Jeff Gelineau - Beyond the Book - Class 2 - Doubt

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:01

   Maybe it hasn’t happened to you, but many of us have come to doubt. Here are some of the thoughts that you shared with me from yesterday’s class. Thank you everybody. We had 22 people who were able to figure out a QR. That was really nice. Paul needed help, but otherwise we got it.

2. 0:22

   One person said doubt is the other side of the coin of faith. Both are necessary with certainty. You don’t need faith. Doubt is what shows the need for faith. Someone said my doubts come from expecting everyone to be nicely wrapped up in a parcel.

3. 0:42

   I’m actually going to talk about that today because it’s one of my issues. I’m also more apt to seek God when having doubts. Having the feeling of uncertainty before had me fearful of being alone, but I realized to stand alone before God made my faith my own. I realized I wasn’t truly alone. God was with me in my doubt.

4. 1:07

   Talking about thoughts and feelings of doubt has made me vulnerable. Try standing up here and doing it. But the insight and thoughts from others were the most memorable of moments from which I learned and I will cherish. I have learned to not see doubt as a bad thing. Doubt in our society is viewed as a weakness. Truth be known, we all have our doubts. Just admit it.

5. 1:33

   Talk to God about it. The doubt lane can merge onto the freeway of faith and a heartbeat. That’s almost like a bumper sticker right there. The doubt lane can merge under the freeway of faith and a heartbeat. When you when you come to doubt, you know, really honestly doubting what you were always so certain about is it’s probably the hardest thing you’ll, you know, one of the hardest things you’ll do.

6. 2:06

   Kelly and I always laugh about whether things are actually changing or whether we’re just getting older and realizing that things are changing. You know, it’s like, oh, wow, that’s kind of weird. And I don’t know which one it is, but it sure feels like lately there’s a trend in our community of people leaving the Christelphian faith and joining other churches. We’ve always had people leave in the past. We’re all been used to that.

7. 2:34

   But in my experience, it was typically someone who was just disconnected from the faith and they were just leaving the, you know, the religious life entirely. The you might say the cares of life cause them to drift away and and they weren’t involved in any other religious service. And today it seems to be more and more of our loved ones whose faith is strong, but they feel compelled to pursue their religious walk in a different community and and they and they leave the Chris elephants and join a different church.

8. 3:07

   Of all the catastrophes and calamities that can shipwreck your faith. It’s this continual assault of news of friends who are no longer fellowshipping with us, fellowshipping with us that’s really rocked my faith the most.

9. 3:25

   Everyone’s different, you know, you’re all on your own personal journey. You’re affected differently by different things. And it may not bother you, but it’s, it’s bothered me, My own wife, we, we, it doesn’t bother her as much as it bothers me. It’s AI understand that that’s it. We’re different and, and, and philosophically, like academically, emotionally, spiritually, I not emotionally, spiritually, I kind of agree.

10. 3:52

    I understand that, you know, I understand why some of my friends are no longer attending a Christophian meeting. And, and for some of them and some of the circumstances, I agree with it. I would have made the same call myself. I also understand that I miss them and and I’m not, I’m not like a, you know, overly social person. I’m what you call an extroverted introvert. So you see me performing and making a joke and you think I’m, you know, I’m an extrovert.

11. 4:24

    But really I kind of enjoy being alone, prefer just to be alone right now, actually, matter of fact. So it’s not, it’s not like I’m not like I’m really socially connected and I miss them in that sense. It’s just, and I, and then I start to wonder, Well, maybe it’s is it making me question my belief?

12. 4:43

    Like, why am I here? You know, Gee, that guy was pretty smart and he left. How come I’m still here? Something else might be affecting you and I don’t know what it is. But the point is that things come along in life that make you question, that make you feel less certain than used to be. Feeling something that we’ve been familiar with our whole life start to unravel is upsetting. It’s frightening, it’s unsettling, it’s disorienting. Maybe.

13. 5:24

    Maybe I’m not smart enough. Maybe I’ve been faking it for 22 years. Maybe I haven’t memorized enough Bible verses. Maybe I need to go to a Bible class more often. The assumption is when you start to feel doubt is that you are doing something wrong. You’re failing in some manner because it’s working for that guy and that guy and that guy. Why is it not working for me?

14. 5:51

    We’ve spent our entire lives thinking we can fix things. Especially guys you know, you think you can fix things, so of course you try to fix this. Our faith is broken. It needs to be fixed. I would submit that. There’s a different way to think about it. I would submit that doubt is not the enemy of faith.

15. 6:15

    Doubt might be uncomfortable, but don’t look at it as your enemy. I’m not going to say that doubt is good. I wouldn’t go that far, but I will definitely say that it can have a very good effect upon you. An explosion is a powerful thing, and explosions are not comfortable. They’re not enjoyable. You don’t look forward to ever being involved in an explosion. But if you have to move a mountain, there’s no better way than a stick of dynamite.

16. 6:59

    And that’s what doubt is. Doubt is powerful. It can have a powerful effect upon your life, upon your faith. It can push you to places that you wouldn’t have gone on your own. Doubt can force you to develop a deeper trust in God than you thought possible.

17. 7:21

    If you can’t be certain, then all you have left is trust. I want to be clear. Doubt is not something that you want in your life. Don’t go looking for doubt. Don’t push it and try to get it to arrive before it wants to. Doubt is sacred. Doubt is one of the tools that God uses to work in your life. Now, if you were a little bit more pliable and less of a jerk, he wouldn’t have to.

18. 7:55

    It’s not coincidental. There are tons of Bible characters who expressed doubt. I made a quick list and I’m not a very good, you know, student Adam, Eve, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, David, Elijah, John the Baptist, and this guy that we literally call doubting Thomas. God uses doubt to pull these people closer to him. God doesn’t get upset when you doubt. That’s the thing.

19. 8:22

    And that’s what you’re most scared about. You know, you don’t want to anger God and you’re most scared about you’re going to damage this relationship. If I started doubting my love for my wife, you know it wouldn’t last long. She wouldn’t put up with that, but God can. God likes to wrestle, and in my formative years, I was a wrestler.

20. 8:46

    I wrestled 126 lbs, by the way, which is quite amazing, I know. But you know, God likes it when you challenge him. He’s not afraid. The other day I heard a talk and it was a lovely talk and I love the brother. And he said we need to guard the truth. And I was reminded of what Saint Augustine said.

21. 9:09

    The truth is a roaring lion. It does not need to be defended. Let it loose. It will defend itself. And and it’s that way with God, like you can bring whatever you want to God because he’s God. He can handle it. You’re the one that’s going to get it a change, a, a, a feeling and emotion, a charge from that experience, not him.

22. 9:33

    You’re not going to come up with some good reason. And God say, oh, I never thought of that. Hell, yeah, I guess you’re right. You know, I mean, it’s not the way it works.

23. 9:46

    He knows that he can stand up to it, and He knows that if you work your way through it, you’re going to come out it on the other side much stronger and much better. And that’s the beauty of dealing with God. God is 100% at best. On my good days, I’m like 42%.

24. 10:05

    You know, God is 100 percent, 100% true, 100% real, 100% pure. Nothing in his life even comes close to comparing it. And God can stand up to your doubt. He can handle your toughest questions, your biggest concerns. That doesn’t mean it’s not scary. It feels like, Oh no, I thought I was a religious person. Now I’ve, I’ve, I’ve lost that

25. 10:35

    losing your religion. That’s what it feels like. And I’ve defined myself as a crystal and I’ve defined myself as a as a Christian. Is my best friend still going to like me if I’m no longer that? So doubt is scary. It feels like you’re abandoning God. In reality, what you’re abandoning is all those old ideas about God that you developed in Sunday school, you know, and you developed in, in just poor and weak understanding. And, and, and it’s now a tradition in your life. You’re leaving behind this, the ideas about God that you surrounded yourself with your entire life, that that you understood God, that you knew what he was like, that that God is like you, that God agrees with you. God is somehow within your own grasp. He’s within your own personal field of control and God most clearly and definitely exists outside of our field of control. And you know what happens quickly after that, you realize very few things exist inside your own field of control, especially your 11 year old son or your, you know, 3 year old granddaughter.

26. 11:56

    You know, it’s a God is not like us. You know, it’s reasonable for us to think that way because that’s the only way we can think. I only know how people think and that’s how I think. So I think God must think like that. That’s the lesson that I had to learn. And God can often teach you that lesson through times of doubt. I want to take a look at how Abraham and Sarah learned it because I just love their example. Abraham and Sarah were already old when God promised them He was going to make a great nation from them. A very clear understanding that even though you’re barren now, you’re going to have so many descendants you wouldn’t be able to count them.

27. 12:44

    The message right there would have taken some faith to hear, just just hearing it. But then they had to wait and wait and wait. Abraham was 75, Sarah was 65 when God confirmed that a son would be born to them 25 years later. They waited and they waited and they waited. Most people would get discouraged, I would think, after a year or two.

28. 13:17

    I know one of my sons had a He and his wife had a hard time having a baby and it took seven years and it was very hard on their faith. Try living your whole life, Baron. Then be miraculously promised a child and then not get pregnant for 25 more years. The strain on their face must have been incredible and we get a glimpse of that when we read about it in Genesis 17.

29. 13:48

    When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless. He was 99 years old and look what happens. And God said Abraham is for Syria your wife. You shall not call her name Syria, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless over bless her and over I will give you a son by her.

30. 14:09

    I will bless her and she shall become nations. Kings of people should come from her. And Abraham fell on his face and laughed. What is that in, in text Speak ROFL. Rolling on the floor laughing. Right. You know, like, literally this isn’t. This isn’t Yeah, this is just blown away, like falling on the floor laughing. And he said to himself, shall a child be born to a man who’s 100 years old?

31. 14:48

    It’s never happened in the history of the world. Shall Sarah, who’s 90 years old, bear a child? I mean, come on. I think it’s a very understandable response from someone who’s so old, has been waiting so long, and it’s never happened.

32. 15:08

    I can’t even, I can’t, I can’t imagine myself in that position. I’ve never waited 25 years for anything, you know? You know, if Amazon’s not here by 10:00 AM, I’m, you know, checking the app like what’s going on, you know?

33. 15:26

    And on top of it, God is like, physically standing there before you represented an Angel. You know, I mean, that I would have hopefully been on my best behavior when the Angel is standing there talking to me inside. I’m going, yeah, right, right. But at least I wouldn’t, you know, fall on the floor and start laughing.

34. 15:48

    And Sarah has the exact same response in the next chapter. The Lord said I will surely return to you about this time next year. And Sarah, your wife should have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. And we all know what happens, Abraham, we’re old. Everyone say we’re old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah years ago, had had a period in 10:15, 20-30 years.

35. 16:13

    So Sarah laughed herself. I always kind of thought Sarah was worse than Abraham in this until I looked at it closely. She didn’t even fall on the floor, like, you know, she just laughed to herself. After I’m worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure to wait so long for anything?

36. 16:28

    It’s just amazing to say nothing about something this important, this big in their life. I think they obviously would have given up on the idea of having children years ago. And then, you know, after menopause, it was completely over. And then God promises that it is going to happen. And they wait and they wait and they wait. Their doubts very, very real, very understandable, very palpable to actually laugh when God tells you something they had doubt played such a big part in their life. I think they had obviously learned a lot through that experience.

37. 17:04

    To have something that big in your life and then have it all change overnight and you’re bouncing a little baby look at each other like they believed it was going to happen and that’s what was counted to them for righteousness. No matter how crazy it sounds, no matter how implausible it seemed, they believe God. And that right there is the most encouraging thing to me. That faith is believing things that are implausible, things that sound crazy, things that you wouldn’t, you know, think could happen.

38. 17:39

    That’s what faith is. I’m sure they had doubt, but their faith was stronger. They they were able to work through it. Rather they allowed it to work through them. And we need to do the same thing. When doubt arrives in your life, don’t try to resist it. Don’t try to run from it.

39. 17:55

    Just patiently and honestly work through it. Trust is the key, right? Trusting that God is there, that he’s brought it for a reason and he wants something to happen through it and allow that to happen. Transformation takes time, so allow God to transform your heart and mind through whatever means possible. Faith grows when it’s tested and stretched and bent and twisted and hammered. That’s how faith grows.

40. 18:25

    It’s not that cute little picture of the water bucket and the flower and you know, making your faith grow. It’s it’s the complete opposite. Your faith grows when you’re grabbed and shook, like how Paul describes it. And he was 11. He said by faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.

41. 18:52

    Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born descendants, as many of the stars of heaven, as many as the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore. Notice how it says that through faith she received power to conceive. That’s what she’d been looking for. It’s something they were trying for. They hadn’t given up.

42. 19:14

    They were still trying to have a baby because they live by faith. What a goal to be that kind of a person, the kind of person that looks forward. I love David’s thought today about, you know, to build a bridge, you need to look forward. If you’re looking back, you’re not going to build any bridges in your life.

43. 19:33

    You need to look forward. Don’t focus on the failures and the downfalls of the past. Live by promise. We’re people of promise. Not dwelling on the years that your prayers were not answered, but living by hope. Trusting that God will do what He’s promised. Making daily decisions based on your trust in God.

44. 19:54

    Not worrying too much about the the facts that oppose God’s plan. Every single logical, reasonable thing you can think of is going to oppose this plan, but you have to have trust that it’s going to happen. Not concerned about their personal comfort or their ease. Look at the rest of Hebrews 11. You see this pattern in Abraham’s life. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he’s going to receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. And by faith, he went to live in the land of promises in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him with the same promise.

45. 20:33

    For he was looking forward to city as foundations, you know, uh, where he was living was a pretty nice place. ER was civilized and cultured. Archaeologists have shown that ER actually had running water and theaters and markets.

46. 20:54

    And God tells Abraham to pack it up and go camping for the indefinite future. How long we going to be gone? And how many pairs of underwear should I pack? It’s an indefinite future. He doesn’t tell him where he’s going to go, he doesn’t tell him how long he’s going to be gone, and Abraham goes. He does it.

47. 21:17

    What’s greater than that? He stays there once he gets there. Over 30 years, living in tents, he could have returned to Earth, but he was more concerned about what was before him, not what was behind him. That’s the attitude God is looking for. God wants people of promise. God wants people who live in hope, who live in faith, who look forward and not looking back. If your faith is based on trusting in God, whether or not you understand why he’s saying what he’s saying or doing what he’s doing, then your faith will stand strong because you’re trusting in something that is strong, stronger than you. You believe what he says.

48. 22:02

    I want to talk a bit about that word believe, more specifically belief with an F. We often talk about our beliefs, but I think that belief in the Bible is really talking about trust. So yesterday I was talking to a few people that I don’t like the, I don’t like the concept, the word of statement of faith, because it’s really a statement of what we teach. And, and you really I don’t even like saying it’s our beliefs because believe is about trust.

49. 22:40

    It’s not about teaching. And we use that word believe when we talk about our faith, like we talk about our, our, our doctrines and what do you believe in? I, I don’t believe that. Here’s what I believe, boy. And what you believe and I believe are quite different. You can be a member of my ecclesia if you believe like that. We tend to use the word belief in regard to a what? This is what I understand the Bible uses the word belief in regard to a who.

50. 23:12

    It’s. This is who I believe in, not academically, but having a belief in God. Not not having a belief that God exists, but believing God.

51. 23:26

    Believing should be a who word in your head, not not a what word. If you forget that, then you read into the Bible a tendency to put what at the center of of your beliefs and not who. It’s tricky, of course, because believing is never empty of content. The Israelites turn to God because of what he had done for them, but typically the Bible isn’t thinking about a what.

52. 23:53

    The Bible’s trusting in a who. Bible characters didn’t have as much preoccupation with what to believe as we do today. For US, religion faces intellectual challenges that weren’t on people’s minds thousands of years ago. Today it’s quite different. It seems that the predominant thought today, please, you know, including your comments, you what you think. But for me, it seems the predominant thought is the more you know, the harder it is to believe in God, that the the belief in God is for the the poor and the ignorant and the unlearned.

53. 24:32

    College students often find a resistance to believing in God. Any kind of higher education removes a higher power. We like to explain things in scientific rather than supernatural means, which makes it harder to believe that God actually exists. So when we see believe or belief in the Bible, we shouldn’t export our intellectualized meaning onto these Bible characters.

54. 24:59

    That’s why I think we replace these words with trust. You come close to understanding what the Bible is really getting at. It’s not about what we believe. It’s about who we believe in. It’s about who we trust. So let’s look at some examples. One of the first ones comes in my mind is the verse who quoted yesterday, Genesis 15.

55. 25:18

    Abraham believed the Lord and accounted him as righteousness. That’s not a what? It’s not that Abraham believed that God exists, right? Not that Abraham believed that God is omnipotent. Not that Abraham believed that God is not part of a Trinity. All those things are true. But that’s not the point. The verse isn’t trying to teach us that Abraham wasn’t an atheist.

56. 25:43

    The point of the verse is that this 90 year old barren couple was told by God they’re going to have a baby and they believed it. They trusted it. So if you read that verse, you know differently. Abraham trusted Lord, and he counted for righteousness. Believe in the Hebrew. Here is the word Amman.

57. 26:04

    It’s the verse that Dan quoted from Psalm 119, verse 66 this morning about trusting in God’s commandments. It’s Amman. The word has made its way into English. How do we finish our prayers? Amman. It’s a common word in the New Testament. They trusted the Lord. They trusted in Jesus. You might find the word believe, but what’s really important is that what they’re talking about is is trust. Here’s a good example.

58. 26:34

    In Mark 9, Jesus said if you can, all things are possible for the one who believes Immediately the father child cried out. I believe help my unbelief. What’s he talking about here that I understand a lot of these biblical principles, but I’m I’m missing a few. No, that’s not what he’s talking about. It’s not that the Father didn’t 100% believe that Jesus was the Son of God.

59. 26:57

    There wasn’t any question here about his, his academic doctrinal understanding. He wasn’t asking Jesus to help him understand better. He needs help trusting Jesus. So what he’s saying is I trust, help my, my lack of trust. I trust you. At least I’m trying to trust you. Help me to trust you more.

60. 27:18

    Now these words believe and trust are very close in their meaning, but I think it’s important, it’s been important for me to use the word trust instead of believe because it can’t be confused with a belief system, you know, a system of doctrines. It’s trust and trust can’t be confused with knowledge. The times the Bible uses the word believe, it’s not referring to a set of doctrines that you hold onto. It’s referring to the, the faith and the trust that you have in God and in Jesus.

61. 27:52

    Another example is in Luke 8. Remember Jairus, his daughters died and Jesus says, but Jesus on hearing this answered him, do not fear, only believe and she will be well. Well, he’s not asking Jairus to believe clause 22 or the clause 7, right. By the time Jairus gets there, Jesus gets there, she’s dead. It’s not a matter of how what you know at that point. It’s a matter of whether or not you trust that Jesus is able to raise her from the dead.

62. 28:28

    Knowledge is is vital. Jairus needed to understand that Jesus is able to raise her from the dead, but he had to trust that we have to know and understand important things in our life, important things in the Bible that the Bible teaches. And the only way we come to that knowledge is by reading the word of God.

63. 28:48

    But it’s not that knowledge that’s going to raise that little girl from the dead. It’s trust that Jesus can do it. Our faith-based on trust is what saves us. James captures it great. James says you believe that God is 1. You do. Well, even the demons believe and shudder believing that God is X or God is Y or God is the. It’s important and it’s crucial and our understanding of who the person is we’re worshiping and serving. But it’s so Even so easy that literally a trained monkey can do it.

64. 29:28

    There was a wives tale that I heard growing up and I used to laugh about. It was a cute little wives tale, old wives tale. The term is, you know, a tradition that we heard about growing up, and it taught a neat little lesson in Christadelphia. And then last week, I had dinner at Rocky Mountain Bible School with a brother who was there when it happened. And it wasn’t a wife’s tale.

65. 29:53

    It was really true. He was in Baltimore, Ecclesia. And one day six young men come walking in and they asked if they could have Bible classes. You know, we had one young man walk into our ecclesia want to have Bible classes. And we thought it was the best year we’ve ever had. You know, 6 young men from the nearby college all went to the same school. They came and they want to have Bible classes. And for three months they took Bible classes and they got examined and they got baptized and they passed the fraternity haze and were able to join their fraternity and they never saw them again.

66. 30:38

    A trained monkey can do it. Even the demons do can do it. Even the demons can understand that God is 1. Moving that belief from your head to your heart is the hard part. That’s something else entirely. That’s the part that you can’t lose sight of. When we talk about believing, it’s not about our beliefs, it’s about our trust. Knowledge is important to growing faith, but faith has to be based on trust for it to save us. Wilford used to tell me you’re going to fall 10 inches short of getting into the Kingdom.

67. 31:30

    When we say someone has faith, we run into a similar problem, I think is with belief. We might say, tell me about your faith. And the answer might be, well, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins and, and he’s not God himself, but he’s the Son of God and on and on and on. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Faith, like belief, includes content. It includes the what?

68. 31:55

    But you can’t stay on that level. If you do, you’re going to miss out on a lot. Typically when we see faith in the New Testament, it isn’t about the content of what to think, it’s about trusting in God and acting upon it. Faith is an active word. It’s not a, it’s not a a what word, right?

69. 32:15

    Faith is a, is a trust word. We just saw in the 2 examples with the with the parents, with the with the children, right? I believe, help my unbelief only believe and she will be saved. In both those verses. The Greek word there is pistos. Pistos means to have faith. He’s saying, you know, I believe I have faith. Help me with the part I’m I’m lacking on the part I’m doubting.

70. 32:42

    So when you see believe or faith the New Testament, it’s not talking about something that we believe about God or Jesus is talking about the sense of believing in God or Jesus that all in trust and God in Jesus. Faith describes a parent letting go of the fear for the child and handing that over to Jesus.

71. 33:06

    That’s hard to do. Faith is not easy. Faith is a tough word. Faith requires us to be faithful to each other. Galatians says for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything. They killed people over it, Paul himself killed people over it. And yet circumcision uncircumcision doesn’t count as anything, only faith working through love. Read faith in that verse as faithfulness and I think you better understand it in English right? You get faithfulness working through love. Faith isn’t just something between God and us. Faith is an action between each other. You want to be a faithful husband. You want to be a faithful brother, a faithful messenger, a faithful representative.

72. 34:05

    Faith is also described as something that God does. That’s a big clue. That is, it’s not talking about having faith, but being faithful. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the faith. How long you’ve been in the faith doesn’t matter. It matters how long have you been faithful? That’s what matters. It’s not about whether or not we believe in a statement of faith, it’s whether or not we are faithful people. Having faith is is believing in something, but being faithful is acting upon those beliefs.

73. 34:40

    Galatians 2 talks about faithfulness. It says. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of law, but through faith in Christ Jesus. Change that verse too. They’re justified not by works of law, but by faithfulness of Christ Jesus. Paul isn’t talking about what we’ve done. He’s talking about what Jesus did, how Jesus was faithful and to us and dying for us, and about how God is faithful to us and giving us His Son. And we need to be faithful as well, not just to God and to Jesus, but to each other in self sacrificing love. We need to act like God, be faithful like God is. Because in all this, being like God is the goal. Being faithful is the goal.

74. 35:32

    And everything we do becoming more like God should be our goal. We’re most like God not when we’re certain that we’re right. We’re most like God when we are faithful, when we trust in him, when we act toward one another like God would act. Humility, love and kindness our our our acts of faithfulness. That’s how we show it.

75. 36:09

    John tells us we’re like God if we act like him. He says no one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in US and His love is perfected in us. At the end of the day, love is the goal. At the end of the day, love is the goal. Having God abide in US is is much more than the belief systems that we hold onto, the doctrines we recite, or the statement of faith that we adhere to, no matter how important they are.

76. 36:40

    And they are important. But being obsessed with making sure that you have all your thoughts about God properly arranged and classified and defended and supported isn’t faith. It’s Bible study, trusting in God in the day-to-day and the experiences that happen to you in the good and the bad and in the terrible.

77. 37:08

    That’s faith. Living godly and showing love to those that we live around every day is faith. We all know that faith without without actions is dead right good. What good is it my brother’s? If someone says he has faith but does not have works, can faith save him? Her brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to him, go in peace, be warm, be filled without giving them the things they need for the body. What good is that?

78. 37:38

    So also faith by itself doesn’t have works, is dead. Some will say you have faith and I have work, show me your faith apart of your works. I’ll show my faith by my works. I think we miss out a lot on what the biblical writers are trying to get at if we think of belief and faith as correct thinking words. They are deep in meaningful words, even hard words, but they’re beautiful and they move us deeper into the presence of God.

79. 38:05

    Trust God no matter what is a common theme through the Bible. But I don’t have a verge to support that. I have, you know what, what, what is exactly to say? What’s the Hebrew? Is it 5472 or is it 5473? Which, which one is it? I have to understand that properly. No, you don’t.

80. 38:25

    You just trust God no matter what. Oh, but this argument over here says this and I read this book over here and I heard a podcast. So the guy was saying this. It doesn’t matter. Trust God no matter what. Whether you’re a 90 year old couple promised a baby, a captive looking to God for deliverance from a hellhole, or a parent and trusting your dying child to God, trust Him.

81. 39:04

    What you learn quite quickly in the Bible is that trusting God isn’t just for those times when you’re hunkered down in a foxhole with bullets flying over your head. Trusting God is for every single moment of your day.

82. 39:23

    I used to laugh at the modern day Christians in my neighborhood who would make comments about how you know God helped them find a good parking space for the they weren’t late for their dentist appointment. I don’t laugh anymore. I don’t know if that’s what God does, but that person was trusting God for everything. Trust God in every moment.

83. 39:50

    Trust in Lord with all your heart. Do not lean into your own understanding it. It won’t make sense to you is what he’s saying. Trust God with all your heart, even though it doesn’t make sense to you. In all your ways, acknowledge God. Realize that God is in control of your life, not you, not your best thinking, not your willpower, not your strength, but God.

84. 40:13

    In the Old Testament, the word heart. It’s not only use where your emotions reside, but it’s also the seed of your thoughts and your moral compass and your will. And he’s saying trust God with all of your heart. It means all of you, every part of you, what you feel, what you think, what you do, the complex, the important, the trivial. Trust God all the time.

85. 40:43

    Now, there’s going to be times when you doubt. That doesn’t mean you need to lose your trust in God when you doubt. Actually, those are times you really come to trust God the most.

86. 40:56

    Those times that David describes, that Solomon describes, and the Job describes, when you simply do not understand what is going on. What is God getting at? What could he possibly want? When you actually feel, because you’re looking at it from a human point of view, that’s the only thing we can do, you feel that God must have gotten this wrong. Clearly God has this wrong.

87. 41:18

    As you see with David and Solomon and Job, though, God doesn’t criticize us for having those moments of doubt. He, he welcomes them because He knows that once we eventually work through them, we’re going to be closer to Him. This is going to help our relationship in the long end. So doubt is important to the process.

88. 41:38

    Doubt means that you’re being honest with yourself. Doubt means you’re not letting your fear of letting go of certainty get in the way or rule your life. Really appreciate your thoughts yesterday so if you would like to share some before I read every one of them and I’m attaching them to my notes in case God forbid someone asked me to give this class again, I’d be able to improve it with what you what you give me. So this is some some thoughts for you to consider tonight if you can grab that.

89. 42:18

    I do want to close with a caveat and I’m the kind of person that hates caveats so but I feel it’s important for me to say this doubt has its place, but doubt is not for times of persecution.

90. 42:41

    I don’t want to get what I’m saying here confused with a different circumstance when where doubt is spoken of in the Bible because I think you’re going to come up to me afterwards with this verse and I want to, I want to hit this verse first. Doubt is is in moments of personal retrospection. It’s not for times when the barn is burning. It’s not for times when the Creek is rising. And that’s what James is talking about in James chapter 1. He says let him ask in faith with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that’s driven and tossed by the wind.

91. 43:16

    That person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He’s a double minded man, unstable in his all, all his ways. This is how doubt got a bad name. This is how doubt got a bad Rep. And I think what James is talking about, he’s talking about those times when things are an emergency. There are times when you need to hear. God will not abandon you when you’re struggling and trusting in Him.

92. 43:43

    Now there are times you need to hear. This is not the time to dwell on your struggles. Get up and get out of here. The barn is burning. Now. Parents are very familiar with the difference between these two times, right? You want your kids to grow, to learn, to stretch the boundaries of what they think they can achieve and to be a better person. But there’s also times when they’re in immediate danger and you bring out your parking lot voice, right? And that means business.

93. 44:13

    You have got to listen what I say. You know, there’s a car coming. Get out of the road. And there’s there’s times for, you know, Yeah, go ahead, experience that, you know, Sally, learn about that. Grow. Yeah, go ahead. You know, But no, there’s also times when it’s different. Sometimes you just have to trust God and move forward.

94. 44:34

    I was I was close to a sister with a terminal illness who said that God had been preparing her for the moment her entire life without her even knowing it. She’d been in all sorts of situations where she needed to let go of control and trust God. And then facing the biggest letting go moment of her life, all those years of training paid off.

95. 44:59

    She really felt she was ready to trust God in the hour of need. This really give those around you an account of of the hope that’s in you. It’s not a discussion of the Trinity, it’s not a discussion of heaven or hell. It’s someone seeing that you have a relationship with God that’s carrying through the most terrible days ever.

96. 45:29

    That’s what really changes people’s views correctly. But a faith that’s described in the Bible is based on trust rather than our trust in God, not ourselves, and a faithfulness to God by being humbly faithful to others.

97. 45:51

    You look pretty good, your shirts tucked in, your hair’s blow dried. You look like you have things under control. That’s the illusion we want to live under. When things are out of control is when God speaks to you. God allows things in your life to spin out of control so that you can learn to trust Him.

98. 46:19

    Trust is letting go and learning to lean on God. Not on your own intelligence, not on your own knowledge, not on your own willpower, your own personal strength. There is no shortcut. The only way out is through it.

99. 46:36

    When faith leaves no room for doubt, then all we have left is religion. You don’t want religion in your life, you want God in your life. Something that takes place in our lives along with all the other things in our lives. Doubt is God’s way of helping us not to go there, God’s way of teaching us what we need to learn.

100. 47:10

     Another way we’ll talk about tomorrow.