What Should Christians Do When They Doubt? Part 2

This Sunday service is from 24th May, where Andrew Grey gives the second of two sermons on Christians and doubt.

Transcript

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We're taking a one-week break from our preaching series in the book of James. Our sermon today is on a doctrine, a topic, that of assurance and doubt. And we'll be in a few different places in scripture, but we are going to start in Romans chapter 8. Let me pray for us. Father in heaven, we thank you that your word is like a sword. It's like a hammer. We thank you that it brings sweetness and grace. And we pray that your Holy Spirit would minister your word rightly to each one of us. We thank you that you know us each through and through. You know our needs, our weaknesses, our sins. And we pray that your Holy Spirit would do to us and in us exactly what we need this morning. For Jesus' name's sake. Amen. Amen. So I'm going to read a few verses from the beginning, the middle, and the end of Romans chapter 8. So let's listen to the word of God. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. On pleased verse fourteen. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of Adoption as sons, by whom we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord? Thanks be to God for his wonderful word to us. What do we do when we feel far from God? What does a Christian do when he or she feels like they do not belong to Christ? So imagine you are a Christian and you have just heard Romans chapter 8 read, and yet you feel that there is some kind of distance between you and the words that you've just heard. You've heard God Himself speak about adoption, being made into one of the children of God, a co-heir with Christ. And yet you wonder, am I really a child of God? Now we are right to be suspicious of our feelings. We live in such a dreadfully feelings-driven place and time. Feelings can badly mislead us. It's of course it's been the case ever since the fall. And yet, God has made us as creatures who feel. So, Christian, what do you do when you feel far from the Lord? And for the Christian, this is a particular and distressing form of anxiety. It's one that all Christian people face at one time or another, and some Christian people face much of the time. We asked, Why do Christians doubt? And the answer we saw is a mixture of, potentially, bad theology, Satan's work, sin struggles, the Lord's discipline, and different kinds of suffering and frailty. And we heard this wonderful encouragement. Christians are saved by Christ through faith. It's actually not essential to our salvation that we feel saved. What matters is that we are saved. Here in 60 seconds is the gospel of our salvation. And by the way, if you're not yet a Christian person, this is what you really need to take on board today. There is a Saviour, Jesus. He delights to deal with people's sin and guilt before a holy God and to bring them into the family of God such that he becomes their brother and God becomes their father. And the Christian is joined to Jesus. We receive Jesus simply by trusting and repenting. We say to Jesus, I want you to control my life from now on. So my life, imagine it's like a car, you now get in the steering, on the in the driver's seat and steer my life. And I trust you, I lean upon you for the salvation, the forgiveness, the cleansing, and everything else that I need. You don't need much faith, just a little, but you do need a great savior, and in the Lord Jesus, that is who we have. But once joined in union with Christ, you're a Christian, as a Christian man or woman, boy or girl, you're walking with Jesus through the Christian life. Well, the Lord does want you to have fewer doubts and more certainty. He wants us to be confident that we are sons and children of God. Towards the end of our reading, Romans 8.38, the Apostle Paul could say, I am sure. And that's where the Lord wants our souls to end up. To be able to say with him, I am sure. Elsewhere in the New Testament, 1 John 5.13, the Apostle John wants people who believe in Jesus to know that they have eternal life. They have eternal life, he wants them to know it. So feeling sure that nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, knowing that I have eternal life, where does that even come from? And the Bible would tell us certainty is the gift of God. In Romans 8, if you would just look down again at verse 15, verse 16. The Apostle Paul tells us that this conviction comes from the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who he calls the Spirit of Adoption. It's the gift of the Holy Spirit. He testifies with the Holy Spirit that I am a Son of God. And this is a conviction that's felt in the heart, a deep conviction, a sense that I, me, personally, am joined in union with the Son. And therefore, with the Son I am an heir together with him. And that is a gift of God. And today's sermon really is an encouragement to us all to look at Christ and to look for Christ in those places where he has promised to be found. It's an encouragement to look at Christ and to look for Christ in the places where He has promised to be found. And as we do that, we pray and trust that the Holy Spirit of God will indeed do his work. The Holy Spirit of adoption will do his work, ministering to our souls, telling us, assuring us that we are indeed sons and children of God. We need to be a little bit careful though. Here is a helpful caution from John Piper as we think about the testimony of the Holy Spirit. He writes, The Holy Spirit does not whisper in your ear you're a Christian, because you could doubt that voice. You could say, I think that was my pizza last night, or it was the devil. The witness of the Holy Spirit is not a whispering in your ear, it's the work of the Holy Spirit enabling you to look at Christ, feel him as your own, see him as precious, and to say, Galatians 2.20, personally, I am crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And it is that me that is the settling of our assurance. So what do we do when we feel far from the Lord? Big point number one. We decide to look at Jesus. Imagine for a moment that we all find ourselves on a bridge. The bridge is crossing over a deep and dangerous chasm. It's three miles deep. At the bottom lie jagged rocks, crocodiles, sharks, terrorists, probably a volcano as well. And as we cross over the bridge, you are nervous. And so you ask me, do you really trust the bridge? Now I have a choice. I could talk to you about my trust in the bridge. Trust, though, is a really hard thing to catch and put under a microscope. Or I could talk to you about the bridge. I could tell you, look, there are there are dozens of 40-ton lorries passing over this bridge. Thousands of people walk over it every day. It stood here for centuries. I have seen it in a storm and it stood strong and firm. It's made of the hardest rock and steel you could imagine. And talking about the bridge, it is far more helpful than trying to talk about my faith in the bridge. Then I ask you a question as I walk over the bridge with you. But do I really trust Jesus? Do I? Do I really trust him? And we have a choice as we go over the bridge, don't we? We could talk about my trust in Jesus, or you could tell me, Andrew, forget about yourself. Put yourself to one side. Let's talk about Jesus instead. It's a bit like happiness, isn't it? You do not find happiness by thinking about happiness. You need to put yourself to one side and we focus on the greatness of Jesus. So if we want to enjoy a confidence that you're safe in Christ, then the Bible would encourage us in about a zillion different ways to put ourselves to one side and to look at him, look hard and long and cheerfully at him, to sing praise to him, to talk about him with other saints. Ordinarily, that confidence given by the Spirit, it comes from the Scriptures through the sword of the Spirit. So from the Bible, we will want to call to mind and read and talk about and pray about and write down and sing about the most wonderful things about your Saviour. He is our great Savior. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Think from the Bible about who Jesus is. He is Almighty God, He is pure and perfect man. Consider what Jesus did. That although he was mighty God, though infinitely rich, for our sakes he stooped down, he made himself poor, he took on our human nature. Think on his beautiful and perfect obedience. Despite poverty and persecution, he always did good, even when he received evil. He blessed, though he was cursed, and he did so all his days. Yet on the cross, never was he so lovely to us than on the cross. He purchases peace and reconciliation, he obtains for us life with God and immortality. In all of his works, he serves as a mediator between God and us to bring glory to God's justice and to save our souls. Just think where Jesus is now, seated at the right hand of the Father, crowned with majesty, from where he rules, from where he is terrible to his enemies, and he will destroy them, and to his beloved ones, the church. He's full of mercy and love and compassion. And from his throne, he gives us gives us his Holy Spirit. He knows our weaknesses, he cares for his church. He makes himself known in his word and in all the means of grace, so that we might have and enjoy communion with him. And constantly always he grants to us pardon and peace. But the most important thing is the Jesus in whom we have faith. It is actually hard to answer the question, do you trust this Jesus rather than yourself? One way to begin to think about that would be to ask ourselves, perhaps together with a friend on that journey, how do you feel about Jesus? When you're in your right mind, how do you feel about him? Do you love him? Do you want to please him? How do you feel about your sin? Does your sin bother you because it's hateful to Jesus? The great American theologian Gresham Machin wrote about his own battles with assurance, in which he was helped by his mother. He wrote, My mother spoke to me in those dark hours when the lamp burned dim, when I thought faith was gone and shipwreck had been made of my soul. Christ, she used to say, keeps firmer hold on us than we keep on him. My mother's word meant that salvation by faith does not meant that we are saved because we keep ourselves at every moment in an ideally perfect attitude of confidence in Christ. No, we are saved because having once been united to Christ by faith, we are his forever. Calvinism is a very comforting doctrine indeed. Without its comfort, I think I should have perished long ago in the castle of giant despair. So there's our objective as we walk through the Christian life in company with the saints. We want to fill our hearts and minds with Christ because He is the Savior. I'm saved by Him. Now, how do we actually go about looking to Jesus? It's somewhat Christian jargonish, isn't it? How actually do we do that? So big point number two, use God's means of grace. That is, God has certain tools which the Lord uses to work in us. So we want to look for Christ in those places where Christ has promised to be. Now, of course, the Lord the Lord can work directly and graciously in our hearts. But ordinarily, these are the things he likes to use. These are the blessed by God places to go. Here are the places where God the Holy Spirit works to show us Christ. The Bible, we've already spoken about the Bible, the Word of God, the Scriptures, the Sword of the Spirit. And if you're still in the book of Romans, just turn over a couple of pages and look at Romans 10, 17. Romans 10, 17, we read so faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ. So suppose you're not yet a Christian and you want faith in Christ, where does that come from? Answer as you hear the scriptures. Faith comes from hearing. As we hear and receive the word of God. Now we have a need of scripture, don't we? Just like we need food and water and shelter. We need constant reminder. We need constantly to recall. But we also have a promise in Scripture that when we are in the Word of God, especially when we're receiving the Word of God preached, God the Holy Spirit brings Christ to us. The Apostle Paul makes an amazing throwaway comment in Ephesians 2, Ephesians 2, 17. He talks about how Christ came and preached in Ephesus. Now in his own body, Christ never went and preached to the church in Ephesus. But of course, every time the word is preached in Ephesus or anywhere, Christ comes and speaks. He comes and preaches by his Holy Spirit. Second means of grace, prayer. It follows, doesn't it? If certainty is a gift of God, then we must ask for it. God give me that certainty. Give us that certainty. That would be a wonderful prayer to pray for your church family. There will always be brothers and sisters who are struggling for join and confidence in the Lord, so we can approach the throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. Maybe it's a prayer of confession that is needed. When we're stuck in sin, when we stubbornly won't give it up, well the Lord lets that hurt our communion with him. Read about that in Psalm 32. You can feel like your bones are aching. And yeah, you can feel like heaven is brass. And God has made it feel like that to wake us up that he might bring us back to a healthy walk with him. Bible prayer, other Christians, Christian people. We are not meant to live the Christian life solo. The lone ranger is usually a dead ranger. Again and again, the Bible says things like this. There's just some verses from Hebrews. Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let's not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. But let us encourage one another all the more as you see the day approaching. We need Christian friends, don't we, to remind us of the gospel, to tell us what we know is true, but in part of our brain we have lost, to show us the Spirit's work in our own lives, to point out sin, to pray for us, to comfort us. Bible prayer, other Christians, gathered worship. Jesus comes to us in a special way when we meet for worship. Of all of the places where we might look, where he has promised to come and be, here it is. So the Lord Jesus says, For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. Matthew 18, 20. He's he's talking about the gathering of the church, actually, for the purpose of church discipline. He shows up. Or when we come to the Lord's Supper, it is just that, it is the Lord's Supper, and He is present at His meal. As we eat and drink, there is a participation, a communion in the body and blood of our Saviour. He comes to us by the Holy Spirit. Now the Lord is so kind, he knows what we are like, he knows our weaknesses. So he gives us himself in the Word, in the Bible, read and preached. But he also holds Jesus out to us in a different way in the sacraments, in baptism and the supper. I can't really explain how it works, I don't think anyone can. But truly, we take it on the Word of God and His authority that Jesus meets us at his table in the water of baptism, and we need it. Or what about when we read and sing the Psalms? There is actually a special promise attached to the Psalms. You could read about that in Colossians 3 16. When we read and sing the Psalms, all of them, all of the different bits, we are promised that the word of Christ will dwell in you richly. So there is a particular place where Christ has promised to be. That's why we do it. So when we think about gathered worship, it is such that if a non-believing person comes into the gathering on a Sunday morning, and if the Lord is merciful to that person, he or she might be brought to worship and to declare that God is truly among you. 1 Corinthians 14. And that is true. Think of it like this. Of course, God is everywhere and everywhere with the Christian, but there is something special about what we do here on the Lord's Day. Imagine for a moment that you are a servant in the king's palace, okay? You work there every day, you clean floors, you polish tables, and it is a joy because you love the king. Everything you do is for the king. And in a sense, everything is always done in the king's presence. But sometimes, on special occasions, the king comes into the room and he greets you, he embraces you, he sits down and eats and talks with you. And in though in those moments, yeah, your service of him takes on a different character, and you know his presence with you in a special way. It's not a perfect illustration, but we're encouraged to trust the Lord and to expect when Jesus says, I am among you. It's why we need to be in church, why we need to be in the gathering. You cannot maintain faith in Christ, a healthy communion with him without worshiping together each Lord's day. Last big point: examine your life. Holiness does matter. Holiness does matter. It is a sign of belonging to Jesus. Suppose that in your garden you have a mysterious tree. You have a hunch that it is a fruit tree of some kind, but you don't know what. Is it a banana tree or a strawberry tree or a pineapple tree? AI has failed you, it doesn't seem to know. So, passage of time. You wait for the year to roll on, you know, the leaves appear, and you wait for the fruit to appear, and then, oh yes, I thought it was a banana tree, and there are the bananas. Now, it is like that with a Christian. Every Christian has the spirit of Jesus living in them. They are a tree, and they will bear fruit, and that fruit is looking like Jesus' fruit. So you could suppose here as a Christian, oh yes, I thought so. I can see some gentleness and patience and kindness, whatever grace it might be. Now the Christian is not saved by our works, but no Christian is saved without works. And wherever the Holy Spirit blows, the works of the Spirit will show. We don't look for perfection, just progress. Nor is the Christian supposed to spend hours and hours in self-examination. But the scriptures do say things like 2 Corinthians 13, 5, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. And the New Testament's benchmark is not terrifying, it's actually very simple. One John gives us three simple tests: general obedience, not perfect, but am I trying to point my life Jesus' way? Second, do I love my brothers and sisters? Hugely important. Do I love the church? Third, do I confess that Jesus is the Son of God? Now, in my experience, often that kind of conversation best happens with a friend. Not just you on your own, but with a friend as you walk over the bridge of life. You have a trusted Christian friend, maybe a church elder who can help answer questions like, Am I different now I'm a Christian? Sometimes it's hard to say that of yourself, or am I different to the unregenerate state as described in the Bible? Can you observe growth in me? Well, as we finish, we've been thinking about the reality of doubt. It's a painful reality. Am I really a Christian? And the last thing I want to say is really just to point out the order in which we've approached things today. Sometimes the order in which you do things really matters. Some of us build IKEA furniture. You've probably built IKEA furniture. My instinct now, I get the instruction leaflet, I don't really care what it says. I start on page three, I start on page five, I think I know what I'm doing. Sometimes the order really, really matters. You can ask me about that wardrobe if you're interested. Think about the order. It matters that we first look at Christ. It matters that we go to the means of grace, those places where Christ has promised to show up. And then we look at our own lives. That order really matters. If we flip that around, we will get in trouble. If we start by looking at our lives, we'll be discouraged. So we want to start with Christ, and also we want to finish with Christ. Really, this is meant to be a circular loop, isn't it? We look at Christ, we use the means of grace, we look at, we look at ourselves as we walk with Christ, but then we rapidly turn our gaze back to the Lord Jesus. Our first look, our constant look, it must be to him and to his cross. So let's bow our heads. I'm gonna pray. Father in heaven, we do pray for eyes that constantly turn to Christ. We pray too for an instinct to turn one another's eyes to our Saviour also. We thank you that He is great and sufficient. We thank you that we need only a little faith. But we do pray for that gift of your Holy Spirit, whereby your children know and feel ever more intensely that we are yours. We pray that that would overflow in joy, in gladness, in service, and in bringing much glory to you, in whose name we pray. Amen.