This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi everyone, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to week 13 of our look
through the book of Matthew. That means we're in chapter 11 this week, day one
of our look through chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11, in this chapter Jesus speaks
to those who struggle with the things that get in the way of our faith and
that's really all of us at one time or another.

He talks to us about the things that we struggle with that get in the way of us
having faith. He talks to us in this chapter about doubt, about a critical
spirit, he talks to us about indifference and pride and weariness and Jesus
helps us. Jesus is talking this entire chapter and in what His words are, His
heart is towards us, He helps us to understand how we face these things in our
lives.

Now it all begins with a question from John the Baptist that leads to a
discussion about doubt. Listen to what happens. After Jesus had finished
instructing His twelve disciples, He went on from there to teach and preach in
the towns of Galilee.

When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, He sent His disciples to ask
Him, "Are You the one who was to come or should we expect someone else? " Jesus
replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see. The blind receive
sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead
are raised and the good news is preached to the poor.

Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of Me. " Now in what Jesus
is saying to hear in His answer to John, He's talking to us, to you and I about
those times in our lives when we struggle with doubt. And if you've ever
struggled with doubt, I want you to be encouraged here in a strange way by
knowing that even John the Baptist had doubts.

Even this man that Jesus we're going to see tomorrow says is the greatest born
of woman. This man of such great faith, even he had doubts. The Bible tells us
that John came in the spirit and the power of the great prophet Elijah.

If you've ever read the story of Elijah, Elijah had doubts, the kind of doubt
that ended up in a cave wondering if God could ever use him again. Some people
think that doubt is the opposite of faith, but it's not. It's a very common
misconception.

Actually the opposite of faith is unbelief and there's a big difference between
unbelief and doubt. What's unbelief? Unbelief is a willful refusal to believe.

It's a deliberate decision to deny God. It's making either a conscious or it's
become a subconscious decision for some people not to have faith, but that's not
what doubt is. Doubt is struggling with faith, having questions about faith.

You can have a strong faith and still have some doubts. You can be headed
towards heaven and have uncertainty about some theological issues in the Bible.
You can be a Christian, absolutely a Christian, without knowing for certain that
you have no doubt about any single issue of faith.

You see, we all struggle with doubts in our lives at one time or another, so
what do we do with them? Well, we're going to learn here what to do with them.
You take them to Jesus, you listen for his answer and you look at what he's
doing, those three simple things.

First, when you have doubts, you take them to Jesus. John the Baptist is in
prison. He's been in prison for his coming against the government authorities of
that day and in prison he's got a lot of time to think.

That's when doubts often hit us when we have too much time to think and he
begins to wonder or maybe some of his disciples begin to wonder and ask
questions of him. And in all of this, he begins to doubt. He was so sure before.

Look, there's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That's what
he said about Jesus. He said, "I'm not fit to even untie his sandals.

" He said, "Jesus must increase, I must decrease. " But now, things aren't
happening as he expected. Maybe he didn't expect to be in prison.

Maybe he didn't expect Jesus to do the kind of ministry that he was doing. Maybe
he expected Jesus to become an earthly king more quickly or who knows what his
expectations were, but they weren't being met. And so he sends some of his
disciples to ask.

That's where you start with your doubts. You go to Jesus and you ask. You need
to understand, God is not afraid of your doubts.

The truth is, he already knows them, but sometimes we hide them from God like he
isn't going to know them if we don't talk about them in his presence in a
prayer. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is express
them to him.

Just read the book of Psalms. Just look at John the Baptist. You get example
after example in the Bible of men of faith, women of faith who express their
doubts to God.

That's where you begin. Have you ever had the faith to do that? It takes great
faith to express your doubts to God.

When you express your doubts to God, he enables you to start to believe your
beliefs and to doubt your doubts. It's better to believe your beliefs, but the
way to get there is by focusing on the one that you believe in and by talking to
God about your doubts, you're focusing on God with those doubts. So that's where
you start.

You talk to him. That's a part of the answer, but it takes more than that. It's
more than just expressing your doubts.

Something else needs to happen. You need an answer. Not just, hey, this is how
I'm feeling, but what's the answer to my doubts?

So the second thing you do is you listen to what Jesus has to say about your
doubts. You realize this is a conversation. John sent with a question, and he
wanted to hear an answer.

He wanted to hear what Jesus had to say, and John heard the answer when the
disciples brought it back. Jesus said, "Tell John what I'm doing. " Look, the
lame are walking, the blind see.

People are hearing the good news. When you express a doubt to God about some
area of your life, maybe how God is using you, maybe about the reality of
heaven, maybe about the evil that's in this world, a lot of people struggle with
doubt over the fact that there is evil in this world that we struggle with. When
you express a doubt to God, what do you need to hear?

What you need to hear is most often going to be heard through God's Word.
Sometimes you read it. Sometimes you hear it.

Sometimes another person shares it. If you want God to answer your doubts, you
need to listen to the truth, and the truth comes from God's Word. Often when you
have a doubt and you say, "God, here's my doubt," you're honest with him, you
start to hear the answer, and you'll find that you hear it from multiple sources
all at once.

God answers your prayer. So, all of a sudden, every sermon you hear is about
that doubt. Every time you open the Bible, the verses you read are about that
doubt.

Every person you talk to, you don't bring it up, they bring it up. They talk
about that doubt and God's answer to it. That's God answering your prayer.

When it seems like you can't get away from it, it's God answering your prayer.
Now, Jesus answers John, and in the answer that he gives him, he helps us to see
a third thing that we need to do when we doubt. We tell God, we listen to God
through his Word.

The third thing we do is we look at what Jesus is doing in the world. Don't just
look at yourself. Don't just look at your feelings.

Get your eyes outside of yourself, beyond yourself, to look at what Jesus is
doing in the world. And when you do that, you look in the past and you look at
now. First, you look at the past.

Your faith is not just an idea. It's in a real person who really lived, who
really died, who was really resurrected. When I have doubts, one of the things I
remind myself of is the fact that Jesus was on this planet.

Jesus walked this earth. This is not just something I'm making up. And the
history of the life of Jesus and the actions that Jesus took during his life,
the ministry that he gave to us, the death that he died for us, the resurrection
that happened for us, those are events that changed world history, changed
personal history.

So you look at the fact that there is evidence behind this. This isn't just
something I'm making up. This isn't me trying to feel better about myself or
feel better about God.

Something really happened in human history. You look at the past. You look at
what Jesus really did.

Just as John was encouraged to look at the lame walking, the blind who now see,
the good news being preached, we're encouraged to look back at what Jesus did.
But you also look at now. You look at the things that he did, but you also look
at what he's doing now in your life, in the lives of the people that are all
around you.

In a spiritual sense, in a physical sense as well, but also in a spiritual
sense, all the things that Jesus did then, he is still doing now. He is still
making blind people see, physically but also spiritually. He is still helping
those who are lame to walk, physically but also spiritually.

I've always loved what William Barclay writes about this. Listen to what he
wrote. "In Jesus, those who were blind to the truth about themselves, about
their fellow men, and about God have their eyes opened.

In Jesus, those whose feet were never strong enough to remain in the right way
are strengthened. In Jesus, those who were tainted with the disease of sin are
cleansed. In him, those who were deaf to the voice of conscience and of God
begin to listen.

In him, those who were dead and powerless in sin are raised to newness and
loveliness of life. In him, the poorest man inherits the riches of the love of
God. " So you look at what Jesus is doing in this world.

You see what Jesus is doing in human hearts and human lives. Now Jesus ends this
by saying, "Blessed is the one who doesn't fall away on account of me. " On
account of me?

Jesus is the one who draws me in. Why would I fall away on account of him? Well,
in John the Baptist's case, it was because Jesus was working.

He was acting in a way that maybe John didn't exactly expect. That's when you
and I fall away, on account of Jesus. Maybe Jesus isn't doing things the way
that you expected him to do them.

Maybe he has allowed things into your life that you would have never expected
him to allow. Or maybe he didn't show up for you in ways that you expected him
to show up. Or maybe the evil that he's allowing in this world, you think, "How
could he possibly do that?

" That often causes doubt. "Jesus, you are not meeting my expectations. " Well,
Jesus is not under the burden of having to meet your expectations.

He is at work in this world to do away with evil, to bring good, to do something
that's going to last for an eternity. And even though I don't always understand
it, I don't have to fall away. Because I don't want to feel like my expectations
should somehow become the way that God works in this world.

No. No. I can trust him.

Jesus says that instead, when you feel like, "I don't understand. I don't quite
get it, God. " But you still choose to trust in him, you will be blessed.

Let's take a minute to pray again and talk to him. And Jesus, as we talk to you
today, we ask that you would bless us with faith, even in the midst of our
doubt. Lord, help us not to get caught up in expecting you to act in a certain
way.

Instead, help us to trust you, to work in our lives, to work in the lives of the
people that we love, the people that are all around us. Help us to trust you, to
work in our lives now, all the way into eternity. In Jesus' name we ask this.

Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look at what to do when you struggle with a
critical spirit.