to one another and he wants to see he parades all the religions of india before swami this swami is the antagonist chief enemy in the movie and and you're going to watch the movie this scene is a twist it is not a statement that says all religions lead to the same proof in fact we watch the movie he's saying the opposite is a criticism on religion and so the movie caused a storm did very well a lot of discourses in
00:07:54 india about religion from the movie and in one of the most uh uh appointment scenes at the end of the movie there's a debate between the swami who is like uh you know like a mega church super pastor you know you should watch you see his big congregation lights music team almost really like really like watching a prosperity gospel preacher almost identical and he he says something profound to the character pk pk by the way in hindi means drunk that's the reason for it he says you are attacking religion but
00:08:27 people are basically the indonesian words are cutting their wrists and hanging themselves why because they have no more faith who are you to deny people faith in god extremely profound hindi movie and his reply is even more profound and the movie basically closes on this response he says you are right there is one true god but you people have recreated the god in your image wow he's not if there's not a page from scripture i don't know what it is what's the movie about the movie doing uh something which is very popular among
00:09:09 uh millennials nowadays it's a term if you if you're a younger person you follow they are doing what is called deconstructing faith those of you who just a sideline the word deconstructing comes the word deconstruction which is basically a philosophy by a french person called jacques and the reader the idea is that you should challenge everything about your faith and other things deconstruction is widely used in everything so why are you a christian take it apart and take it apart study read deconstruct it and then reconstruct it
00:09:44 back reconstruct it back who are you to take your faith and assume is true and in a movie it's challenging that a lot of people who religious are just basically superstitious the people who are peddling religion peddling it for their own gain and religion plays on fear and if there's really one god which god is he because so many religions claim to say the same truth is extremely profound for a hindi movie you know i mean and i i think you know if those are interested you should watch it now deconstructing your faith requires one
00:10:18 key item what is that and it's something we rarely talk about is this word doubt and the word is like a dirty word in christianity it's like hey this is this is a bad word you know uh josh bayer says you need to fight it you know you have doubt means you have no faith so we're gonna explore this now there's some truth to that okay let me explain why what happens when you deconstruct your faith and you take it all the way let me explain some of you and know where i'm going with this this is joshua harris best-selling
00:10:51 author uh at the age of 21 he wrote his best seller the forward is by john piper the new york times calls him the guru of christian marriages he followed up with a few series of books and became basically known for marriage counseling and he was the purity man he thought heavily on abstinence morality and purity he's a graduate from region theological seminary one the best he was on the board of gospel coalition he's written a book on old testament theology and he was senior pastor of a mega church called covenant christian
00:11:27 church you don't get bigger than joshua harris okay and you don't get more convicted you don't get more christian than him now this is what happened a few years ago he said this his marriage broke down and he wrote this the information the level of our announcement that they split up is that undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in jesus christ the popular phrase for this is deconstruction the biblical phrase is falling away by all the measurements that i have for defining a christian
00:12:00 i am not a christian wow this is not a guy who just comes to church and sits in the back this is our senior pastor of a mega church graduate from a theological college wrote books on theology morally very conservative abstinence purity not the type of goal that goes around drinking and partying and he says he's no longer christian that's what happened when you deconstruct and he's not alone and so today we take this very difficult topic of falling away he joins the ranks of others another very well-known uh uh speaker you won't know
00:12:37 him he's on desiring god moody college professor also gave up the faith those of you who follow youtube the youtubers eat biscuits were prodigies of tim keller also gave up the faith and probably one a more challenging one no don't worry john piper here he never gave up the faith don't worry about that he's got one million followers you know on his on his account i think his instagram or whatever his son has 900 000 followers you say wow all right he's got 900 000 followers uh in 2017 he came back to the faith
00:13:12 after reading the book of romans very much fanfare the father said the prodigal has returned and very much publicized the tragedy after coming back in 2017 he left again and he left with a vengeance he's not the only son or family member or piper that went astray his own daughter-in-law after getting divorced from his other son also gave up being a christian there's something about very famous pastors and their children you know go and look at tony compolo and what happened to his son bart all of them give up their faith says
00:13:43 something i've been tracking and 900 000 followers in the tick tock account he spends his tick-tock account berating eventualism everything what what evangelicals teach about health unfairness mission trips and of all these followers majority of them are church people so today we deal with a difficult topic we're going to deal with doubt in church and i think it's a serious topic and i want to say after the first service i got some private messages i won't share it with people but it's a real topic
00:14:17 it's a real topic and let me just ask even if you don't struggle with it you think for your children what happens when your son comes up to you or your daughter and says you know what uh mommy daddy why is there so much suffering in the world what do you tell them do you brush it aside these things happen you know so we believe in this this is a real topic and and and now and i suggest if you look at the numbers of the the declining numbers of the evangelical church it is something we need to address so
00:14:50 we're going to deal with this this morning so let's come before god in prayer lord we ask that you speak to our hearts that the word here comes from the spirit and not me that we do this because we want to honor you i mean your text just be real in jesus name we say this amen now we went through the attack the text is quite straightforward you have a scenario about a crowd and then you have a man in the crowd you can imagine him he brings the son to to jesus and then he he begs jesus basically heal my son
00:15:28 jesus before this the main aim of the text who says you unbelieving generation how long must i be with you he repeats it again how long must i put up with you bring him to me now the context of the story is important because before this we have the story of the transfiguration the transfiguration is important because on the mountain jesus meets elijah and moses and the text is trying to tell you jesus fulfilled the old testament so when the text comes after this there is the connection with the old testament
00:15:58 you need to see the flow of it so here's the point let me just give you example as we do this he comes down the hill you follow text before that and jesus is shining okay when the mountain is shining you've read attack before that he sees a crowd and he's very angry the crowd and he says basically he just has no patience so let's go back in the old testament which old testament texts foreshadowed this who went up a mountain his face was shining came down saw a crowd and was so angry he broke a tablet
00:16:33 moses all right so we're going to parallel the two texts as we just go through this you need to keep to this and of course we have the story of of the very famous line i do believe help my unbelief and first thing people say that well because of his honesty he was healed that's not true there's a misreading of the text jesus did not heal him because he responded i do believe help my unbelief you're not saying that's wrong why did jesus heal is found in verse 25 this is key which people miss when jesus saw a crowd was running to
00:17:06 the scene people were running to see him heal he basically quickly healed we missed that he quickly healed because he didn't want the crowd to see him heal whoa why why why she shouldn't he be like all those mega pastors in those healing rallies get thousands of people into the stadium killed in full sight he wanted the ball healed but he didn't want the crowd to see it these are the details you have to pick up so let's go through the text doubt is not the enemy of faith and that is so important and for what
00:17:42 messages i got this morning i think this is the key thing we're going to really go on today let me repeat doubt is not the enemy of faith in fact i'll tell you doubt sometimes is necessary to strengthen your faith number two why believers doubt and then we'll try some general ideas on how to overcome doubt and so let's take the key text and then we'll break it into the context uh there is first a rebuild if you're able everything is possible for a person who believes and and before that the man says you
00:18:14 know if you're able heal my son and when you hear the word if you're able ask yourself who else says this this pharisee says this if you're able the devil said that to jesus if you're able to turn these stones to bread you know and so that is basically a test that i don't believe unless you do this that's the kind of thing so jesus challenges and rebukes him but the reply really breaks your heart with tears flowing the honesty i do believe that's the first statement and then here's the oxymoron
00:18:49 help my unbelief and the two are helped together i do believe help my unbelief so what we see is an honest struggling with faith you see here's a problem with evangelical christianity uh it appears to be seen that if you express doubt you're not very godly man you know i i i was watching a podcast or reading from joyce mayer and she says fight doubt fight it when you got dub coming fight it almost like it's a psychological condition you know what she's trying to tell you when she says fight doubt she's saying
00:19:23 suppress doubt anything suppresses comes back in space and if you're watching today you're having that be like some who watch at me privately talk to us you can't suppress it when you suppress it you it comes back in a very bad way so you see the bible tells us to love the lord your god with all your heart that's the emotional part with all your soul that's all your being that's your will and here's the last one the mind if the mind is saying you know what i i can't understand christianity why are we saying the people who never
00:19:58 knew jesus are you saying they're all going to go to hell are you saying you have a good god and your good god is going to let someone is hell literal are you saying that you know why is the old testament so full of blood and people all just got killed why is there so much suffering i mean these are real questions and you cannot say fight it and suppress it and sometimes no matter how much people explain it a person struggles with it and so here's the first thing i just want to say i'm going to be repeating
00:20:28 this again and again it's okay to doubt right let me say it again it's okay to dub in fact what the text tells us the way to do your doubt is to take it before god don't bury it inside don't talk to your friends or people take it before god and say lord help my unbelief in matthew 11 jesus tell the story about john the baptist and remember john the baptist according to jesus on nobody born of women is as great as john the baptist this man is a pillar of faith you know he's he is really a man jesus
00:21:07 himself commands and he's in jail now because he said something to herod herod didn't like it threw him into jail verse 11 after jesus had finishing instructing his 12 disciples he went from there to teach priesthood galilee when john who was in prison heard about the deeds of the messiah he sent to these his disciples asked him are you the one who is to come or should we expect something else you know what does it mean are you the one who's to come he's basically saying hi are you are you are you the messiah
00:21:38 are you are you christ he's doubting he is doubting his core faith this is john the baptist the man who jesus exhausts as nobody greater born of women and he saying are you the messiah or should we expect someone else so if john the baptist can dub the very basic of his faith what about us so here's the second thing you can doubt anything you can be an elder pastor leader you can adopt anything and the danger is to suppress it and the astoria dub goes all the way back to the old testament to abraham
00:22:17 god told abram you have children like the son the stars he doubted the famous story of his wife who basically said no i'm at my age i can't give birth and he laughed when the angels told him yes you will give birth she doubted gideon doubted moses doubted job struggled with doubt in his in his struggle the whole narrative of scripture is what people are struggling with so don't say you don't have the help the problem with the church is that people don't find it comfortable saying it that's our problem
00:22:49 it's not that you watching here don't dub you find difficulty expressing it because it's an embarrassment because you know i've been a christian for so many years and i better not say it but you have to express it before you end up like joshua harris so this is what his ex-wife now said he said my fundamentalist conservative christianity experience taught me to ignore my inner voice it's not possible to unpack this in one pose using one scripture or anger but early on i learned to distrust and override myself out of fear
00:23:25 in an environment where those and authorities held tremendous control over leaders and church and that's basically a swipe at the church that means if you're a christian and you're in church and and people tell you you know you don't believe you're going to go to hell you're going to do this and everybody's supposed to believe certain say certain things you want to be accepted you suppress it you suppress it and she says for those out there who can relate what was your experience do you learn to ignore your inner voice
00:23:55 your mind body or spirit and thank god she's still trying to process her faith her ex-husband has given it up so here's the first thing i want to just ask all of you are you struggling with dog are you struggling if it is as what shannon said you can't ignore it don't push it down bring it up talk about it and and i i don't believe that in the church of our size people don't have doubt people just don't want to talk about it and here's the other thing in particular the statistics are showing young people are
00:24:29 leaving the church this is the book that came up 2011 by david kinnaman he's from barna they do stats he says you lost me why young christians are leaving the church and they gave six reasons and the sixth reason is the final reason the church feels unfriendly to those who doubt young adults with christian experience say the church is not a place that allows them to express doubts they do not feel safe admitting that sometimes christianity does not make sense in addition many feel that the church response to doubt is trivial
00:25:01 some of the perceptions this regard include not being able to ask my most pressing life questions in church and having significant intellectual doubts about my faith so right now i want to reach out to young adults do you feel fbc is an unfriendly place to you do you feel you have pressing questions and you can't ventilate to church do you listen to podcasts about anything the lgbt issue about justice about about pain and suffering and about hell boy where was the last time we preached about hell by the way
00:25:35 and you just say i don't get it but since no one's talking about it i'm just going to bury it inside and i want to challenge you that's not what god wants this man came to god and says i believe help my unbelief and i want to challenge you to do that this morning you see faith is like a sweater scripture tells us to put on your new self you become a believer you at one point you have euphoria you go through a phase where you put on your sweater and wow you know i feel like i'm just a new person i'm born again then people
00:26:14 go through a few phases and they go to two extremes on one they go through the wilderness they go to the wilderness so badly at one point they become agnostic they won't tell you but they become agnostic they're not sure about their faith they won't tell you but it doesn't think much just come to fbc go to a zoo meeting because you're not pastor but you're not really sure what you believe and you just sit at the back if you're here again this morning we would like to ask you to talk to us some people have
00:26:45 absolute clarity you know but they're clear on everything god spoke to them and some of the things they tell you doesn't even make sense you question whether it's crypto but with fire in the eyes god spoke to me that makes them this this is where skeptics are this is where gullible people are and this has a lot of pride this has a lot of insecurity and both are not in what we call a vulnerable place so let me add some of us if you you're in here you need to process your doubts if you're struggling
00:27:24 the question here is it's okay to doubt let us walk with you if you're very convicted on your things and it could be a lot of things can i say something which is offensive to those of you without clarity you need to doubt more you really need to doubt more you need that doubt to challenge your faith now that's quite offensive right you say you know i have to blessed assurance my question to you is dub what and we'll come to that later on so here's the other thing we need to pick up a chakrito seller
00:27:54 doesn't process faith in the same way a scholar in hebrew processes faith and if you are not careful fbc is going to become an intellectual church hello mr chuck with your seller uh do you believe in imputed righteousness do you believe in justification by faith do you believe in the three solas do you believe in predestination the guy doesn't understand anything you're talking about and christianity has to reach all the nations here's a guy who wants to argue about arminism calvinism dispensationalism don't know
00:28:28 what the islamism ism they want to discuss about but both people would doubt this man has a simple faith he's not careful he becomes simplistic from simplistic it becomes superstitious this one his intellectualism will become his idol my fear with fbc is we are not here we are gearing very heavily towards this that's my view about it and returning the sermon so complicated the everyday guy listens to you he doesn't get it how many people understand greek and hebrew and can do that kind of contextualization
00:29:05 yet the word of god should reach out to both how do we do that and the text actually infers it will go to it now why chris's dub let me just go through a few and my challenge to you is that if you feel that some of this connect to you again we asked you at the end of the sermon reach out to us right here's the first most obvious one and there's a website out there called x evangelicals i went into it by the way preparing this summer was very depressing because i went through testimonies of a lot of people who gave up their faith
00:29:37 there's a website on it and here's number one number one we doubt close with undergoing times of great trials or temptations and of course the story tells about the boy the father having to take care of a boy who has an unclean spirit often throws him into the fire into water to destroy him try to imagine epilepsy it just struggles and you have it right people who who have great who go through great trauma they often will ask you was god there that's the common thing if god is so real why did he allow this to happen in my
00:30:22 life haven't you heard that before that's happening so often again and again and again when people struggle they always say if god is so good if god loves me why did this happen in my life now here's the other flip side the flip side is not the trials it's temptations uh abraham piper uh when he left into uh uh and he gave his testimony back in 2017 he said you know when he left the faith first time he gave philosophical reasons he couldn't understand the bible he couldn't believe this he said the real reason was very crudely
00:30:58 he wanted to go and get laid and drink a lot of beer you can get it on a ticktock account the real reason is he just wanted to go out there and partay you know so people struggle so for example if you are struggling with addictions you have things you're doing that nobody knows you're struggling with uh same-sex attraction you know you you have a uh you're doing things which you're being told that you know the bible says you shouldn't do you have a conflict you have guilt you feel torn so you either give up what you really
00:31:33 really like doing or love doing or you give up your faith which do you think is easier to give up it's easier to give up your faith and the way you give it up is you first compartmentalize it then you say it's okay and then slowly it goes away but kompolo which was tony campolo's son he said that's why progressive christianity or liberal christianity just dies out because you first start off by saying you know what i don't believe what the bible talks about lgbtq i just can't and then from there you say that well
00:32:06 it's okay to marry gay people and then from there it just sort of goes down and down at one point you just say you know what i i don't think i need to be christian i just need to be a good person so that's where the slippery slide goes second one when the social grouping you're in is hostile to christianity and now that that's again why because this is the key point to the text you unbelieving generation you unbelieve he takes a swipe at the entire generation there you and believing generation the
00:32:41 question here is that is he only talking about the scribes and the pharisees or is he talking also about his disciples because his disciples tried to heal and couldn't heal now basically what the fact is saying is that the reason why healing couldn't be done was because he was an environment where people just had hardened their hearts and because of that this father who wanted his son to be healed was very much influenced by that and so he adopted everybody around him was doubting and so he comes before jesus and says
00:33:14 if you are able and so i want to suggest again the text throws you back to the incident on the golden calf because there's a parallel there there's the old testament is basically being foreshadowed in this text here and we know the story uh it says let me read it to exodus 32 1-4 when the people saw that moses was so long and coming down from the mountain they gathered around aaron and said come make us gods who will go before us as for this fellow moses who brought us out of egypt we don't know what has happened
00:33:47 to him they run our patients and so now make us gods now here is the thing which is really surprising because basically what scholar says aaron was pressured aaron answered them here's the man who's going to lead the levites take up the gold hearing to wives and of course he made it into an idol in the shape of a calf and here's the story of the golden calf and then they said and hear the words which are real affront to yahweh these are your gods israel who brought you out of egypt and you know the rest of story
00:34:22 um uh later on aaron confesses this is something very evil and justice is done but why did aaron concede to it this is moses brother because he was pressured he was prejudices have a festival so social pressure does a lot of things to people if you're in a certain group that believes in the certain things you will follow it it's the same with both skeptics and and gullible you look at people if you're the charismatic church and the charismatic church tells you that uh you need to be baptized the holy
00:34:54 spirit and most people will speak in tongue you do a statistical count most people the charismatic church will believe that you're a church that says that tongues have ceased and that this was only at a time of scripture and apostles most people don't speak in tongues now you know what we call cessation is positioned if you're part of the church you believe that even a church that believes that the the bread and wine is the real presence of god you will believe that you become part of that group they call
00:35:23 it group thing only a minority will challenge it why do you think that 45 000 denominations everybody believes what they are pastor i call them gurus like the movie tells them to do it's pressured so let me give you an example right on this and this goes across the board this is the painting by pure brassau is what you call an expressionist painting right uh you can get a link on wikipedia his paintings are up in uh museums somewhere in the world and there was an exhibition of his artwork and um
00:35:58 it's called expressionist paintings right and uh art art critics they are the intelligent people wrote and one art critic wrote about his strokes are just so from the heart to a powerful in fact majority of the art critics commended the work of pierre brassell as a one guy who really loved lasted the painting but majority say that and well anyway his paintings are up in galleries they were so so you know they must be good right let me show you how the artist looks like the artist is actually a monkey there
00:36:33 was an experiment to say the art critics really don't know what they're talking about they are pressured to write certain things because of the social grouping and and you can get in wikipedia and out of all the art critics only one guy had the courage to say you know what this artwork is terrible it looks like a monkey druid so you become a product of your grouping we call this grouping phenomena again now why is this important whether you know it means whether you're christian or atheist the group influences you
00:37:05 now you may not think this is important but i'll tell you for young adults and why we are losing our college students and our young adults is because of this let me show you statistics of of thinking all right uh and these are the post i think this is pure research very very very uh credible in 1994 if you're conservative christian you will go head on with the liberal they are both on equal basis uh and but notice once you hit 204 there's a little bit of plateauing there's no longer a longer hit you know
00:37:37 once you hit 2017 liberals and conservative prisoners hold the same values one end here says no these are the people who will say who have who are very conservative anti-abortion anti-gay anti-everything you know the world is in a mess the draw all the hard line these are what people call conservative right wing but what i don't know i really want to talk about this this long plateau is telling you whether you're conservative christian or your liberal atheist you hold the same values and if this projection is going it will
00:38:14 mean this is going to stretch there and this is probably all people these are younger people it's going to be flatter now what am i trying to tell you i'm trying to say that you put your kid in university and the lecturer is liberal your friends around you are liberal they believe in gay rights they believe in a pro choice they believe in environmental issues they say you christians are narrow-minded bigots anti-vaxxers there's a high likely chance your kid is going to doubt and he's going to plateau
00:38:47 and after work it's just a slippery slide before he or she deconstructs his faith and tells you i don't quite believe anymore so social grouping is critical here's the third one when what you understand from the word and what you see doesn't appear to match up now what the text says is in verse 17 the man says teacher i brought my son to you but actually that's not really true because jesus is up on the mountain so the g the man sees the disciples that has extension of christ which is fair i see your
00:39:23 disciples i've been told in that they've been going from town to town casting out demons i waited a long time and so i bring my son so i asked your disciples with extension of you to drive the spirit out but they didn't have the power what i was told about you jesus that you had the power to do it i heard that you've been going from town to town you healed but what i see is not the same so though we struggle from there we read the bible and we say the bible says this then you look around and you say science
00:39:56 doesn't seem to show it the bible says that no men were created from adam and eve you you read your biology book they tell you darwin says something else you know it doesn't seem to match up the bible doesn't say anything but dinosaurs the word says that the bible says no that the world was created x years science tells you it's billions more years more how do you reconcile the two the bible says no man is sinful the world says man is good and bad and you struggle with that you struggle right let me take you on a personal
00:40:29 level this is again we're just going to talk about joshua harris he made his identity being a marriage counselor he wrote multiple books about purity and chastity and that in his faith which is fair if he abided by this he would have a successful marriage and people looked up to him so what happens when a christian pastor who makes his identity from preaching about abstinence and purity and his marriage collapses mary collapses in his own words he says that i used to excommunicate people who are living immorally and so now i
00:41:11 always communicate myself because then he looks at other people who lead unchristianized and happy marriages and sometimes people struggle right you have some people who say i made this i made the decisions for you lord i i did this and i'm now in faithfully waiting and you wait and you wait and you wait and the weight becomes very long and you look at non-christians friends who appear to be happier than you and then you struggle a lot why is it they were disobedient and they have the life i don't have do you ever relate to that
00:41:45 i think i think you do right and and so we struggle with this coming very close to that is when what you understand from the word and the behavior christians don't match up you see in the end people are stumbled not so much by the word but by how people behave the flip side is when christians behave very very lovingly people believe that's why uh john says by this yeah all men know you're my disciples when you love one another so the flip side goes both ways and so the danger is when you put your
00:42:19 faith in people and not in the word of god i want to stress this because we're going to pick this up if we go to point three so let me let me pick this up again when you put your faith in people and not really in the word of god and in christ alone so some people come to church they are lonely they are hurt they have love they feel warm they feel accepted along the way they believe but really they don't really believe they haven't surrendered their life to jesus they just like being in the company
00:42:52 people accept them because the world hates them or the world doesn't love them so when they suddenly have problems with church people they get to fight with people they get into trouble they leave the church and we see this again and again so um you know and of course for this father whose son was struggling imagine how he feels like you know the disappointment my son is not healed and what does he see he sees he sees the scribes and the disciples arguing there he is in tears and people are just
00:43:25 fighting over it so stumbled no i think that's conjecture but it's a fair point and so let me tell you things that stumble me all right and i want to just say if you're an anti-vaxxer you have a right all right i'm not here to run you down but i struggle with the way some anti-vectors behave you know and a lot of anti-vaxxers are christians you know they are evangelical christians in particular you know covet 19 was supposed to be a time where the christian church should shine we should be an example to a word is
00:43:55 suffering instead i'll say the evangelical church is an embarrassment we either become in denial we say we quote psalm 91 god will protect us like a very famous mega church pastor in singapore all we deny everything we see is a bill gates conspiracy is this you know and we open our churches even though doctors tell you you shouldn't so when you see things like this and you see what's happening in india i don't know about you i get really upset and i get very stumbled but maybe there is something we should discuss
00:44:28 yeah and so let me just end it with this part when it's just your nature to dub is it possible i get all the screens up i wanna i don't know why i'm looking up to the screen now i'm just seeing my face can i get the rest i wanna i wanna do a little bit of test now all right okay now this isn't in the text right this is something i want all of us to do an exercise and if you can you just you just put your hands up all right i'm gonna give you a word as you know i like i like psychology it's something i i
00:44:53 read a lot so i'm giving you a word now right okay all right that's the word i'm gonna ask you how many of you saw this can you raise your hands all right all right okay quite a lot can we scroll anyone else there okay let's grow how many you saw this all right thank you very much okay how many of you saw this okay now let me tell you you can already see from the numbers up there who is a skeptic and who is a believer or a person who is inclined to believe thank you peter you can put your hand down now again peter davidson thank you
00:45:38 no okay uh let me say this if you saw this you tend to be on a skeptical side that means you you don't believe easily i'm like this i'll come to admit it to you okay okay so mathias i i hear you i saw mathias and ryan matthias was what ryan was the other one okay okay all right eddie thank you if you saw this you believe easily this one you're not careful you become gullible this one not careful you become a skeptic so what am i trying to say some of us just wired that way some of us believe anything you know god
00:46:18 told me to have engagements with some people you can't even talk to them you want to lose that argument or you want to argue just say the holy spirit to be so uh no need to argue with fire in your eyes they will tell you god to me so and you cannot argue with them let me let me suggest a bit okay people who are very on fire they have pride one you know that's my they can't see it it's a very subtle pride people who who are skeptical are also proud they both have pride you know you require a lot of humility to say that
00:46:50 you know what if you're a skeptic doubt your doubt okay so if you're this doubt your doubt if you are this dub your convictions doubt your convictions and and now that's that's a caveat to this one uh because jesus wants us to have assured faith so how can you say that isn't that contradiction so we will come to that later all right so let's go to overcoming doubt and and here's where we try to balance out having healthy doubt and a blessed assurance so scripture teaches to know refined in the in the gospels your faith has made you
00:47:28 well so there is the idol of faith what hebrew tells us on their hand doubt it helpful for you to cultivate a deeper faith you need to have healthy doubt so you ask all the right questions you don't suppress it inside so that your faith strong grows stronger and to do that you need to overcome doubt and so we recognize some of us are wired a certain way some of us are skeptical some are not some of us have bad trauma that affects us some of us have bad experiences with christians some of us look at the bible and we say
00:47:58 we don't get it all right so let's go through this all right number one you have to distinguish what you can't believe can't and what you choose to not believe that's the difference uh doubt is when you are struggling to believe i believe that's active participant that means i made a choice i chose to believe help my unbelief that's called struggling unbelief is when you've decided not to believe and some people they have really made up their minds not to believe no matter what you say they're just looking at what you say to
00:48:33 cherry pick certain evidence to reinforce their position so let's let's go through again some some things about the text all right and i want to take you through the text now you see you notice that when jesus does his miracles the book of mark is very particular about the way it is written that means sometimes he does the miracles where there's a lot of people why because hebrews chapter 2 says that the gospel is confirmed through signs and wonders but then there's certain times when jesus does his miracles he's very
00:49:04 deliberate so that people don't see him it's right all over the book of ma the question you ask yourself is why let me let me give you an example right off the bat chapter one he heals somebody don't tell this to anyone chapter eight he heals somebody else don't go into the village meaning don't tell anybody and then again verse 29 don't tell anyone so when jesus verse 25 says when he saw a crowd running you know what he's trying to do he's trying to heal so nobody would see why you see in jesus discernment
00:49:39 he could see the crowd some people if you show a miracle it will strengthen the faith some people you show a miracle is wasted on them because they really made up their minds what they wanted to see and in the case of the scribes and the pharisees they were looking for somebody to overthrow the roman empire and so jesus would not give them a sign and that's found in chapter seven so this is where the story of the golden calf comes in because the story of the golden cup is interesting the israelites are not
00:50:15 denying god rescued them from the red sea what they have done is they have distorted god to a god of the image we want this god let us make gods in our image and the golden calf is basically the god el which is a canaanite god of fertility the whole idea is to do a distortion of god and after that aaron has a festival and scholars say is actually a jewish festival is a distortion of god and so we go back to the basic principle of why jesus does miracles and the function of faith and the priority of faith
00:50:53 he say this so i can preach this is why i have come the miracles point to one thing the messiah the son of god the savior so let me just go through this the question is can you distinguish between what you choose to believe and what you struggle to believe i give you an example very simple example let's just say you fight with your wife fight your wife you struggle right in you fight your wife you have a temptation to choose to believe your narrative my wife is wrong i'm right this hardening of the hearts you know if
00:51:36 you have a fight with the church peter is wrong arnold's wrong maybe i was uh i'm right we have this martyr attitude if i probably officer my boss is wrong i was discriminated because i'm not a malay you see our narratives they call this confirmation bias you know it's a condition everybody suffers from and so gk chesterson says this when men choose not to believe in god and let me suggest christians can very often compartmentalize god it's not they don't believe in anything you take god out of it you believe in
00:52:14 anything it's not that you believe in nothing you believe in anything anything you want to believe you want god to be a golden calf he's a golden calf to you that's what the text is trying and that's why jesus doesn't want to show miracles to them so what you see is what you choose to believe so what confirms your faith this is this is your doubt but what you see is a choice you know so they call this confirmation bias so of course why do you think one here's a simple example two people were crucified next to jesus
00:52:44 both of them had access to the same information right they didn't go through bible college they didn't have anything but two men criminals hung next to jesus one saw jesus and said we are hung here because our sins jesus when your paradise remember me the other one spat at jesus two people same excess information one chose not to believe another chose to believe you see where we going with it and you have to ask yourself where do you struggle if you say you don't struggle with this you're lying to
00:53:18 yourself you can be an elder pastor all of us struggle with this it's your pride that prevents you from seeing this and i've seen this again so often so here's the key thing how do we get blessed assurance focus on the big things in life faith not the disputable issues if you and i are going to argue about what you you don't believe in there's a long list you know uh why is there so much struggling in the world that's the number one on most people's list why if there's a real god if there's really if god is so good why there's so
00:53:51 much pain and suffering that's number one number two if god is so good why does he allow hell is hell literal you know uh uh why why why are christians so divided you know uh why is there so much the list goes on but you have the one two three which is often on everybody's list okay now what am i trying to suggest i'm suggesting that christians divide themselves over everything i'm in an inter dialogue group ivan is here with me he's in my group with his better half camellia dr lee is with me and we engage catholics
00:54:24 this is my private thing yeah and i find out that people are convicted over everything one person is convicted that you must speak in tongues if you don't speak entire not real no not much of a christian and they there's a condescending attitude now another person says the opposite you you tongues were long time ago and that's condescending another person believes if you don't eat pork you might go to hell another person believes you don't get baptized you go to hell 45 000 denominations christians are divided everybody
00:55:00 has confirmation buyers they believe what they want to believe it's crazy billions of christians around the world they're so divided the catholics think they're right the orthodox things they're right the reform evangelicals think they're smarter than everyone else and everybody else doesn't have the bible but how how do you know what you believe today is from the bible and not because people like arnold lim and peter earn very cleverly tell you let me challenge you that how do you know your entire doctrine on
00:55:28 justification of faith on on solafi day on on all those doctrines is coming from people who have the gift of the gap like me and peter and all the other speakers how do you know it's not from how do you know it's not from us but from the bible let me tell you you can't oh that's a painful thing to say you can't unless two things the holy spirit tells you to number two you're a bible scholar and so let me suggest jesus says i came for one thing to preach you ask what did he preach what did he preach
00:56:02 he preached rocks these things non-negotiable pebbles are says this is uh charismatics non-charismatics catholics orthodox uh independent churches baptism communism communism all the things christians like to argue like argue until cry already everybody disagrees on this this one you cannot this is what jesus came mark one and what is that and paul tells us for what i receive i pass on to you as of first importance this isn't speaking in tongues this isn't baptism this isn't the eucharist this isn't uh carbon calvinism this is
00:56:44 an arminism this isn't all the things people argue that 45 000 denominations this is the one the christ died for our sins he was buried raised on the third day that is the priority you know stephen covey say this in the seven habits you fix the big things the small things will fix itself but christians like to argue over stupid things on you know but this is that of this you prioritize now there are a lot of things i i struggle with the bible let me tell you i'm out of the church so so like i said if joshua harris can
00:57:20 struggle i tell a lot of people struggle i i read the bible and i'm an elder and i'm teaching you doesn't make sense to me but one thing i am convicted i'm convicted with a shadow that all men are sinful and jesus came and died for my sins and he caused me to be savior and to be lord everything else let me tell you uh hold your breath i doubt i can change my mind there's a word for it it's called reforming that's why we're called reformed because we keep on reforming but the gospel is everlasting
00:57:57 so let me do practice listening to god not to those who people think they're close to god and i spoke a bit about that and why because jesus rebukes his disciples because they were going in their own strength they did not pray they did not fast but those disciples were presenting themselves as people close to god now here is gonna i'm gonna say certain really sensitive things this morning all right and you may not like it all right you know in a movie pk the the the jab was at gurus you know that's why the hindu parties went after
00:58:28 them that the hindu faith had a lot of gurus and these gurus say they represent god and people follow them they say they're following god actually they're following gurus so evangelicals think they're very smart they say you know we don't do that we follow we are bible believing christians you know three solas you know five solas whatever solar scripture et cetera et cetera really i challenged you that now right this is john mccarter telling his congregation from the bible that you have to meet on sunday
00:59:00 even though every doctor tells you you will have close you know you are spread the things because that's the word of god and even though after the court told him you can't do it he still met now here's the thing that really bothered me okay on sunday morning the church met inside and without adhering to any social distancing mcnaughton but after noting the defiance on the service and saying the good news is you're here you're not distancing you're not wearing masks and this is the thing that bothers
00:59:30 me the most the congregation cheered in response so don't tell me you are listening to the bible you're listening to arnold maybe i'm a false propheter maybe peter's a false prophet maybe yidian is a force proper by the way don't don't take that seriously after that you'll be complaining to the church uh so please let me qualify my remark my question is you say you're listening to scripture i challenge you the evangelical church is listening to their gurus let me listen a few names uh and these
01:00:02 people are above above reproach you know so take a deep breath john piper tim keller d.a carson paul tripp should i go on francis chan david platt do you that challenge anything they say can i tell you that i listen to a podcast on john piper on uh on on robbie zechariah which dear brother alex sent to me and i thought it's completely judgmental do you have a right to say that if i say to some people i'll get lectured on you know you have a right after this servant to say i don't live i don't like your
01:00:35 sermon i don't think it's biblical and you should send it to me if you don't i become take a deep breath your guru and that is sacrilegious to the lord why do you think the ravi zechariah scandal stumbled so many people because the evangelical church has raised up preachers to superstar status people now on the podcast their favorite preachers there's a culture we should avoid instead spend time in prayer how many of you fast how many of you have solace quietness enjoy the mystery of god instead of
01:01:17 rushing off to the podcast of your latest favorite author and who might just be your guru and so let me end with this be part of a community that has mercy on those who doubt and jude 22 says that now this is a heavy topic right and and and uh after first service some people are telling me about you know how my children doubt what i do and i will tell you this let me tell you a few things why i spoke this morning number one if it's anything you think about the next generation because you we are losing our kids
01:01:51 our kids if the stats show we will become america will follow first and then asia will become like europe post-christian either that it will be a nominal faith where we meet on sunday because kids nowadays are much more aware they ask and the question we ask is do we provide them that platform the second is you and me maybe you've been in church a long time and maybe you came to fbc for many reasons but you know what you don't quite believe and i challenge you to i want to first say it's okay to say i don't believe can i
01:02:30 repeat that again it's okay to say i don't believe i struggle it's not okay when you choose to make that decision but what i'm asking you this morning is text us text us and on pray and let us talk to you if not you are deconstructing your faith by yourself let fbc not be a church that's judgmental i plead with you let us not be a church that condemns people who judge who who doubt let us not be a church that very quickly run down a person well you're a life group leader you you you doubt blah oh
01:03:07 we better remove you from leadership i plead with you let us be a church that has mercy on those who doubt like jesus let us be a church that is vulnerable and we all will deconstruct our faith together and reconstruct it back in a way that honors him may your doubt bring you closer to god doubt your doubts and we in it together let me end with a statement well very depressing i must confess here with sorrow i have caesar the despondency and depression of spirit which i trust none of you are called to suffer and as
01:03:47 such times i've doubted my interest in christ my calling my election my perseverance my savior's blood my father's love oh arnold giving us another joshua harris aren't you depressing enough how many more people who have left the faith you're going to tell us the person who wrote this is charles spurgeon the same man who doubted his faith said this delayed answers are not only trials of faith they give us an opportunity of honoring god by a state fast confidence repeat against state fast confidence
01:04:23 in him under apparent repulsors doubt your doubts if they come from the lord to help you strengthen your faith walk with us type in zoom type in pray on the zoom let us talk to you let us have a moment of silence i'm going to close in prayer and i just want to ask for those of you who you felt god spoke to you this morning this is not a ted talk i'm truly hoping the lord spoke let's spend some time in silence lord we just ask inquirers now that there are some people who are maybe struggling they don't want to reach out
01:05:02 be pride but it's confidential they just need to type in and say i doubt or i need to talk to hannah and not talk to peter i need to talk to yulam i need to talk to yidian i need to talk to pastor leon i need to pass the parcel link i need to talk to pastor joash we are here we are here we are not saying we know better we're not here to judge we're here to walk with you to have empathy we're here because god had mercy on us so i want to give a moment silent for the spirit to do that and if you feel that no one's watching
01:05:40 type it now and let us just be here too for you oh god we ask for your spirit to move move in our midst in a way that just just honoring to you lord honoring to you and again if you have uh want to make the decision you felt the lord spoke to you you want to attend alpha please they all here do to just just reach out to us
