Doubt is a Doorway

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- Honestly, it feels kind of weird being here today.

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This is the first time I've been inside of

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a Crossroads building for a normal Sunday service in years.

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Hey, my name is Sean Boyce.

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I'm the Community Director for Crossroads Anywhere.

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On most weekends, I'm streaming just like you online

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with some of my friends in a small town called Batesville.

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There's about 60 of us.

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So if you're joining us today online,

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I want you to know that you're as much a part of this place

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as anybody who's in one of these seats.

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Now, we've had some crazy weeks now.

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Our middle school students are just coming back from camp.

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And it wasn't just pizza and dodgeball.

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Sure. I'm sure there was plenty of pizza and dodgeball.

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But it wasn't just that.

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Our students moved closer to Jesus.

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They asked hard questions

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and really, they found true belonging.

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In fact, I just heard that

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around 200 of our students were baptized.

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Come on, that is amazing.

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Now we are actually here, we're about to jump into

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some songs and we'll do something called worship.

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Now, middle school camp, our students,

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they leaned into this song that became

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an anthem for them called Good Bye Yesterday.

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Now, this song isn't just for students.

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This is for anybody who wants to move closer

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and toward that kind of life.

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So don't skip this part.

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Turn the music up and let's worship together.

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- Here we go.

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- Take the words of Jesus seriously.

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What He says we believe is true.

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We sing about it, and it reminds us

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of who we are and who He is. Let's go.

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- God, I thank You that You meet us when we come to You,

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when we come and we knock on the door of heaven, You answer.

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I ask that You would see us

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coming into this room right here,

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coming to this place online,

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saying we want to encounter the living God,

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the Creator of everything we know.

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I believe it's well within Your power

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and deep within Your desire to meet us, God.

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It's in Jesus's name we pray. Amen. Amen.

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So good to worship with you guys.

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Y'all sound great. Sound great.

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You a little sweaty? I know I am.

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My goodness, not a sweaty as those high schoolers though.

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Just imagine, it smells so much better here.

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Hey, why don't you turn to somebody around you

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right now and just tell them what was your favorite part

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of that Coldplay concert last week. Have a seat.

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- Man, are you excited about Epic Wonders?

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Now, I don't know if you know this,

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but there are some wild stories in the Bible,

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and they're not here to entertain us

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like a lot of our shows that we see on Netflix.

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They're actually here to give us a clearer picture

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of who God is, and even a clearer picture of who we are

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when we put ourselves inside His story.

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So you definitely do not want to miss that coming up.

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And speaking of another thing you don't want to miss,

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I want to let you know about something coming up

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that I'm super excited about, and it's called Revival.

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We did this last year where our entire church community

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came together in one place, and we asked God to show up,

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and He really, really did.

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You know, I brought my kids with me last year,

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and honestly, we barely made it in

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before the fireworks started.

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It was crazy down there.

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If you were there, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

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But I promise you, this year we fixed the parking issues.

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It's not going to be a problem.

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And you definitely want to mark your calendars for it.

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It's October 31st through November 2nd,

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and it's going to be at Base Camp in Ohio.

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Now, if you're part of our Anywhere community,

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this is even more impactful and more special

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because we're combining the Revival

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with our Anywhere Weekend.

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The Anywhere Weekend is when we come together,

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our entire online community all across the world,

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and we connect and we're doing it at Revival.

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So we're gonna do everything we can to make it worth your while.

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So if you've got questions about that, you can go ahead

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and email us at anywhere@crossroads.net.

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We'd love to talk to you about that.

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And I'd love to be down there with you.

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So now today we're talking about something

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that doesn't come up that much in church,

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that we don't really talk about, and that's doubt.

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I know doubt can feel like the opposite of faith sometimes,

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especially when it comes to something like giving.

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I mean, so many questions come up like where is my money going?

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What if I don't have enough money?

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Am I funding some giant private jet for Crossroads people?

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And trust me, I've had all of those questions.

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And just to put your mind at ease,

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most of the time I'm flying in, you know,

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I'm boarding in Group C, so there's no private jet

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that you're funding here at Crossroads.

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But I know a lot of times when that doubt comes in

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we can just take a step back.

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But doubt doesn't mean that we just don't lean into faith.

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In fact, you know, when we trust God with our finances,

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we're saying, "Hey, I want You to take control of this thing,

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and I want to let go."

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So if that's something that you want to lean into

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a little bit more, you can go to Crossroads.net/give.

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Now, today, if you're here and you're wrestling with doubt,

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whether it comes to Jesus, your faith, the church,

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hey, you're in the right place.

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In fact, our music team has put together a song

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for you to process that in a space that is safe for you.

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So let's check it out together.

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- Hey. Let's pray. God, that song is so honest.

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It's so real. It's just --

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It speaks what I know is true

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for probably all of us at some level,

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and for some of us at a very deep, deep level.

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And God, I believe that that's exactly

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who You want to speak to today,

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the people who would say that song gives voice to

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this place of doubt that I find myself in.

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God, there's a promise that's made in that song

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is that as You will meet us in our doubts.

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I believe you do that and I pray that you would do that today.

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In Jesus's name. Amen.

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You know, I have been thinking about this message

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for a while and eager to give it because I just think,

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I think that's just a real place where

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I know I found myself and maybe you find yourself.

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I was thinking about the fact that, you know,

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you probably could use a punctuation symbol

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to define where you might find yourself on your faith journey.

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And so just to have a little bit of fun with these,

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I believe there's exclamation mark people in the room.

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Now, when I said that 8:15, someone right over this area

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is like, "Whoo! Yes!" I'm like, "Oh, there you are.

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There's a there's an exclamation mark person."

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This is a person who would say, "Hey,

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as it relates to faith in my life, everything's good,

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it's solid, it's great."

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And that is an amazing place to be.

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We all experience some exclamation mark moments

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in our spiritual journey.

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There's also probably

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some quotation mark people in the room.

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Quotation mark people say, "The Bible says it,

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I believe it, and that settles it."

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And there is something profoundly simple in a good way

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about that confidence in God's Word.

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Now there's probably also some semicolon people in the room.

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And let's be honest,

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none of us really know how to use a semicolon. [laughter]

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So this is maybe the person who is uncertain

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and kind of wavering, or maybe even wrestling.

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Then there are ellipses people in the room.

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I can be, all too often, and ellipses people,

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which is that I'm moving too fast,

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and I skip over the really important things

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because I need to slow down.

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And maybe there's some ellipses people like me in the room.

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Then there are these kinds of people in the room.

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And that's a real place, maybe of anger,

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maybe of bitterness, pain, maybe burnt out.

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You know, you may not think about these symbols

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as symbols of faith.

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This one, for sure, you think of when you think of

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a symbol of the Christian faith, the following Jesus, the Cross.

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And it is the most probably ubiquitous symbol of our faith.

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But what I want to make a case for today is that

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this symbol is equally important in our faith journey,

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because, and we're going to ask a lot of questions today.

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Here's the first one: What if asking God

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honest questions was more important

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than blindly accepting and believing

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everything we're told about God?

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See, questioning seems to be acceptable,

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I would say even celebrated in our culture.

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It is certainly more celebrated

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to be intellectually curious than to be certainly arrogant.

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That's why I love what Bertrand Russell said. He said:

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Or you may think about the words

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of the wise prophet Ted Lasso, who said:

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Be curious, not judgmental.

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So there's a word when it comes to doubt,

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when it comes to questioning, that's used a lot

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in our culture, and it's the word deconstruction.

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And deconstruction is a popular word.

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It's also a very polarizing word.

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I think oftentimes people who have a negative connotation

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to deconstruction think about deconstruction at its worst.

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Which at its worst is not really about

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trying to rebuild a faith

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or rebuild an understanding of civic society,

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but it's really about just tearing things down.

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And I think that's oftentimes why people have

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a negative connotation to the word deconstruction.

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But I would say deconstruction at its healthiest

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is actually having the courage to pull apart

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the things that you've already believed,

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or who have been passed down to you,

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so that you can actually rebuild from that

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in authentic faith and get to a place of true understanding.

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Now the question is, what would Jesus say

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to those who are deconstructing?

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What would Jesus say to those who are asking honest questions?

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I think this is what Jesus would say in Matthew 7:7 He says:

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But maybe you grew up in a church like mine,

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or maybe you just had this question in this space.

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Well, Chuck, doesn't wrestling with my faith

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and having these doubts make me a bad Christian?

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To which I was saying, no,

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I think it makes you a normal Christian.

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This is a study that was done by Barna Research

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and they asked adult questions

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do you ever struggle with doubt?

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And this is what the data said,

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that 12% of the people that they surveyed said,

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"I frequently wrestle with doubt,"

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16% occasionally, 24% sometimes.

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So clearly, the majority of people

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who identify as followers of Jesus, 13 and above,

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that's who they looked at.

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These people say, "Hey, I wrestle with doubt.

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I sometimes, I frequently, or I always wrestle with doubt."

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Which may lead to the question,

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what are we to make of the other 48%?

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They're liars. That's what they are. They're lying.

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I mean, let's be honest, no one on this stage me,

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Brian, any of the teachers, anybody that leads worship,

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no one on this stage is without our doubts.

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We're not without our doubts. That's true for all of us.

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But here's the big idea today.

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What if Jesus wants to show us that

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our doubts aren't the barrier to faith,

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but that doubt is a doorway to faith?

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That's what Jesus wants us to know today.

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La duda es una puerta a la fe.

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And so we're going to look at an encounter

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that Jesus has with one of his 11 closest friends.

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This guy was one of the 11 disciples.

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And just to give you context, this story

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that we're leaning into today happened

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after Jesus had risen from the dead.

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Not only had He risen from the dead,

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He had shown Himself to some of the people who knew Him,

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and so they had seen the resurrected Jesus.

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And yet in John 20:24, we find these words. It says:

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So Jesus had come and appeared to the ten other disciples,

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but Thomas wasn't there.

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Jesus was pierced on His side on the Cross.

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And I just have to say, I feel so sorry for this guy,

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this guy Thomas.

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You ever had a moment in your life

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that wasn't your best moment

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and it becomes the moment that you're defined by.

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I mean, for millennia, the guy is honest.

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He's asking honest questions.

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And yet for millennia, he's been nicknamed

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Doubting Thomas, like that's his first name.

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I just feel bad for Thomas because Thomas,

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I actually think, has something to teach us.

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I don't think Thomas was in a negative space.

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I think Thomas was in a learning space, in open space.

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I think there's something in Thomas

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that we all need to learn from today.

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But I feel so bad for him.

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And you've had this happen. You know how it is.

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You forget one birthday party and you're Forgetful Frank.

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You know, I mean, you show up late

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to one office meeting and you're Tardy Tina, right?

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You miss one Zoom call, one Zoom call

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and you are No-Show Nancy, like, literally nothing there.

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There's just the blank screen.

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You spilled one cup of coffee at Crossroads,

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and you are Messy Mike. You know?

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You ask one awkward question in a small group,

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and you're Awkward Annie.

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You know, you tell one boring story, and you're Boring Bob.

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I mean, so not fair.

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It'd be like if people, you know, caught you on a lazy day

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and they started calling you Lazy Susan.

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Oh, wait. Ooh, that one's stuck.

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Sorry if your name is Susan out there.

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But behind this nickname, Doubting Thomas,

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is someone we can learn from.

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And the beautiful thing is, what we see is

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that Jesus actually meets Thomas in the midst of his doubt.

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And I believe He will do the same for you.

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So let's just reclaim this guy.

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Let's give him a fuller picture. There are other names.

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There are other names that through millennia

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could be true for Thomas.

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You could call him Chosen Thomas because think about it,

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of all the people who ever lived on the planet,

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he was one of the 12 that got to

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walk with the Son of God for three straight years.

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Man, that's an awesome thing.

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You could call him Chosen Thomas.

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You may even call him Loyal Thomas.

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Because Thomas, there was this moment where Jesus

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was going back to a city called Bethany,

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where the leaders in and around that city

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had threatened to kill Him if He ever returned.

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And while the other disciples

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had a little bit of fear about that,

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Thomas is like, "Let's go with Him,

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even if that means we're going to die."

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So you can say he was Ride or Die Thomas.

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I mean, he has other names.

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You could also say that he was Seeker Thomas.

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Thomas asked a profound question of Jesus

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that led to an even more profound answer.

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We're going to look at that in just a little bit.

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But the question Thomas asked is: how can we know the way?

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Thomas was an honest seeker,

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and Crossroads is a church that is for seekers.

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Our mission statement is to connect seekers

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to a community of growing Christ followers

00:34:56

who are changing the world.

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And so that's the heart and the heartbeat of Crossroads.

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We want to be a place where you can wrestle with your questions.

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And so how do you know if you're a seeker?

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You may be a seeker if you're here today

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and you're curious if God exists

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and you're open to exploring it in a place like this,

00:35:13

a church like Crossroads.

00:35:15

You might be a seeker, though, if you're also

00:35:16

a little bit wary or apprehensive that, man,

00:35:19

if I get closer to these Jesus people,

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are they going to be hateful and judgmental?

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Will I be welcomed with who I really am?

00:35:25

You might be a seeker if you're in here today

00:35:27

and you're wrestling with that kind of thing.

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You may be ambivalent. You may be skeptical.

00:35:31

You may just be like, "Man, I'm just confused

00:35:33

about the whole, you know, what religion.

00:35:35

Everybody believes all these things."

00:35:36

If you're in any of those places, but you're here today,

00:35:39

you might be a seeker and this church was built for you.

00:35:44

You might rephrase our mission statement this way.

00:35:46

Crossroads is a place that connects

00:35:48

people asking honest questions

00:35:50

to people who don't know all the answers,

00:35:53

but are pursuing a God who does

00:35:56

so that we can change the world together.

00:35:58

That's the heart of our church.

00:35:59

And so if you're here, I want you to know,

00:36:01

like, you're in the right place.

00:36:04

And I think Thomas was an honest seeker.

00:36:06

Now, I have to say this is a bit surprising,

00:36:09

this story, because you have to understand,

00:36:11

Thomas had been hanging out with these ten friends

00:36:14

who saw the resurrected Jesus

00:36:16

for the better part of three years.

00:36:18

They had laughed together. They had slept together.

00:36:20

They ate together. They served together.

00:36:22

They saw Jesus do miracles together.

00:36:24

So it is a little bit surprising that Thomas is,

00:36:27

like, "Wait, I know you guys say you saw this,

00:36:30

but I'm just not there yet."

00:36:32

And I don't think it was because, you know,

00:36:35

he was like, arms folded, didn't want to believe it.

00:36:38

I think he just had some honest questions, you know?

00:36:40

I mean, look, let's before we judge him, you know,

00:36:42

any further, like, if ten of your friends today

00:36:45

tell you they saw somebody risen from the dead,

00:36:47

would you believe them?

00:36:49

Let's just give Thomas a little bit of grace.

00:36:51

Because I think what Thomas had is reasonable doubt.

00:36:55

Thomas had reasonable doubt.

00:36:56

Now, when I say he had reasonable doubt,

00:36:58

I don't mean that he had the first Jay-Z album,

00:37:00

which was called Reasonable Doubt,

00:37:02

which went over like a lead balloon at the 8:15 service.

00:37:04

But I'm thinking there's more Jay-Z fans

00:37:06

at the 10:00 service, right?

00:37:08

All right, we got a couple. We got a couple.

00:37:10

So I'm not saying that he had the album,

00:37:11

although if he had good taste in music, he probably did.

00:37:15

But what I am saying is this, reasonable doubt means,

00:37:17

and I think this, I don't think Thomas had no faith.

00:37:20

I think Thomas was really wrestling with this

00:37:23

because he wasn't going to bet his life

00:37:25

on something he didn't fully understand yet.

00:37:29

And I actually want to suggest that is the right way

00:37:33

to approach a relationship with Jesus,

00:37:35

to have reasonable doubt.

00:37:37

Because to be clear, following Jesus comes at a very high cost.

00:37:42

I mean, Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me."

00:37:46

That was Jesus basically saying to the people of the day,

00:37:49

take up an instrument of death, die to yourself daily.

00:37:53

And that's what it means to follow me.

00:37:54

And be like Jesus saying to us today,

00:37:56

take up your gas chamber and follow me.

00:37:59

Take up your electric chair and follow me.

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Take up your lethal injection and follow me.

00:38:04

Do you get the sense that following Jesus

00:38:06

is a high cost kind of thing, like, an all in kind of thing?

00:38:09

It absolutely is.

00:38:10

Jesus is countercultural in almost every way.

00:38:13

To follow Jesus will make you countercultural

00:38:15

in how you think about time.

00:38:17

It'll make you countercultural

00:38:18

in how you think about relationships.

00:38:20

It'll make you countercultural

00:38:21

in how you think about your money.

00:38:23

It is an all in kind of thing to follow Jesus.

00:38:27

And so I think the Christian faith

00:38:28

doesn't just allow for reasonable doubt.

00:38:30

I think it almost requires it.

00:38:32

Greg Boyd wrote a great book on this

00:38:33

called The Benefit of the Doubt, and he says this:

00:38:47

Tim Keller, another well-known pastor,

00:38:49

put it this way, he said:

00:38:50

Our faith without doubts

00:38:52

is like our body without antibodies.

00:38:55

We don't have anything to stand up

00:38:57

to the resistance when life falls apart.

00:39:00

And I think there's something true to that.

00:39:02

In fact, I want to say this.

00:39:03

Some of us, we need to lean into our doubts

00:39:07

because maybe we've inherited a faith

00:39:10

that's more culturally a part of our family

00:39:12

than something we've personally wrestled with and believe.

00:39:15

And I just want to tell you,

00:39:17

if your mother and father follow Jesus,

00:39:21

you're not getting heaven on their faith.

00:39:23

If your grandmother, like mine, prayed for you,

00:39:26

praise God for that, but you're not getting to heaven.

00:39:29

You're not getting a relationship with God

00:39:31

based on what your grandmother or your grandfather did.

00:39:33

My sister said this to me. I never forgot it.

00:39:35

She said, "Chuck, God does not have spiritual grandchildren."

00:39:40

Meaning you got to know Him for yourself.

00:39:42

And for some of us, that means we gotta,

00:39:44

like, step out of just the cultural norm.

00:39:46

"Yeah, my family always went to church.

00:39:47

Yeah, I guess I believe this stuff,"

00:39:49

to really wrestling and coming to a place of conviction.

00:39:53

That's what we need.

00:39:55

Back to Thomas, man, I wonder what it was like

00:39:58

because Thomas has that encounter

00:40:01

with the disciples who had seen Jesus.

00:40:04

And then for eight days you know what Thomas experienced?

00:40:08

Nothing. Nothing.

00:40:11

Jesus didn't come back, show Himself to Thomas again.

00:40:14

Thomas had eight days of deconstruction, I think.

00:40:17

This is what it says in John 20:26:

00:40:25

But man, think about those eight days.

00:40:27

I think it was eight days of doubting.

00:40:30

"My friends, they're not lying to me?

00:40:32

I don't have a category for this."

00:40:35

I think it was eight days of longing.

00:40:37

I think Thomas was like, "If this is true,

00:40:39

why doesn't Jesus just appear to me?"

00:40:42

And maybe you've asked that question.

00:40:43

I mean, I think Thomas was really in a place of struggling.

00:40:46

I mean, I think there's probably people in here

00:40:48

who feel like Thomas did in those eight days.

00:40:51

Where you like Crossroads, you've been coming,

00:40:54

and you know what?

00:40:55

You may even love some of the people here

00:40:57

because they're your spouse or your kids or your parents.

00:41:01

And for them, the faith thing is clicking,

00:41:04

like, they've gotten baptized or they're the ones

00:41:07

that are raising their hands and worship.

00:41:08

Like something's happened.

00:41:10

They get it in a way that you haven't gotten it.

00:41:13

And you might feel a little bit on the outside looking in.

00:41:16

And I just want to say to you, if you feel that way,

00:41:19

man, I don't think you're doubt means you're distanced

00:41:23

and further from Jesus.

00:41:24

I want to encourage you that maybe your place of doubt

00:41:28

means you're knocking on the doorway.

00:41:31

And Jesus is knocking on the doorway to reveal Himself to you

00:41:35

like He revealed h\Himself for Thomas

00:41:39

and like He did for me.

00:41:41

I was thinking about this in my own life.

00:41:44

And, you know, I had a period in my early teen years

00:41:48

where I wouldn't say I had a lot of intellectual doubts

00:41:52

about the story of the Bible, but I certainly

00:41:54

had to go on a journey of, like, do I believe this for me?

00:41:58

And where does this information come from?

00:42:01

And it helped me actually.

00:42:02

I think it's one of the reasons why I'm a teacher today

00:42:04

is because I really wrestled with that truth

00:42:06

and had to work through that.

00:42:07

So when I think about doubt in my life,

00:42:09

I don't think about these intellectual doubts.

00:42:11

But I tell you what I do think about.

00:42:12

I think about experiential doubts that I still can have.

00:42:16

The places where I have doubted God the most have been

00:42:19

the places where life has been the most hard for me.

00:42:22

So I think about my dad who had dementia

00:42:26

and never was healed of it.

00:42:29

I think about how there have been times where

00:42:32

I wasn't sure if my marriage was going to last.

00:42:35

I think about the time when I built something

00:42:37

that I felt called to build,

00:42:39

and yet in this particular season,

00:42:40

it felt like it was literally crumbling all around me.

00:42:44

And in those moments, if I'm honest,

00:42:45

those are the moments where I deal with doubt.

00:42:48

Those are the moments when I have to wrestle

00:42:50

with questions like, is this just a sham?

00:42:53

Have I just been saying this so long that I believe it too

00:42:55

but it's not necessarily true?

00:42:57

Why isn't God showing up for me in my real life?

00:43:01

Why is it I see this person having this experience

00:43:03

and this person having this experience,

00:43:05

and yet I feel like there's a brick wall

00:43:06

between me and heaven? Nothing seems to be working.

00:43:10

And I've been in those places.

00:43:11

Those are the places that I have had doubt.

00:43:16

And I have to be honest with you, the only reason

00:43:18

I think that I haven't jettisoned it all,

00:43:21

the only reason that I haven't done

00:43:23

what tons of pastors in America are doing every day,

00:43:26

walking away from faith.

00:43:27

The only reason that I haven't done that is because

00:43:30

if I'm honest, in those places where life was the hardest

00:43:33

and I felt the most distance from God,

00:43:35

what I was experiencing from God

00:43:38

was such gentleness and kindness.

00:43:43

I never felt judged.

00:43:46

I never felt like I couldn't be honest.

00:43:50

And it didn't mean that all of a sudden I got the answer,

00:43:52

all of a sudden the thing changed.

00:43:54

But man, all I can tell you is this,

00:43:56

when life is at its hardest

00:43:58

and my doubts have been the highest

00:44:01

is when I have experienced God be at His most gentlest with me.

00:44:05

And so I just want to encourage you that your doubt

00:44:08

can be a place where you encounter God.

00:44:11

Because let's be honest, if you're in here

00:44:13

and you're sitting with doubt, you don't --

00:44:15

You don't need more information necessarily.

00:44:17

I'm not going to give you 3 or 4 facts,

00:44:19

and all of a sudden you're going to be, like,

00:44:21

"Oh, now I don't doubt anymore."

00:44:22

That's not how it works.

00:44:24

We don't need more information.

00:44:26

You know what we need?

00:44:27

We need an encounter with the living God.

00:44:30

We need to experience the living God coming to us.

00:44:35

And I believe He still comes to us.

00:44:37

I believe He's a God who still wants to encounter you.

00:44:41

Because here's another question,

00:44:42

what if we weren't created to just be seekers,

00:44:45

but we were created to be finders?

00:44:48

We're created to be people

00:44:49

who actually do encounter the living God.

00:44:52

You know, there's a time and a place for being open minded.

00:44:56

There's a time and a place for being open handed

00:44:58

about things of faith.

00:45:00

But when you begin to encounter God,

00:45:02

it's time to move from open handed

00:45:04

to closing your hands on the truth you've experienced.

00:45:08

It's time to go from a place of standing at the doorway

00:45:11

that is called doubt, and walking through the doorway,

00:45:14

not perfectly, not because you're 100% certain,

00:45:17

but because I'm experiencing something

00:45:19

that God seems to be drawing me

00:45:21

and so I'm just going to take the next step.

00:45:23

There's a time for that. There's a time for that.

00:45:26

Because I want you to know this: Jesus is truth,

00:45:30

but He's not the kind of truth that's an idea.

00:45:34

Jesus is a person, and He wants you to embrace Him as truth,

00:45:39

and He wants to embrace you as truth.

00:45:42

He wants you to build your life around Him.

00:45:44

I told you that Thomas asked a profound question,

00:45:47

that Jesus provided an even more profound answer to.

00:45:50

Thomas said, "Lord, how are we to know the way?"

00:45:53

And in John 14:6 Jesus answers him and says:

00:46:03

But Jesus stands ready.

00:46:06

He stands able to help you and I

00:46:09

walk through the doorway of our doubts

00:46:11

and take, maybe baby steps, but intentional steps

00:46:15

toward the living truth.

00:46:16

That's what he did for Thomas.

00:46:18

And so what I want to do is I want to take you

00:46:20

into Thomas's encounter with Jesus.

00:46:24

Eight days later, Thomas had an encounter with Jesus.

00:46:27

And I believe you can have this encounter as well.

00:46:30

So we're going to do something

00:46:31

a little bit different for several minutes.

00:46:34

And what it is is we're going to do something

00:46:37

called imaginative reading of the Bible.

00:46:39

Because the truth is I wasn't there in the first century.

00:46:42

You weren't there in the first century.

00:46:43

We weren't in the room.

00:46:45

But God has given us the best tool

00:46:46

for encountering Him that we could ever want,

00:46:48

and that is our very own mind and our very own imagination.

00:46:51

So I'm going to have you do something

00:46:52

that's been a practice of mine in reading the Bible.

00:46:55

For the last couple of years I've been doing this

00:46:57

more and more and finding it

00:46:58

to be very, very life giving for me.

00:47:00

And I pray that it will be for you as well.

00:47:02

So we're going to turn it down in the room.

00:47:04

And I'm going to invite you to actually close your eyes,

00:47:08

if you're comfortable.

00:47:10

If you are uncomfortable with your eyes closed,

00:47:13

you can certainly keep them open.

00:47:14

And I think you can still be with us in this moment.

00:47:19

Rather than just reading this story

00:47:22

of Thomas's encounter with Jesus,

00:47:24

I want you to experience it.

00:47:28

So why don't you take a moment

00:47:30

and as you settle where you are,

00:47:33

just take a few deep breaths.

00:47:49

And just let your mind be still.

00:47:52

And now imagine yourself in the room

00:47:57

with Jesus's disciples after His resurrection.

00:48:04

You're there in the quiet upper room,

00:48:09

and the air is thick with a mix of fear and hope.

00:48:15

You look and you see the disciples huddled together,

00:48:18

whispering, glancing at the door.

00:48:23

And the room smells of oil lamps and dust.

00:48:29

And then you look and you see Thomas.

00:48:33

His face is a mixture of disbelief and longing.

00:48:42

And as you're in that room, suddenly Jesus appears.

00:48:49

Not with a burst of noise, but with peace.

00:48:54

In fact, His peaceful presence fills the room.

00:48:58

You can sense it.

00:49:01

And you see Jesus look at Thomas.

00:49:04

I mean, really look at him.

00:49:08

And Jesus's voice is gentle and steady.

00:49:12

And as you see Jesus start to walk toward Thomas,

00:49:15

you realize He's going to give Thomas

00:49:17

what Thomas needed, what Thomas asked for.

00:49:22

And so you see Jesus lift His hand,

00:49:25

showing the scars to Thomas.

00:49:29

And then you hear Jesus gently

00:49:31

as He speaks these words to Thomas.

00:49:35

"Thomas, put your finger here and see My hands.

00:49:40

And put out your hand and place it in my side.

00:49:44

Do not disbelieve, but believe."

00:49:51

As you watch this interaction in your mind's imagination,

00:49:54

what are you thinking or feeling?

00:49:58

Take a moment to just catalog your thoughts.

00:50:06

How does Jesus appear to be toward Thomas?

00:50:10

Is He judging him or is He loving him?

00:50:15

If you were to step into Thomas's shoes in this moment,

00:50:19

what would you be thinking or feeling?

00:50:22

Again, take a moment to express those thoughts

00:50:24

in your own heart and mind.

00:50:33

After Thomas has this encounter with Jesus,

00:50:36

after he's touched His hands

00:50:37

and placed his hand in His side, Thomas responds.

00:50:43

He says, "My Lord and my God."

00:50:48

In this moment, Thomas's doubt was turned into deep belief.

00:50:54

Thomas doesn't just call Jesus Lord,

00:50:57

which is a title used over and over again in the Gospels.

00:50:59

He calls him my Lord and my God,

00:51:03

affirming His divine nature in unmistakable terms.

00:51:08

In fact, Thomas the Doubter

00:51:11

is the first to declare this definitive faith.

00:51:18

And as you watch this moment, you also notice that

00:51:20

it's not a distant faith for Thomas,

00:51:23

because he says, "My Lord and my God."

00:51:29

See, Thomas's doubt didn't distance him from faith.

00:51:33

It was his doorway into real faith, a deep faith,

00:51:38

a lasting and personal faith in Jesus.

00:51:45

Stay in that room. Stay in the scene.

00:51:51

And now imagine this.

00:51:54

As your eyes are fixed on Jesus, you turn

00:51:58

and you see that Jesus turns slowly.

00:52:02

And now Jesus is looking straight at you.

00:52:07

His eyes meet yours, not with anger, but with love,

00:52:14

with a knowing smile and deep compassion.

00:52:20

And as Jesus looks at you, He says the words we find next,

00:52:24

"Have you believed because you have seen Me?

00:52:27

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

00:52:34

And you realize that Jesus is speaking those words

00:52:36

as a blessing to you, as an invitation to you and I.

00:52:44

Imagine Jesus saying this to you right here, right now.

00:52:52

Just stay in that moment.

00:52:56

Fix your eyes on Jesus's eyes.

00:53:00

What do you feel as He looks at you?

00:53:05

How does His voice sound to you?

00:53:08

What do you see in His eyes?

00:53:14

I want to give you a chance to respond.

00:53:18

Just take another minute and whatever seems good

00:53:22

and right to share with Jesus in this moment, just say it.

00:53:27

You might want to say it under your breath.

00:53:29

You may want to say it just in the quietness of your own heart.

00:53:31

You might want to write something down,

00:53:33

but just take a minute, stay in this moment with Jesus.

00:54:15

Finish that last thought.

00:54:19

And when you're ready, take a deep breath,

00:54:21

open your eyes and come back to present.

00:54:38

I'm going to say something to you

00:54:40

that you probably never thought a preacher would say.

00:54:44

I actually don't think Jesus is that interested

00:54:48

in you moving from doubt to certainty.

00:54:52

I think what Jesus is most interested in

00:54:55

for you and for me is that we move from a place of doubt

00:54:58

to a trusting relationship with Him,

00:55:02

where even in our uncertainty, we recognize

00:55:05

that He loves us and we don't have to earn that love.

00:55:08

We can just receive it by faith.

00:55:10

A relational trust by which we realize, "You know what?

00:55:13

I don't have to figure this out on my own

00:55:15

because He is with me."

00:55:18

A relational trust that says even when hard things happen

00:55:21

and pain comes and the prayers don't get answered,

00:55:24

that doesn't mean that I have to think

00:55:26

the lie that somehow I'm abandoned.

00:55:28

But instead, even in those most painful moments of life,

00:55:31

I can remember that Jesus promised that

00:55:33

He will never leave me or forsake me.

00:55:36

I am not abandoned. I am loved.

00:55:39

I think that's what Jesus wants for you.

00:55:43

And so maybe you're today in a moment

00:55:45

or in a place of doubt.

00:55:47

Maybe you've been at the doorway of doubt.

00:55:50

And I believe that if doubt is a doorway to faith,

00:55:54

our response is to take steps in that direction.

00:55:56

So I want to give you three practical steps,

00:55:58

three practical steps.

00:55:59

They'll be up on the screen

00:56:00

if you want to take a picture of these

00:56:02

or whatever helps you kind of crystallize this

00:56:04

and figure out what is next for you in your journey.

00:56:07

And the first is simply be honest with God.

00:56:10

Be honest with God.

00:56:12

You know, I think some of us, we hide

00:56:15

behind our intellectual objections to faith.

00:56:19

We frame it as like, "I don't know if I believe the Bible.

00:56:21

Can the Bible be trusted?

00:56:23

Like, there's some things in the Bible

00:56:25

that feel like they don't make sense to me.

00:56:26

Or maybe I don't think the Bible has credibility

00:56:29

because it's been, you know, gerrymandered by man."

00:56:31

Sometimes that's real.

00:56:33

Sometimes we hide behind those intellectual doubts

00:56:36

because what really is struggling for us

00:56:38

is we've been hurt.

00:56:41

We may have been hurt by people who call themselves Christian.

00:56:46

We may have experienced abuse in any kind of form

00:56:48

by people who showed up on Sunday morning

00:56:51

and act like they love Jesus.

00:56:54

And I just want to say, if that's you, man,

00:56:56

just be honest with God about that.

00:56:58

In fact, let me give you a very tangible way

00:57:00

that you can do that today.

00:57:01

After I pray there are going to be people

00:57:03

up here at the front who would love to pray for you.

00:57:05

And you can come up to them and you can just say,

00:57:07

"Hey, here's what I would like prayer for."

00:57:09

Or maybe you want to do this.

00:57:11

Maybe you just want to say that doubt

00:57:13

out loud to another person, someone who will just hear it,

00:57:17

be present with you and pray for you.

00:57:19

And so I just want to encourage you,

00:57:21

maybe your step today is simply to be honest with God.

00:57:26

Second step that you may want to consider.

00:57:28

Revisit the story. Revisit the story of Thomas.

00:57:31

I think there's still so much to glean from that story.

00:57:33

It's found in John 20:24 and following.

00:57:37

And maybe you need to again this week,

00:57:39

give yourself five minutes, ten minutes

00:57:41

to just reflectively read the story,

00:57:43

to go back into that imagination,

00:57:46

to be back in that room and see if there's anything else

00:57:49

that Jesus might want to reveal.

00:57:50

I believe that you can encounter Him in that way.

00:57:53

And so maybe that's the action step for you this week.

00:57:55

Third thing. Hey, just stay in the room.

00:57:58

Just stay in the room.

00:58:00

Maybe you just still have a lot of doubts,

00:58:02

you're still really wrestling. That is okay.

00:58:05

Crossroads is a place for you.

00:58:07

So literally stay in the room. Stay in your room.

00:58:10

Keep coming. Come with your questions.

00:58:13

Come with your curiosity and know that

00:58:15

this is a place where you won't be judged for that

00:58:17

because you're in a community of other people

00:58:19

who are asking honest questions too.

00:58:22

And I believe that this is a place

00:58:24

where you can encounter the living God.

00:58:26

And if that hasn't happened for you yet, hang in there

00:58:29

because I believe Jesus is coming for you and He loves you.

00:58:32

So I want to encourage you this week

00:58:34

with a closing prayer as we leave this moment

00:58:37

that you would continue on this journey with Jesus.

00:58:40

So let me just pray for us.

00:58:41

God, I ask this week that You would give

00:58:44

all of us the courage of Thomas,

00:58:47

the courage to be honest with our reasonable doubts.

00:58:52

I pray also that you would give us the courage of Thomas

00:58:57

to close our hands on truth as we encounter You.

00:59:01

And so I pray, God, that whatever the next steps are

00:59:04

for all of us in here, we would know that

00:59:07

we're not the only one taking steps,

00:59:10

but that You are actually coming toward us

00:59:12

And I believe You will encounter us.

00:59:14

And I pray this in Jesus's name. Amen.

00:59:17

- Man, I am so thankful for a message

00:59:19

like that from Chuck on doubt.

00:59:20

I don't know about you,

00:59:21

but I've definitely had my own doubts in my life,

00:59:24

especially when it comes to

00:59:26

losing people that are close to me.

00:59:27

And so maybe that describes you.

00:59:29

I would just encourage you to lean in a little bit.

00:59:32

I think you can take those things to God.

00:59:35

I believe he can handle it

00:59:36

and He actually wants to hear from us.

00:59:38

So do that, keep leaning in and wrestle with your doubts.

00:59:42

That's something I've done

00:59:43

and I've found that God always shows up when I do.

00:59:46

Now, before we sign off, I want to talk to

00:59:48

you folks that are not near our Crossroads buildings.

00:59:52

We build community digitally, and actually

00:59:54

it's one of my favorite places.

00:59:56

I'm in there all the time.

00:59:57

I challenge you if you think you can up my gift game,

01:00:00

if you can top me, I say bring it on.

01:00:03

But we build community in there and there's even classes.

01:00:06

In fact, I'm actually hosting one in a couple of weeks,

01:00:09

and the only way you can get to it

01:00:11

is through the Anywhere Home.

01:00:12

So you can scan the QR code that you see on the screen.

01:00:16

And I will see you in the Anywhere Home.

01:00:19

But that's it for me.

01:00:20

We'll see you later. Thanks for joining us.

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