Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
Nobleboro, Maine
August 4, 2019
Mark 9:17-24
FOLLOW ME EVEN IF YOU HAVE DOUBTS
I. Is certitude a good thing?
A. We are a nation of convinced people.
1) Go to Google, type in "I have no doubts about my faith" and
you will get 7,580 results.
a) Perhaps you would claim that for yourself.
2) If that's the case, plenty of people have doubts about you.
A comment on an online Yahoo religious forum:
When a religious person says, "I have no doubts about my
beliefs," are they lying?
Because how could one not have doubts about something for
which absolutely no corroborating evidence exists?
It's just not possible, is it?
There will always be some level of doubt, won't there?
I mean, sure the human mind is quite capable of
malfunctioning severely ... but I'm talking about the
people you see in Wal-Mart.
You know, the average [joes] who make up the general
populace;
These are the people who insist on having their beliefs
and morals dominate everyone else in society and they
claim to be certain about their beliefs ...
They're lying, aren't they?
They just can't be certain...
#64786
3) Apart from the judgmental tone and faulty logic - how could
he know there is "absolutely" no evidence for our faith
- are Christians wrong to claim they have no doubts?
B. Supreme confidence is a Christian virtue.
1) Maybe we lie about our certainty because reality is
complicated and we want our faith to be simple.
2) We want to persuade other people, and doubts make you
less convincing.
3) Sometimes, we are just trying to convince ourselves.
C. Plenty of Christians DO have doubts.
1) I became a Christian at the age of 17, from a non-religious
home.
a) I had lots of doubts to overcome.
b) Some persisted for years.
2) Gary Habermas wrote a book on the topic and he found that
almost everyone he interviewed admitted to having doubts.
a) It wasn't always about big items like the existence of
God.
b) They might be convinced of that, but have questions on
why God allows some of the things he does, like pain.
c) Others are convinced there is a God, but doubt their
own faith in him.
3) Doubt and faith are fascinating topics with many levels.
a) Sometimes doubt becomes unbelief, which the Bible
condemns.
b) But doubt can also signify a healthy faith like Abraham
had.
c) If Isaiah 55:8 is right and God's thoughts are not our
thoughts, we should not expect absolute certainty
until we are glorified in heaven.
In this life you just cannot completely figure him out.
II. Areas where we doubt.
A. Intellectual doubt.
1) The well-known conflict with science.
a) A scientist can be a believer, but the majority are not.
b) A survey of hundreds of scientists in the elite National
Academy of Sciences found that only 8% believed in
God and an afterlife; the rest did not. #64583
2) Ordinary people struggle with it, too.
Andrea Dilley grew up in a missionary family in Kenya,
then moved to the Pacific Northwest and was raised in
a Presbyterian church.
It was an intelligent, educated church, not a bunch of
wackos.
Yet during her junior year in college, she took a butter
knife from her mom's kitchen and scraped the Christian
fish decal off her Plymouth hatchback.
A few years later, listening to a sermon in her brother's
church, she leaned over to her father and said, "This
is baloney" and marched out of the sanctuary.
It wasn't just the sermon, which was on Psalm 91's promise
that God would deliver us from suffering.
It was about all the spiritual questions that had been
plaguing her.
Why does God seem to distant and uninvolved?
Above all, why does God allow suffering? #6662
B. Relational doubt.
1) Perhaps we doubt God because other Christians have burned us.
2) I have known many teenagers who have grown up in church and
believed in God because that is what they were taught.
a) But as they experience people outside the church, they
start to see that some outsiders are nicer than those
inside the church.
b) Even those outsiders who we are supposed to reject.
3) After you meet enough rotten Christians, it is not hard to
wonder if being born again really changes people.
a) Of course, maybe they only "claim" to be born again.
b) Then again, look at your own life more closely - perhaps
someone has come to doubt God because of YOU.
C. Experiential doubt.
1) What we believe doesn't always mesh with our reality in life.
a) We can believe some things about God and the Bible,
but doubt others.
b) Our experiences don't always jibe with what the Bible
seems to promise. #16505
A few years ago, former First Lady Laura Bush revealed
that when she was a teenager she was in a car crash
after running a stop sign.
The 17-year-old driving the other car was a classmate.
He died.
Laura says she lost her faith for "many, many years."
2) The Bible has a story of its own, about a desperate father.
His son has a self-destructive condition.
To us, it sounds a lot like epilepsy.
The gospel attributes it to a demon.
The disciples were failures in dealing with it.
Jesus calls all of them unbelievers. 9:19
The child is brought to Jesus.
Immediately the boy has an attack.
Jesus doesn't do anything right away, but asks about his
condition.
The man fatefully says, "If you can do anything, take
pity on us and help us."
It is touching that he feels he needs the Lord's pity as
much as his son does.
Jesus keys in on the "if you can." 9:23
He reminds the man, "Everything is possible for him who
believes."
Immediately the man responds, "I do believe; help me
overcome my unbelief!" 9:24
He is a conflicted man - but we can feel for him.
Faith and confidence in God are usually not 100%.
Maybe for you it is 95 or 97%.
But there is always a little doubt, especially when you
are asking God to do something for you.
Apparently Jesus accepts the desperate man's partial
faith and gives his boy a complete healing.
That would help anyone believe!
III. It all depends on how you deal with doubt.
A. The Bible takes several approaches to the issue.
1) With Job and Doubting Thomas, their doubt is rebuked.
a) They are told not to do it.
b) At the same time, they are not rejected by God.
1> Job is shown God's power in a brilliant display
(a theophany).
2> Thomas is given the evidence of seeing Jesus in the
flesh, and he is finally convinced.
2) Abraham and Paul expressed doubts but were not rebuked.
a) Abraham doubted how God could carry out his promise
to give him children.
b) He also questioned God's plan to condemn Sodom and
Gomorrah, and argued with God over those cities.
c) Paul said he was perplexed by the toughness of the
persecution against him - but he did not despair.
B. We don't have to prove God, we just have to trust him.
1) Lyn Anderson says faith is a choice we must make without
having all the complete information we'd like to have.
If we had complete information, it would no longer be
faith, but knowledge. #62995
2) Believers like Job and Abraham learned that God could be
trusted even when they couldn't figure everything out.
3) They discovered that they already know enough about God to
have confidence in him in those things they didn't
understand.
#63049
C. Every has doubts, but everyone can have faith, too.
1) Every human should hold their certainty lightly.
2) The tattooed doubter.
Kyle Simpson is 27 years old and was raised Christian.
He has a tattoo on the inside of his wrist that says
in Latin, "Salvation from the cross."
It bothers him when people ask him about it because
he is not sure what he believes anymore.
He tells people the Latin means, "I made a mistake when
I was 18."
But when he first got the tattoo he remembered thinking it
would be good for him because if he ever had trouble
believing in God, he would just look at his wrist.
And that is exactly what has happened.
Kyle struggles with faith, but when he looks at evolution
and science, they don't necessarily have answers either.
He asks, "What about love? What about the idea of
forgiveness?
I like to believe they are true and they are meaningful."
"I think having a God would create a meaning for our lives,
like we're working toward a purpose...
and at the end of the day we will maybe move on to another
life where everything is beautiful.
I love that idea."
#64448
IV. Doubt can be a sign we are moving toward God.
A. The story of the desperate father is an example of this.
1) You can see him as someone who doesn't believe enough.
2) Jesus saw him as someone who could believe more.
B. Update on Andrea Dilley, the missionary kid who lost her faith.
After she walked out of church, she lived a secular life.
She smoked cigarettes and drank hard liquor.
The local bars became her temples.
She got involved with men twice her age.
She said she wanted to have a break from being good.
But then one Sunday morning two years later, she got up,
climbed in her car, and drove to a church service.
Andrea says she never had a dramatic reconversion moment,
but she has steadily come to having peace with God again.
She also came to realize her doubts belong in church.
With all its faults, she still associates the church with the
pursuit of truth and justice, with community and shared
humanity.
It's a place to ask the unanswerable questions.
She says, "No other institution has given me what the church
has: a space to search for God."
Andrea agrees with Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor, who loved
today's passage in Mark.
O'Connor said the man's response to Jesus, "I believe, help my
unbelief," is the foundation prayer of faith.
We should all pray it often.
#6662
V. Doubt is part of the journey but not the destination.
A. Your questions should lead you to dig deeper.
1) Some answers can be revealed by God.
2) Search the Scripture, search your heart, even search the
skeptics.
3) Give as much of yourself to God as you can, and trust him
with the rest.
B. You don't have anywhere else to turn.
The First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, has been a leading
institution in the Southern Baptist Convention.
W.A. Criswell was its pastor for 48 years and is considered
one of the greatest Baptist preachers of all time.
In 1994, Dr. Criswell gave his last interview to the Dallas
Morning News.
At one point the interviewer asked, "Do you have any doubts?"
Dr. Criswell replied, "Oh boy. Along this pilgrim way,
sometimes I think I am an infidel."
The interviewer responded, "How can that be?"
"I don't know, I just have, sometimes, I have a hard time
believing. I just do.
The things that happen in life, the things that I see and
the things that I watch.
Ah, I just struggle with it.
I struggle with evil in this world.
Why doesn't God do something?
And I struggle with that.
And I struggle with the presence of death.
Just you and I talking here and we face that inevitable day.
Oh, sometimes I struggle.
I've just battled through those times.
"The reason is very obvious.
One is that I have no place to go.
If I turn aside I don't have anything to turn to.
It's just ultimate despair.
And second, I don't care what, it is a blessing to love the Lord
and trust in the Lord and even when we don't understand.
We believe that he'll make it plain in the by and by.
So we'll just trust him for it."
Dr. Criswell learned to trust the Lord even when he did not
understand.
He clung to a faith that said God would make it plain some
day.
That's what God calls any of us to do.
#64357
Believe in God.
He'll help you with the unbelief.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 6662 “Returning To Church, Despite My Doubts,” Andrea Palpant Dilley,
CNN Belief Blog, May 5, 2012;
<http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/05/my-faith-returning-to-church-despite-my-doubts/comment-page-7/>
#16505 "The Missed Stop Sign That Almost Cost Her Faith," by Lauren
Frayer, America Online News; Article: 'Laura Bush Writes of
Losing Faith After Fatal '63 Crash," April 28, 2010.
Kerux Sermon #62995 “How To Deal With Doubt,” Rev. Jim Hammond,
Verde Valley Christian Church of Cottonwood, Arizona;
<http://www.vvchristianchurch.net>
#63049 “Dealing With Religious Doubt,” Gary Habermas, adapted from his
online book, “The Thomas Factor.” This book was very useful
for my sermon. <http://www.garyhabermas.com/books/thomas_factor/thomas_factor.htm>
#64357 “Even Criswell Doubted,” Rev. Coy Wylie, Kerux Sermon #17368,
January 13, 2002; <http://www.cornerstonebc.com/sermon.htm>
#64448 “Having Doubts But Loving the Idea of God,” NPR Staff, January 15,
2013. From the episode "More Young People Are Moving Away From
Religion, But Why?" from the special series "Losing Our Religion."
<http://www.npr.org/2013/01/15/169342349/more-young-people-are-moving-away-from-religion-but-why>
#64583 “Leading Scientists Still Reject God,” Edward J. Larson & Larry
Witham, Nature, Vol. 394, No. 6691, p. 313 (1998) © Macmillan
Publishers Ltd; <http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html>
#64786 “Can We Be Certain?” anonymous questioner;
<https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080816202615AA5te6U>
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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