February 26, 2023
Suffering in Uncertainty
Matthew 11:2-6
There are many events in our lives that we love to share with others. If we go on a great vacation, we love to share the details about our trip with our friends. If we see a good movie, we love to tell others all about it. This can even work with less “fun” things like when we get a scar for we love to share the story of exactly how that scar came to be. However, there are some things we experience that we don’t want to share and we tend to hide them the best that we can. The problem is when some of these things are left alone and are not dealt with, they can cause significant problems in our walk with the Lord. One of those things that I would like to look at this morning is doubt.
There is a stigma in the church about doubt. Something about it that makes us think we are less “Christian”, and because of that, we are hesitant to share it with others. While we see scriptures in the Bible that commend faith and we are challenged to remove doubt from our lives in order to see greater things accomplished in and through our lives (Prov. 5:3-8, Matthew 21:21), doubt can still creep into the life of a Christian and cause problems. We must deal with it no matter what stigma we THINK it carries. Therefore, our goal this morning is to look at scripture in order to better understand doubt and understand how to deal with doubt biblically. When we do, we will see this doubt, which can be so damaging, turn into the most significant catalyst we will ever see for our Christian faith.
Doubt is not the beginning of our downfall. - Matthew 11:2-6
2 John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, 3 “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” 4 Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— 5 the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” 6 And he added, “God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.”
Doubts can happen to anyone. Look at some of our heroes of the faith in scripture: Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Job, and the Psalmists. The list goes on and on of people who doubted God within the Bible. This is where John the Baptist finds himself in this passage. At this point in his life, John was in prison for rightly confronting Herod for marrying his brother Phillip’s wife (Matthew 14:3-4). Even though John didn’t know it at the time, this imprisonment would ultimately lead to his death. During this time and due to his circumstances John developed some doubts. To his credit, he wanted to deal with them.
When we start to develop doubts, sometimes we start to worry that maybe it's the end of our walk with Christ, or that because of our doubts maybe God has given up on us, or maybe others will look down upon us. Doubt can cause us so much fear and anxiety that it can almost cripple us in our walk with Christ, but it doesn’t mean it’s the end of our faith. Listen to what Jesus says after John’s students leave in verse 11, “I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist.” John had doubts, but he dealt with those doubts and Jesus said he was the greatest that ever lived. Look at all the others we mentioned before as heroes of the faith, we are still talking about them today and God used them mightly. The key is you have to deal with those doubts. Before we look to see how we need to handle our doubts, we need to understand that doubts can look different.
Doubt comes in different forms. - Matthew 11:2-6
2 John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, 3 “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” 4 Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— 5 the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” 6 And he added, “God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.”
1. Factual Doubt
Usually, when we think about doubt, our mind first goes to factual doubt. It’s a doubt that when confronted with facts and truth that doubt is relieved. Before we really dive into this topic, I want to make it abundantly clear that ANY belief or faith system you hold onto that cannot pass the factual doubt test at all times is a false belief system. Your doubt is a blessing that should drive yourself away from that false teaching. Back to factual doubt, these are doubts that arise from intellectual curiosity and can be solved by research and facts. The disciple Thomas’ encounter with the resurrection of Jesus is a great example of this. In John 20:25, the disciples tell Thomas that Jesus is alive, that He has risen from the dead and Thomas said, I’m not going to believe that until I can touch the wounds on his hands and side. Eight days later Jesus appeared to the disciples, looked at Thomas, and said here’s your evidence come, touch my wounds and believe. Thomas, without exploring the evidence even further (literally!), cried out and called Jesus His Lord and God. Thomas had factual doubts, but when presented with facts, He had his doubts eliminated immediately. This even seems to be what is happening here with Jesus' and John’s disciples. Jesus is confronting John’s factual doubt because he seems to reply with facts. There is more than meets the eye with Jesus’ response to John because it wasn’t factual doubt that John was dealing with, it was emotional doubt.
2. Emotional Doubt
Emotional doubt is the most painful doubt we will ever deal with. It’s also the most common doubt we will experience, but praise the Lord it's one of the easiest to overcome. Emotional doubt is something that comes about not because we lack evidence, not even because we have real questions we are struggling with, but they come about because of how we process events that have happened to us. Let’s take a look at John. He had all the factual evidence he needed. He was the man that proclaimed that Jesus was the lamb who would take away the sins of the world, and he was the one who had been proclaiming that the Messiah would come. John was the one who baptized Jesus, saw the heavens open, and the Spirit of God descend upon Him like a dove and heard the voice from heaven say, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” John had plenty of facts to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, but he still had doubt and that came about because of his circumstances. John had done everything right, even stepping out and confronting the king's sin. In his mind, if Jesus was the Messiah then he wouldn’t be in prison right now because he did what was right. Jesus didn’t match up to John’s expectations of a Messiah. That’s when the emotional doubt begins. In our lives we will see emotional doubt when, just like John, something happens we didn’t think was supposed to happen to us or happen to us in that way and we start asking the “What if…?” questions. John’s question was “What if Jesus is not the Messiah?” He had all the factual proof that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, but something about the prison cell he found himself in brought these doubts up in his mind. John knew he couldn’t just let that doubt dwell in his mind so he went to Jesus for help.
3. Volitional Doubt
Before we go any further, I want to make mention of one final type of doubt and that is volitional doubt. It’s a doubt that is the outcoming of not dealing with our doubts properly. It’s a doubt that is dangerous because despite overwhelming evidence the person refuses to make an appropriate response to the data and facts around them. For example, say you are standing in a burning building, you smell the smoke, you see the flames, and you feel the heat, yet you just stand there and pretend that everything is fine. That is volitional doubt and there are always severe consequences with volitional doubt. When your doubts in the truth of the Bible go undealt with you, you are going to have the same problem. When you don’t clear up your doubts about the existence of God, the existence of sin, the problem with sin in your life, the reason that Jesus came and died, the resurrection, and our total dependence on Jesus to save us from our sins, the consequences are not only severe, they are eternal.
Doubt must be dealt with - Matthew 11:2-6
2 John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, 3 “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” 4 Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— 5 the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” 6 And he added, “God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.”
When we deal with doubts, some are easier to deal with than others. For factual doubt, we just go and collect facts to be able to satisfy that type of doubt. With emotional doubt and volitional doubt, there is a method laid out here in the interaction between Jesus and John via his students, to help us deal with those types.
1. Talk to God
The very first thing that John does is send someone to talk to Jesus and that should always be our first response as well. We go talk to God about our doubts - ask for clarity, ask for guidance, and ask for wisdom in how to deal with them. God should always be our first priority, not our last hope. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
2. Share with others
John talked with his students about his doubts otherwise they would not have come asking the question. All throughout scripture especially in the Proverbs (Proverbs 12:15, Proverbs 11:14, Proverbs 24:6, Proverbs 19:20, etc) we are told to seek wise counsel. “Wise” is the keyword here. There is plenty of poor counsels out there that will just tell you what you want to hear and not what you need to hear (again refer to Proverbs). We need to seek wise counsel when we are dealing with doubt to help set us in the right direction.
3. Turn to Scripture
Remember when I said there was a little more to Jesus' answer to John than just answering his factual doubts? Let’s revisit that. Jesus wasn’t just answering John’s question with facts. Rather He was quoting scripture to him that told of the coming Messiah - what the Messiah would do and be like (Isaiah 35:5-6, 26:19, 29:18-19, 61:1). Jesus was taking John back to scripture to help him deal with his doubt. This is the same thing we should do. The Bible is our standard against which we measure everything, even our doubt. We must turn to scripture with our doubts.
4. Attack the Lie
When it comes to emotional doubt there is always a root that is based on a lie that has led to that doubt. We have to step back from ourselves, identify it, and then attack it with the truth of the Bible. This is exactly what Jesus did with John. John’s lie was that he wouldn’t be in the situation that he found himself in (prison) if Jesus was really the Messiah. John had a misconception of the coming Messiah. Jesus used the truth of His word to address that doubt and to show him that despite his doubts, Jesus was the Messiah. Just because things don’t go exactly as we have planned, it doesn’t mean that God isn’t real, that the Gospel isn’t powerful, and that Jesus isn’t Lord of all.
That was it, Jesus dealt with John’s doubt in a very systematic way and we never hear that John ever waivered again. Doubt is something we will all have to deal with at some part in our lives and this morning we’ve seen how the Bible shows us to deal with it in all of its forms. John’s doubt (once dealt with properly) turned from something that was hindering his belief in Jesus into a catalyst for his faith that saw him all the way through death. When we find ourselves in seasons of doubt may our prayer be the same as the man recorded in Mark 9:24, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief.” and see this doubt that Satan meant for harm turn into something amazing for the glory of God.
