Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

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Continue to pray about potentially moving to First Baptist Oak Grove

I forgot to tell you last Sunday that Eli had his first gospel conversation!

I did not force him, he volunteered and did a great job

And Eli’s favorite book of the Bible is Job.

And guess what this lady mentioned when Eli was talking to her? JOB

We are at a little over 100 Gospel conversations, by we have a ways to go to reach our goal

Scripture Reading:

Psalm 8 “O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength Because of Your adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?

Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!

You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field, The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!”

Pastoral Prayer

Pray for the lost

Pray for transformation of our hearts

Pray for God presence in this place

Pray for God’s will to be revealed to us in relocating

INTRODUCTION

What is doubt?

The Dictionary of the Bible says, “to doubt is to be divided in mind”, ‘to be of two opinions,’ ‘to waver,’ ‘something between whole-hearted faith and decided unbelief.

When we doubt, faith is robbed of its power;”

ISBE dictionary says, “Doubt reflects man’s dividedness of attitude when confronted with a promise of God.

It occurs within the context of prayer and action, at times when God’s word itself is what is being questioned”.

What is doubt?

Jesus saw this attitude as the opposite of true faith.

And the book of Hebrews says, “without faith it is impossible to please God!”

At the foundation of every sin, every act of faithlessness, every sin of omission you will find at its root: doubt.

Paul said, “whatever is not from faith is sin.”

(Rom 14:23).

We choose sin because we doubt God’s way is better.

When we fail to walk by faith, we do so because we doubt God’s ability to sustain us and take care of us.

We fail to serve God many times because we doubt it will really make a difference.

Everyone struggles with doubt to some degree.

Even John the Baptist the great preacher and forerunner of Jesus struggled with doubt.

Matthew 11:2-6 “Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

“And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”

Let me say this: If you have ever doubted God, even the existence of God, it does not necessarily mean that you are lost.

John the Baptist was a mighty man of God, preached with Holy Spirit power, seen the Spirit of God light upon Jesus, and struggled with doubt.

I want you to notice something about our passage today.

It is placed right after chapters 8 & 9 that repetitively speak of people’s Faith.

Jesus marveled at the great faith of the centurion and healed his son (8:10)

Jesus rebuked the disciples in the storm because of their lack of faith (8:25)

Jesus saw the faith of the paralyzed man and his friends and healed him (9:22)

The woman who bled for 12 years was healed because of her faith (9:22)

Jesus healed the blind man because of his faith (9:29)

And then we come to chapter 11 and we see this great man of God doubting that Jesus is Messiah.

Why did Matthew include this section in His Gospel account?

Because I think he wanted to encourage disciples who would come after them by showing that even the strongest of followers can have doubts at times.

We are humans and our faith has not yet been perfected.

And if we have doubts, it does not necessarily mean that we are lost, or that we are bad ChristIan’s.

It is a reminder that we are humans, and we are frail, and we are desperately;y in need of God’s grace.

I think there are some principles that can help us from this section when doubt creeps into our lives.

4 things about doubt:

Doubts accompany hardships

Explanation

(v 2) while John was imprisoned.

Prison is a hard time in any period of history, but it was especially difficult then.

John was imprisoned by Herod.

King Herod was known for his insensitivity and debauchery.

He had married his own sister-in-law, and John the Baptist had publicly rebuked Herod’s sin.

And I could only imagine what was going through John’s mind about what his future held while sitting in prison under an evil king who had a personal grudge against him.

What is the difference in John the Baptist who boldly preached repentance and John the baptist who is now doubting?

His situation had changed.

And because his situation changed for the worse, he began to question God.

Bridge

It is sometimes difficult to understand why we have to go through so much trouble, especially some of us.

And it seems to me that the more we try to draw near to God, the more hardships we experience.

Circumstances breed doubts because they distract us from what God has said and put our focus on our situation.

And we begin to see the struggles over the sovereignty of God and then begin to question God’s goodness, His faithfulness, and His providence.

The cure for doubt is FAITH.

And faith does not make decision based upon what the human eyes see!

It makes decisions based upon what God says!

And if we want to be people who are not affected by our circumstances then we must continue to trust what God has said despite what we currently see.

Application

I want to make some application to this church plant.

I am convinced that the mission and vision God has given to us still stands.

I am convinced we are called to Oak Grove to reach military families.

I am convinced that we are to continue our front door ministry.

I am convinced that God has a fruitful ministry in store for this church.

But we do not see it yet.

It is easy to look at our situation and say, “hey this isn’t working”.

Not many people are coming to faith, we’ve only had one person come in from our front door evangelism, and they are no longer with us.

The church isn’t growing like we think it should be growing and not much seems to be happening.

Here is a Word to this church: GOD CAN CHANGE ANY SITUATION IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE.

God can take this ministry and explode it anytime he wants.

God can flood these doors with so many people that we could no contain them in this building!

And that is what we must cling to!

We do not make decisions based on our circumstances because circumstances change, we make decisions based upon what God has said and trust Him for the timing!

God does not always do what we expect Him to do

Explanation

Look at the Scripture: It says, “when John heard of the works of Christ, he sent his disciples to question Jesus”.

What is it that changed in John’s life that led him from a faithful preacher to a doubting prophet?

I think it was his expectations of Jesus.

“while he was imprisoned, he heard the works of Christ”.

John heard what Jesus was doing, but it was not what he thought the Messiah ought to be doing.

Listen to how John described Jesus when he preached about Jesus:

Matt 3:11-12 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.