Luke 7:18-35

Discussion Questions

• Have you wrestled with questions of faith or belief? Do you tend to find it difficult or easy to believe?
• If you had the opportunity today to ask God a question, what would it be?
• What can you do this week to be sure any questions are honest doubts and not willful unbelief?

Transcript

Well, grace be to you this morning, friends. We do study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. If you’d like a paper copy, just lift up your hand and someone will bring one along to you. It will be good to have the text in front of you, like every week. This week in particular, we are going to look at quite a bit of text, so if you want a paper copy, just lift up your hand and someone will bring one to you. Hey, whether you’re watching online from Windsor, Ontario; or Melbourne, Australia; or Jakarta, Indonesia, may grace be multiplied to you as well.

One of the defining characteristics of being human is the capacity to ask questions. God has given us minds to consider, to use logic and reason, to inquire. Some are born with the gift of living inside big questions all the time, philosophers and scholars and people who think like that. Some people are made up differently, gifted with an abundance of contentment and trust, and they ask the big questions only when necessary. But questions are everywhere. This week I went to ChatGPT and the first thing that pops up on the webpage there is a question: What can I help with? My robot vacuum, when it’s done it says, “Did I do a good job?” Those kinds of things make me a little nervous, I don’t know about you. There’s some movies about that.

This week, many of us gave our attention to the election results, and a substantial part of the coverage focused on exit poll questions, and to fill the 24-hour news cycle the pundits would spend even more time asking questions about the questions about the questions about the questions, and they continue to ask those questions. How were they worded? Were they leading questions? Who asked the questions? To whom were the questions asked? They’ve got to fill the time somehow. Questions are also an important part of relationships. Will you marry me? Or if your experience was anything like mine as a young teenager, one of the most important questions I posed at that age, at least I thought, was when I passed a note to the girl, I had a crush on: Do you like me? Yes or no. And she’d circle and send it back.

The Bible, of course, is brimming with questions. They’re a central part of how we understand our relationship to God, His to us, His creation to one another. Here are just a few questions that we find in the Bible. The first question actually comes from the serpent. “Did God really say?” The second question in the Bible is from God to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” asked in the cool of the day. The next question God asks as well, “Who told you? Who told you you were naked?” This question from Jesus in the New Testament, “Who do you say that I am?” And then questions from humans, from David in this case, to God: “How long, O Lord?” or “Why, O Lord, do You stand far away?” Honest questions are good. They help us learn. They help us grow and develop, and for many, gnawing questions about faith and belief about the Bible, about Jesus, have sometimes led to moments of doubt and sometimes even despair.

In the 17th century, a Puritan named John Bunyan wrote a book called Pilgrim’s Progress. Many of you have probably read it. By some estimates, it’s the most influential book in the Western world besides the Bible, and the story is actually an allegory of the Christian life describing the journey from the city of destruction, that’s our broken world now, to the Celestial City, the new heavens and the new earth. I’m going to put up a fictional map, this is from the 1800s, up on the screen. This gives you an idea of the pathway of the main character, Christian, as he walks the pilgrim life, and along the way, that main character and his companions encounter many trials and triumphs. I know you can’t read them on there, but I think you get a sense. He goes to a place called Vanity Fair, and he’s tempted in the place of Destruction, but towards the end he gets to a place called Doubting Castle. It’s right towards the end, right before he gets to the Celestial City, Doubting Castle, driven to the dungeon in that castle by the giant named Despair.

It’s a simple story, but it’s no less real, I think, for those who are presently or have found themselves wrestling with doubt. For some, a storm of questions has come out of nowhere and you don’t know what to do with them, or the sting of suffering or of loss has uprooted long-held beliefs. You’re in the right place here today if you struggle with doubt. Honest doubts are not a sin. Oswald Chambers says it like this, “Doubt is not always a sign that a man is wrong, it may be a sign that he is thinking.” Maybe you’re in Doubting Castle right now or you have friends or family who are. You’re not alone. At the same time though, we shouldn’t make ourselves comfortable and take up residence in Doubting Castle, should we? We aren’t meant to live in the ambiguity of the dark of that dungeon.

Turn with me, if you would, to Luke 7; we’re going to start with Luke 7:18, as we learn from our Lord. And if you’d allow me let me pray for us, we’ll get started: Father, open Your Word to us and open us to Your Word. You are the fountain of all truth. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear the truth that You have for each of us today, and by the power of Your Spirit show us the light of Your son, Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Chapter 7, verse 18 goes like this: “The disciples of John,” that’s John the Baptist, “reported all these things to him. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?'” Verse 20. “And when the men had come to him,” that is to Jesus, “they said, ‘John the Baptist has sent us to you saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”‘”

How’s Jesus going to respond? Verse 21 tells us. “In that hour, he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight, and then he answered them. ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard,'” and you might underline that, “’what you have seen and heard, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised you, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me,’” or who doesn’t stumble over me. That’s another beatitude there, happy is the one who’s okay with how my kingdom is unfolding in my timing and my way.

Let’s go back to the very beginning. First of all, there are going to be three movements in our text this morning. This is the first of the three movements. In verse 18, the disciples of John reported all these things to him. So, John by this time is probably more famous, more well-known than even Jesus, although that’s changing. The crowds know who John the Baptist is and his message, his message of repentance, and John right now is in a prison, Herod Antipas’s prison about a hundred miles away near the Dead Sea. So, John’s disciples had been seeing what Jesus had been doing, His miracles and His message, and in particular, I think Luke wants us to focus on what we just studied last week, the miracle of Jesus in healing the centurion’s servant with just His word, and then Jesus heals the widow of Nain’s only son, raises him from the dead in fact.

So, John’s disciples, while John’s in prison, John’s disciples are following Jesus around. They see His message, they see His miracles, and they come back to John, and they tell John about this, and John sends two of his disciples back to Jesus. Why? Well, because he’s in prison. He’s in the dark dungeon, perhaps Doubting Castle, if you will. They ask this question, “Are you the one who is to come?” or some of your translations will say, “Are you the expected one?” Are you the Messiah or should we look for somebody else?

Let’s keep reading it, verse 24, this is the second movement. So, Jesus answered John’s disciples and now He’s going to address the crowds. Verse 24, “When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John.” Again, the crowds knew who John was. They probably, many of them, were baptized by John. They followed his message which was a message that pointed to Jesus. So, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John. “What did you go out into the wilderness to see [when you went to go see John]? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings’ courts. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written.”

And Jesus here quotes from Malachi 3:1, “Behold I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.” Jesus still speaking in verse 28, “I tell you, among those born of women,” meaning everyone, “none is greater than John the Baptist.” Jesus gives so much honor to John the Baptist here, even after he doubts. “Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” Verse 29, Luke’s narrating here. “When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.” In other words, the message of John was to repent, that’s true, but he pointed to Jesus. So, the Pharisees, in rejecting the message of John, were rejecting Jesus and the purpose of God. That’s one of the saddest statements in the Bible, I think. The Pharisees and the lawyers, verse 30, rejected the purpose of God for themselves. May that never be said of any of us in this room.

So, let’s go back here to verse 27, Malachi 3:1. Jesus has given a little Bible study here. “Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you.” Jesus said essentially, “Hey, crowds, you who were baptized by John, did you go to the wilderness to get baptized by John because this was a reed, this was somebody trivial or trite, this was something novel?” No. Then he goes the other direction. “Did you go out to the wilderness to be baptized by John because he was some kind of king, like Herod?” No. You went because he’s a prophet. There was something happening in his message and in his ministry that indicated that he was speaking the word and the will of God. And in fact, not only that, he’s giving honor here to John, the prophets from old prophesied about the prophet John, Malachi 3:1.

So right here we’re actually at a hinge point. John the Baptist is actually the greatest of the Old Testament, the old Covenant prophets, and I know we’re reading about him in the New Testament, but he is the last of the prophets. It’s been 400 years since we’ve had a prophecy in Israel and here’s the last and greatest one, John the Baptist. And what’s John the Baptist’s job but to prepare the way for the Lord and to get out of the way of the Lord, and Jesus gives John such high honor. He’s saying, nobody has any higher honor than John because he had the honor of pointing to the Messiah. But for those in the kingdom that John was pointing to, they have a high honor as well because now they actually get to see the King, Jesus, as He comes in His kingdom, and He begins His redemptive work. It’s an incredible Bible study. We’ll return to this in a minute.

Verse 31, this is the third of the three movements. Jesus turns His attention to the Pharisees and the lawyers. “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation and what are they like? They’re like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’ For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine and you say, ‘He has a demon.'” Think of the spectrum here, John’s ministry. Now 34, “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking and you say, ‘Look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

Jesus is exposing the foolishness of the Pharisees and the lawyers and the scribes and all those who have a willful unbelief. They just simply reject. They cannot bow the knee. They can’t stomach the idea of a call to repentance. To say that we have spiritual poverty, they can’t stand it. And this little song here in verse 32, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.” This is basically Jesus saying, “You’re like little kids who want us to do exactly what you want us to do. We played a flute for you, but you didn’t do what we asked you to do. We sang a dirge, and you didn’t do what we asked you to do.”

Jesus’s ways are far higher than the Pharisees and Jesus is exposing this foolishness, and He ends by saying, “Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” The wisdom of God is justified by the ministries of John the Baptist which points to the ministry of Jesus Christ, and the fruit of those ministries, the miracles and the message that point to the redemptive work of God and history, that’s the children of wisdom. This is the reading of God’s Word.

In this account from Luke, which kind of can be complex and confusing to our ears, it exposes at least two different kinds of responses, doesn’t it, to the way of His kingdom. From John the Baptist, a sincere question is brought to Jesus. And from the Pharisees, a stubborn self-righteousness has so calloused their hearts that they have this posture of willful unbelief. They’ve rejected the purposes of God, we see that there in verse 30, wholesale rejection. There’s a wide gap between those two responses. A person with sincere and honest questions longs for the light of truth. Someone who already has it all figured out, the self-righteous, is content to remain exactly where they are, rejecting any challenge to their own authority.

Honest doubts are not the same as willful unbelief. I see both of those things here today. I hope you see them as well. And Jesus is so kind in this story, especially to John the Baptist. I don’t mean kindness in a sappy or sentimental kind of way. I mean a liberating kindness that perfectly combines both grace and truth, and I hope that kindness is evident to you today, especially if you’re caught in the fog of doubt.

Let me read this again to you, if you look with me at verse 20. So, John the Baptist’s disciples have come, and they’ve asked this question, “Are you the one?” And Jesus answers them. Read this carefully. “When the men had come to him, they said, ‘John the Baptist has sent us to you saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ In that hour, he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight, and he answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.'”

It’s astounding what Jesus is doing here. He’s both demonstrating and He’s preaching from the Old Testament, from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 26, 29, 35, 42, and 61 in that order. Written 700 years prior, anticipating the Messiah, Isaiah was describing the kinds of things that the expected one would do, the kinds of things that only God can do. In other words, Jesus teaches the most incredible Bible study these men had ever seen. They’d never been to a Bible study like this. Before their eyes in that very hour, which is kind of interesting to me. He doesn’t seem to answer their question immediately with words. He hears their question and then essentially says, “Hold on,” and He goes and demonstrates from Isaiah. He gives John the Baptist and these men the light of truth, the grace of assurance.

Did you notice though what Jesus didn’t do? He didn’t heap shame on these men or on John the Baptist. He didn’t say, “How dare you. How dare you ask who I am? Isn’t it obvious?” No, Jesus knows our frail condition and He knew the frail condition of John the Baptist. But he didn’t leave the question unaddressed. In the kindness of Jesus, He shows mercy to the honest doubter, and at the same time He challenges, He interrogates the doubt with truth from the written Word of God and the power of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh. And for those Pharisees and lawyers who are insincere and obstinate and their rejection of Jesus, He tells the truth, and He calls them out on their foolishness. But for John, the doubter who brings an honest question, Jesus illuminates and demonstrates that the promises of God are true.

A recent Barna study found that 50% of confessing Christians have gone through prolonged seasons of doubt in their faith, and I wonder if that’s actually higher. If you found yourself wrestling with questions of faith and belief for reasons intellectual or existential or personal, you’re not alone. You’re in good company with John the Baptist and many who came before him, and you aren’t meant to walk through seasons like this alone. I’m glad you’re here this morning especially so you can see and hear the teaching of Jesus.

Well, I’d love for us to consider a few things that I think we can learn from this account from Luke. I think we see doubt in the dark, I think we see the light of truth, and I think we see a way through. So, let’s start with doubt in the dark. As we were reading this story, perhaps you wondered why John the Baptist of all people, why would he be asking this question, the last of the old covenant prophets. Do you remember the story of John the Baptist? At the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, John saw Jesus walking towards him and he proclaimed, John did, of Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. I have borne witness that he is the Son of God.” That from John’s lips. John was there when the Holy Spirit fell upon Jesus, and John would have heard the voice of God, the Father, thunder in that moment, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.”

If you turn with me back just a few pages to Luke, Chapter three, Luke 3:15. We’ll actually see a fuller picture of what John had already confessed about Jesus. Verse 15, “As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ…” So the crowds, at one point, thought that John might be the Messiah and John corrects them, and he says, verse 16, “John answered them all saying, ‘I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.'”

Verse 18. “So with many other exhortations, he preached good news to the people. But Herod the tetrarch, [or Herod Antipas] who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison.” John had already confessed who Jesus was, so what happened between that moment and this moment now? John is languishing in prison. You can turn back to Chapter 7. Sometimes doubts come in the dark night of the soul and body. Perhaps you’ve been there. Perhaps you’re there now.

Maybe John expected Jesus to come with that winnowing fork and fire to kick out the occupying Roman force in that moment, or perhaps he expected that Jesus might liberate him from the prison cell, rescuing him from the execution to come. I think we can safely assume that John didn’t expect to live out his last days in Herod’s dungeon. Michael Wilcock expands on this text. He says, “John expects the coming one to come as judge, and Jesus replies that He must first come as Savior.” John didn’t know what was supposed to happen and when, and I have some truth for us here, neither do we. This is a mystery that a finite creature like myself must hold in tension. A finite creature cannot expect to know the mind of an infinite creator God. By definition we will have questions. Although we cannot know the mind of God, we can know some things with confidence because God has spoken, revealed Himself, and still speaks through His Word and Spirit, and for that we say a hearty amen. A hearty amen. Amen.

The Bible is honest. Some of the greatest giants of the Christian faith struggled with moments of doubt, and the Bible doesn’t sweep their experience under the rug, like John the Baptist, but instead shows us the grittiness of the Christian journey. I think of Abraham, of Moses, of Jeremiah, of Elijah, Jonah. All of them had questions. All of them had doubts and the Bible is perfectly honest about them, and I’m grateful for that honesty. Even prophets sometimes doubt the Word of God in the dark. I don’t for a moment think that John wouldn’t have gladly given his life for his Lord Jesus, but in the dark night of his soul, in those dark nights, a storm of questions can begin to uproot what we even know to be true in the light.

John, in this dim prison, like many of the prophets who had gone before him, he knew where to take his question. That’s the second thing we’re going to consider here, the light of truth. He struggled with a doubt in the dark and the light of truth came. Notice John doesn’t take his question first to unbelieving Jewish leaders. He doesn’t first go to pagan religious gurus or the Roman pantheon, or like today, we might go take our questions first to YouTube to search for some new teaching or the latest podcast or the local bookstore for some fresh insight, or a political party or a life coach or a therapist. Those sources can offer glimpses of truth. All truth is ultimately God’s truth, but they can also lead to confusion and more doubt when they are not tethered to the source of truth. Where do you take your questions? Where do I take my questions?

Charles Spurgeon, who we prayed with earlier, that 19-century London pastor, he publicly struggled with doubt. He said this, “Hold everything earthly with a loose hand, but grasp eternal things with a death-like grip.” John takes his questions about Jesus to Jesus. Are you the expected one or should we look for another? That question is so honest and it’s also full of insight. Every human heart is longing for something or someone to set things right. “Jesus, I’m languishing here. My faith is stretched thin in this prison cell. Should we look for someone else to set things right?” That’s what John’s saying. Put another way, “Tell me, Jesus, can I stake everything on you, or should I move on?”

Can you picture that moment when John’s disciples ask Jesus this question? First of all, it was probably pretty awkward. John’s disciples come up to Jesus sheepishly. “Hey, we have some questions from John, from John.” An honest question though about who Jesus was, they ask it, and then an explosion of miracles. Can you picture that moment? Jaws dropped. Not just a spectacle, but miracles of genuine compassion that confirmed the promises of God were true in history, they were true that day, and they will be true tomorrow.

John was confused in the darkness, doubting all he had seen and heard in the light, and Jesus interrogates John’s doubts with the light of truth from the Word of God, and in that word, Jesus offers assurance to that wavering soul, and maybe that’s you this morning. The promises of God are something he could stake his life on. The goodness of God is still true. The providential hand of God is working, and the kingdom of God is being built through Jesus. It was true then and it’s true today. Jesus tells these men, He says, “Tell John,” He calls him by name. I love that. “Tell John what you’ve seen and what you’ve heard.” Never underestimate the power of a testimony. What you have seen and what you have heard could be the balm that somebody needs this morning or this week.

John was not alone. He had a savior who called him by name, and he was held fast in the grip of the God who held Jeremiah and Elijah and the believers who had come before him, and He holds you today. Dane Ortlund says it so well, “Jesus binds Himself to His people. No expiration date. No end of the road. Our side of the commitment will falter and stumble, but His never does.” Are you the expected one or should we wait for someone else? And Jesus’ answer is “Yes, I am the expected one.”

Number three, I think we see a way through. Our Lord is merciful to the honest doubter, but He never leaves in the dark those with eyes to see and ears to hear. That’s a humble posture. That’s what that means. That kind of posture might be as simple as the man who cried out to Jesus asking for healing for his son. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. In one sentence, that honesty is just so piercing. In the book of Jude, verse 22, the writer reflects the compassion of Jesus, calling all believers, that’s you and me, to have mercy on those who doubt. That’s the very heart of Jesus. I’ll suggest this morning that we see in our text a kind of pathway through our honest doubts. This isn’t a GPS precision kind of a thing, but more of a compass to guide us through the fog that I think we see in this text.

Whether you have intellectual questions about God, about the Bible, about Jesus like John did, or existential questions about pain and evil and suffering in this world, or personal questions about your own losses, your own church hurt, hypocrisy, unmet expectations, unanswered prayers, I think we see here a pathway through honest doubt. One, cultivate a practice of prayer. Two, clarify your question. Three, continually return to the Scriptures. Cultivate a practice of prayer, clarify your question, and continually return to the Scriptures.

Cultivating a practice of prayer. When I say that, don’t hear me say or reduce that simply to sitting down for your quiet time every morning expressing whatever’s on your mind to the Lord. I don’t want to simplify it like that. That’s good. We should do that. But it’s far more than that. Sometimes we simply don’t have the words to pray, or we get distracted, or we get tired, our faith is thin. That’s why the practice of communing with God throughout the ages has included praying along with the psalmists, many of whom who wrestled with, in the Bible, the same questions that we have, that you might have, or praying along with other believers throughout history, like we do every week here or other brothers and sisters today. We lean on the words of others.

Sometimes we need to pray alone in the darkness. That’s true. John did. Jesus does later in the garden of Gethsemane. But there is a deeper well for us, for you and me to drink from when we can’t bear the weight of coming up with the words to say. There are those who have gone ahead of us and have come out on the other side and we need to learn from them, I need to learn from them. They can name things that we can’t name yet. They can hold in tension mysteries that we haven’t even grappled with yet. Think about that prayer we mentioned earlier from the psalmist, “How long, O Lord…” That’s actually a corporate prayer, a prayer meant to be prayed together. Or the prayer we pray each week, our Father. Our Father, it’s a corporate prayer we pray together, side-by-side with one another.

John brought his question directly to Jesus and we can do the same in prayer as we cultivate this practice, as we come before the Lord with our questions and we let others help us pray, perhaps our questions can actually become more clear. I find in my own life that’s how it happens. My questions become more clear as I pray, and I bring them to Him. If you go to our new website, you’ll find a host of resources that will help with prayer and doubts. We just put it up this morning, several books that we’ve recommended, and I’ve used and that we’ve even quoted here this morning. I commend that to you. So, cultivate a practice of prayer.

Clarify your question. What do I mean here? Well, in the fog of doubt, sometimes confusion can keep us from knowing what to ask, and that’s when we’re starting to be tempted to lay down and stay content in the dark. Notice the clarity of John the Baptist’s question again from verse 20, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” It wasn’t a dense, philosophical question about the nature of God and humanity and sin. It was pointed and clear. Jesus, are you who you say you are, or should we move on? It was a clear question.

And then thirdly, continually return to the Scriptures. Jesus’s answer to that question is so instructive to us. He goes back to the Bible. In essence, He tells John, “Don’t forget your Old Testament.” But Jesus also points forward to the day when He would set all things right as He reflects the new heavens and the new earth with these miracles of compassion. Jesus sends John back to the Scriptures and forward to the coming kingdom. As we continually return to the Scriptures, and I’m so glad you’re here because we do study the books of the Bible, and as we continue to do that both in our homes and in our groups and here on Sunday morning, in that path I mean a few different things. One, yes, study the Bible, read it, mark it up, get the background, do that kind of hard work, but also meditate on the scriptures, chew on it, give space and time for the Spirit to do His work of illumination. Wrestle with the Scriptures with other brothers and sisters in community, that one we miss often, asking the questions with others.

In the medical field, triage is used to determine who needs medical attention first. I was reminded this week that for some who are in a deep season of doubt or even deconstruction, triage might actually be needed, and for you I have a word. I might suggest that for some, rather than beginning your pathway through doubt with a deep dive into a particular theological subject you’re wrestling with, you actually start with the question that begins all of them: Who is Jesus? Start there. Start with the Gospels. Study one of the four Gospels like we’re doing here in Luke. What’s incredible about the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that they reveal, yes, the identity, and the power, the authority, the saving purpose of Jesus and His death and resurrection, but all along the way when you study the Gospels, you’re getting immersed in the whole story of the Bible. You’re getting a big old Bible study when you go through the Gospels, and they help you get to the question, who is Jesus, the foundation of the Christian faith.

It’s not on the screen, but Tim Keller said, “The issue on which everything hangs is not whether you like Jesus’s teaching, but whether or not He rose from the dead, that He’d do what He said He would do.” Joshua Chatraw in this wonderful book called Surprised by Doubt said, “We should work things out in our minds as best we can, but our best arguments are meant to point us to Jesus Christ. Our arguments can only gesture to the deeper reality to which we must humbly open ourselves up by experience and practice.” The life of faith is not a one-and-done thing. We need to walk the path out of doubt from time to time. We got to get moving. Don’t get comfortable there. If John the Baptist needed to be reminded of who Jesus was, certainly we do as well. I do.

We want The Village Chapel to be a place where honest doubters feel welcome, invited to come with your questions, to be a place where you feel like you have people and a place to walk alongside you as you look for the light of truth in Jesus, and I hope you find that place here at TVC. I once heard a pastor say, “It’s Christ, it’s Christ, and not the absence of doubt that saves us.” Our feelings of Him don’t save us, He does. Our hope is not located in our ability to silence the questions to come, but in His ability to hold us fast in our doubts. “I shake, but my Rock moves not,” says Charles Spurgeon. One more time, “I shake, but my Rock moves not.”

Would you pray with me? There’s a prayer from Psalm 130. “Out of the depths we cry to you, O Lord.” O Lord, hear our voices. Let Your ears be attentive to our pleas for mercy. We wait for You and in Your Word we hope. Our souls wait for You more than the watchman for the morning. O Lord, give us the grace to find our hope in You alone, for with you there is steadfast love and mercy and plentiful redemption. Through Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord, and Redeemer, we all said amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs:

“Come, Christians, Join to Sing“ by Christian H. Bateman, arr. Zach White
“Jesus, Firm Foundation“ by George Keith, R. Keen
“Holy Holy Holy“ by John Bacchus Dykes and Reginald Heber
“Hallelujah What A Savior“ by Philip Paul Bliss, alt. verse: Tommy Bailey
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois

All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #200369

Call To Worship: We Bless You, God of All Mercies

All: We bless You, God of all mercies, for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life;

Women: We praise You for Your boundless love revealed to us in Your son, our Lord, Jesus Christ; for the means of grace and for the hope of glory.

Men: Give us such an awareness of Your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth Your praise,

Women: Not only with our lips but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to Your service, and by walking before You in holiness and righteousness all our days;

All: Through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, to whom, with You and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory now and forever. Amen! Amen! Amen!

Confession: The Apostles’ Creed

We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ,His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy universal church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.

Classic Prayer: C.H. Spurgeon, 1834-1892

We would offer a prayer to Thee for those who are quite strange to the work of the Spirit of God…who have lived as if there were no God. Open their eyes that they may see God even though that sight should make them tremble. O! let none of us live without our God and Father. Take away the heart of stone, take away the frivolities, the levity, the giddiness of our youth, and give us in downright earnest to seek true happiness where alone it can be found, in reconciliation to God, and in conformity to His will. Lord, save the careless, and the sinful. The unholy and unjust men, the dishonest and false, renew them in their lives. May we believe God fully. May we never waiver, resting in the great surety and high Priest of the New Covenant. May we feel the peace of God which passeth all understanding.

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