جارٍ تحميل الأرشيف الحي.
Part 7 of 8
Honest to God
واصِل الاستكشاف
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Before diving into today's teaching, I want to celebrate what happened at Lakepointe last weekend. What you celebrate, you cultivate—and what you fail to celebrate will eventually leave your life and ministry.
Here are the numbers: 43,398 people gathered in-person across our buildings. When you add our digital family, the total attendance reached 71,883 people worshiping Jesus with us.
But here's the number that matters most to me: 3,174 people indicated a first-time decision to follow Christ. These are people who gave us their data—not just a raised hand, but a genuine commitment. In one weekend, we experienced something like the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, when 3,000 were saved. We just had a Pentecost.
If you were one of those 3,174 people, listen carefully. Jesus said that if anybody will follow him, they must be willing to take up their cross daily and follow him. The first step as a disciple is baptism—a visible representation of the invisible reality of being cleansed and washed of sin by the blood of Christ.
Here's something I need to say gently but with an edge: If you won't follow him into water, I promise you won't follow him to a cross.
Next weekend is baptism weekend at Lakepointe. We're going to baptize hundreds of people across all our campuses—all in one weekend. If you've crossed the line of faith or have never been baptized after giving your life to Christ, text the word "life" to 20411 right now. Don't worry about embarrassment; thousands of people will be cheering for you. You're on our team.
We're starting a new series this week called Honest to God. Here's what it is: we're preaching verse by verse through encounters people have with Jesus where they're struggling with things everybody experiences but nobody wants to talk about—doubt, addiction, condemnation, shame, and sexual brokenness.
Here's what happens: the moment someone gets honest with God and brings their struggle to Jesus, He breaks that thing off them, sets them free, and breaks the power of sin. So each week, you'll see exactly how that works.
I want to start with a story from Lee Strobel's book Case for Faith. Strobel was an agnostic Chicago Tribune journalist who set out to disprove Christianity. Through his research, he became convinced of the resurrection, gave his life to Christ, and is now a pastor.
At the beginning of his book, he tells the story of two men as a contrast.
Both men were saved in 1936 and professed faith that same year. By 1945, they were the two most prominent preachers and evangelists in the United States. Charles Templeton (on the left) and Billy Graham (on the right) were both young, gifted preachers. Both were preaching to huge crowds and leading thousands to Jesus. Many predicted that Templeton, not Graham, would have the more illustrious preaching career.
Shortly after that picture was taken, Templeton began experiencing what he called gnawing doubts about the truth of his faith. He struggled particularly with three things:
In the midst of his doubts, Templeton and Billy Graham were very good friends. Templeton tried to pull Graham into his skepticism, actually causing a crisis of faith in Graham's life.
From that moment on, their lives took different paths.
Billy Graham went on to become the most prolific evangelist in human history, preaching to an estimated 2 billion people and leading over 2 million to Christ.
Charles Templeton eventually renounced his faith altogether, resigned from ministry, moved to Canada, and became a commentator and novelist. In 2001, he wrote a book titled Saying Farewell to God.
Lee Strobel interviewed an 83-year-old Templeton for the book. He wrote: "Today, Templeton's faith repeatedly punctured by persistent and obstinate doubts has leaked away." And then he added: "Maybe forever." Put a pin in that—I'm coming back to it.
The Bible is clear: everyone, everywhere will at some point walk through the valley of the shadow of death. But what people don't talk about quite as often is this: At some point in your life as a Christian, you will probably walk through the valley of the shadow of doubt.
My job in this sermon is to tell you what to do when you get to that moment.
Something is happening right under your nose that people are only now becoming aware of. In our culture, doubt is on the decline.
When I was in high school in the late 1980s and 1990s, we would see charts and graphs every year showing faith in Jesus going down, down, down. They would project the data out and say, "If this trend continues, we will see the collapse of faith in America by [year]."
But something is happening right now—for the first time in 70 years, faith in Jesus is surging in our nation.
I'm going to waterboard you with data and headlines. Here's what the current research shows:
USA Today: "Not just Easter, Gen Z is returning to Christianity. Data proves it." For the first time in 50–70 years, faith is on the upswing, particularly in the youngest generation.
"Gen Z is half as likely as their parents to identify as atheists." People under 25 are the least likely group in America to call themselves atheist.
YugOv Study: "No sex, no booze, we're off to church. Gen Z have found God." What's particularly interesting: young men are moving toward faith and the church more than before. We've always had more women than men in church, but this shift is significant.
The Quiet Revival: "Gen Z leads rise in church attendance in England and Wales." Church decline has not only stopped—the church is growing. Gen Z is leading an exciting turnaround in church attendance.
France: Record number of adult baptisms shows a 45% increase from 2024—the highest numbers ever recorded since the survey began over 20 years ago. Young adults now constitute the largest segment of converts.
Wall Street Journal: "Sales of Bibles are booming." A 22% year-over-year jump in Bible sales, fueled by first-time buyers and new versions. Publishers attribute this to rising anxiety and a generation searching for hope.
Barna Research: "Belief in Jesus reaches a decade high level."
Team Jesus is winning, y'all. I read the end of the book and we win. You're on a winning team right now.
Where's Gen Z? All you under 30, where you at? Look around. Way to go, Gen Z.
For the last 10 years, everybody's been making fun of your generation: "Lazy, LGBT, TikTok, anxious, porn addicts. You're good for nothing." No. Here's what my Bible says about you:
"You shall be called the repairers of the breach and the restorers of the streets to dwell in."
You're going to do things our generation didn't. God's using you right now. We're behind you.
And here's something else: people have been shouting at me as a Christian for 20 years: "Stand on the right side of history." Here's how you stand on the right side of history: Be on the same side as the one who died to redeem history and is going to end history by returning to judge the living and the dead.
Now we're going back to something more serious. Doubt is inevitable.
Let me read from John 20. The passage introduces Thomas, one of the 12, called Didymus (a Greek word meaning he was almost certainly an identical twin).
But here's what bothers me: Thomas got the short end of the stick on nicknames. We all know this. What's his nickname? Doubting Thomas. But this guy literally had one moment of doubt in his entire life, and we define him by it.
Don't define people by their worst moments.
Peter cursed Jesus on the night he was betrayed. We don't call him Profanity Peter. Don't define people by their worst moments.
Church history tells us what happened to Thomas after he came back to vibrant faith in Jesus. He walked from Jerusalem to India—the first person to take the gospel to India. There's still today a Christian community named after Thomas, the spiritual descendants of his work planting churches. Church history tells us he was martyred for his faith, killed for converting the wife of a king and refusing to bow to a pagan god.
How about we call him Courageous Thomas? Bold Thomas? Faithful Thomas?
Poor guy either gets "Doubting Thomas" or "T. Diddy." This man cannot win.
Look at what happened: He was not with the disciples when Jesus came. The other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But Thomas said to them:
"Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I'll never believe."
Thomas was not present when the other disciples encountered the risen Jesus. When they told him, "We have seen the Lord," Thomas responded with his famous condition:
"Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I'll never believe."
Thomas had heard the sermons, witnessed the miracles, and even participated in them with his own hands. When Jesus fed the 5,000, Thomas literally held the bread. He was an eyewitness to everything. Yet when the other disciples told him Jesus was alive, he still doubted. This teaches us something crucial: doubt is inevitable.
The New Testament is remarkably honest about the doubts of Jesus's followers. John the Baptist, filled with the Holy Spirit from birth, knew Jesus was the Messiah. He boldly confronted King Herod about his wickedness. Yet when imprisoned and awaiting execution, John sent disciples to ask Jesus:
"Are you the one who is to come? Or should we have been looking for another?"
He was doubting the very message he had preached his entire life.
Even after the resurrection, when the eleven disciples saw Jesus on a mountain and watched him ascend into the clouds, Matthew's account records:
"When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted."
They literally just witnessed the resurrection and the ascension, yet some were still uncertain.
Both Thomas and John the Baptist experienced their acute doubts during extreme emotional trauma. Thomas had just witnessed the crucifixion. John was imprisoned, awaiting execution. There's a pattern here worth noting: we often struggle with doubt when we're in our worst emotional situations—when we're most depressed, most traumatized, or most relationally wounded.
Here's a critical insight: human nature means you don't see things as they are; you see things as you are. When you're at the grocery store hungry, even strange snacks look appealing. Our emotional state distorts our perception.
As a pastor, I've seen people make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions. They walk away from faith when they're seeing things least clearly and have the most distorted vision. This is dangerous ground.
Don't make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. Don't doubt in the dark what you saw clearly in the light.
Here's what I want to get down in your spirit: if you have a lot of doubts, you're going to make a great disciple, because the disciples had a lot of doubts. The question isn't whether you have doubts—it's what you do with them.
The disciples had questions. They had things that didn't make sense. They carried confusion and uncertainty. But here's what they did with it: they started following Jesus anyway.
Think of it this way: if God is the size of the Pacific Ocean and your mind is the size of a Capri Sun, there are some things you should expect not to fit. Some things won't make sense. But the disciples didn't wait for perfect understanding before following. They carried their doubts and followed the man who walked out of the grave.
Jesus appeared to Thomas eight days later, walking through locked doors:
"Peace be with you... Thomas, put your finger here. See my hands. Put out your hand. Place it in my side. Don't disbelieve, believe."
Thomas moved from doubt to faith, declaring: "My Lord and my God."
Notice something critical: Thomas didn't get his questions answered. He didn't suddenly understand why Jesus died or why he felt abandoned. But the word translated "believe" or "faith" is the Greek word pistis, which means to trust—not to understand.
The Bible speaks of "a peace that surpasses all understanding." This means something profound: in order to have peace, you have to give up your right to understand. You can trust without understanding.
Thomas was essentially saying: "I don't understand why you died. I don't understand why it felt like you abandoned us. I don't understand some things. But I don't understand, and I trust you. I don't understand yet, but I trust you."
Eight years ago, I went skydiving for the first time. At 12,000 feet, the moment was awesome—I was flying, the view was incredible. But then came the jump itself.
In that moment, I'm 90% sure I didn't say a cuss word, but 100% sure I thought one. In that moment, did I have fears, questions, and doubts about my decision? Absolutely. But I still jumped.
Here's the key: faith is not the absence of questions. Faith is the presence of trust in the midst of your fears, doubts, and questions.
The Bible says Satan oversees a dominion of darkness. But if we walk in the light as Jesus is in the light, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all our sins. Here's the crucial truth: don't try to fight the devil in the dark. In darkness, you'll always lose because darkness is his dominion.
Satan wants you to keep your doubts, questions, and shame locked up in private darkness—isolated, hidden, processed alone. That's where he can ground and pound you with condemnation, shame, and feelings of disqualification.
But Jesus is in the light. Here's what you do with your doubts: find believers who have faith, who have intimacy with Jesus, who love you, and who have conviction and courage. Then you drag whatever you're struggling with—your doubts, questions, failures, shame—out into the light with those other believers.
Once you bring it into the light, that's where Jesus is. And that's where he reigns victorious over it.
Notice the gentleness of Jesus with Thomas. He didn't rebuke him harshly. He met Thomas's doubt with tenderness and mercy:
"Thomas, put your finger here. See my hands. Put out your hand. Place it in my side."
Some might say, "Well, Jesus did that for Thomas. He's not doing that for me." But consider this: yes, you have received a demonstration.
Romans 1 teaches something profound and challenging:
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men... What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world."
God has made it clear to everyone in creation itself that there is a creator. No civilization, society, or tribe has ever been discovered without some belief in God, the supernatural, or the divine. Why? Because creation implies a creator, and God has made that very clear.
"So they are without excuse."
No one will stand before Jesus in final judgment and say, "You didn't give me enough evidence." Everything around us declares God's glory.
If you're someone who says, "I struggle to believe," consider this:
The Fine-Tuning of the Universe: Scientist Sir Roger Penrose calculated the likelihood of the universe having such precise design—10 billion to the 123rd power. That's incomprehensible. And it's the exact precision needed for life.
The Expansion Rate: Physicist Stephen Hawking noted that if the expansion rate of the universe at the Big Bang had been different by even one hundred-thousandth of one percent, the universe would have collapsed.
Your Own Existence: The genetic odds of you existing as a human were 400 trillion to one. You are not an accident.
DNA: In 1944, scientists discovered that underneath genetic existence is a complex language called DNA. If one person's DNA were unraveled end to end, it would stretch to Pluto and back. A language exists underneath who you are. Who wrote that language?
The Nature of Explosions: You say you struggle to believe in a creator, but have you ever seen a massive explosion produce design and order? Every explosion I've ever seen led to destruction and chaos—not design and order.
The Bible's Historical Reliability: The New Testament is the most attested document in human history with over 6,000 surviving manuscripts dating within years or decades of the original writing. Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and Caesar combined have only a few hundred manuscripts, with the earliest more than 500 years after the originals. Yet we trust those ancient figures without question.
Prophecy: There are over 2,000 fulfilled prophecies from the Old and New Testaments.
The Paradox: You believe in the virgin birth of the universe—that everything came from nothing and no one—without problem. Yet you struggle with the virgin birth of Christ?
You look at the world and ask, "Why is there so much suffering? People are starving, oppressed, hungry, and broken. Where is God?" Among many things that could be said, I would turn that question around: God is looking at us and asking, "Where are you?"
You say you struggle to trust the Bible because there are ancient texts, but consider this: Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and Caesar combined have only a few hundred surviving manuscripts, with the earliest more than 500 years after their original writing. Yet the New Testament is the most attested document in human history with over 6,000 surviving manuscripts dating within years or decades of its writing.
Why do you trust that Caesar, Homer, and Plato existed when there are exponentially fewer historical records about them than about Jesus?
You say you struggle to believe in the virgin birth of Christ, yet you believe in the virgin birth of the universe—that everything came from nothing and no one—without hesitation. You say the Bible isn't reliable, but there are over 2,000 fulfilled prophecies from the Old and New Testaments confirmed in history.
You look at the world and ask, "Why is there so much suffering? People are starving, oppressed, hungry, and broken. Where is God?" Among many other things I could say, I would turn that question around: God is looking at us and saying, "Where are you?"
"I made you in my image. I set my love upon you. I gave you my resources. Where are you? Feeding the hungry, healing the broken, helping the hurting. Where are you?"
You say, "Why doesn't God come down and show himself so that we could believe?" My answer is this: he already did, and we killed him. He already did, and we killed him. And if he came again, we would kill him again.
Because the cross proved two things forever and all time. The cross simultaneously proved that man hated God enough to kill him. And it proved that God loved man enough to die for him. That's what the cross proved.
Charles Templeton was a man who walked away from faith and spent decades attacking Christianity. Lee Strobel interviewed him when he was 83, just two years before his death. What happened in that interview is striking.
When Strobel asked, "How do you assess this Jesus?" something changed. Templeton's body language softened. It was as if he suddenly felt relaxed and comfortable talking about an old and dear friend. His sharp, insistent edge gave way to a melancholy and reflective tone. He spoke unhurriedly, almost nostalgically, carefully choosing his words.
He began, "Jesus was the greatest human being who ever lived. He was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique. He was the intrinsically wisest person that I've ever encountered in my life or in my readings. His commitment was total and it led to his own death, much to the detriment of this world. What could one say about him except this was a form of greatness."
Strobel said, "You sound like you really care about him." Templeton replied, "Well, yes, he is the most important thing in my life." He paused, searching for words. "I know it may sound strange, but I have to say, I adore him."
"Everything good I know. Everything decent I know. Everything pure I know. I learned from Jesus. Yes, and tough. Just look at Jesus. He castigated people. He was angry. People don't think of him that way, but they don't read their Bibles. He had a righteous anger. He cared for the oppressed and the exploited. There's no question. He had the highest moral standard, the least duplicity, the greatest compassion of any human being in history."
Templeton continued, "There have been many other wonderful people. But Jesus is—" He paused slowly. "He's the most. In my view, he is the most important human being who has ever existed."
And then Templeton uttered words no one expected from him. His voice cracked as he said: "I miss him. I miss him." Tears flooded his eyes. He turned his head downward, raising his left hand to shield his face. His shoulders bobbed as he wept.
I don't know, and you don't know, and Lee Strobel doesn't know if Charles Templeton ever came home to Christ. But I know you can. If you have walked away from Jesus for many years and are sensing the love of the Father saying, "It's time to come home," you can respond right now.
If you're going, "Man, I've got some unanswered questions, but right now I know it's time to come home," here's how you can pray: "God, I don't understand everything, and there's some questions I can't answer, but you're right, and I know I'm a sinner, and I have lived for other things besides you first. I don't know why, but I believe that you died for my sins. I believe that because you love me, the cross counted for me. And I believe that you rose from the dead and that you live to give life to anybody who would call on your name. I don't understand everything yet, but from this day forward, as best as I know how, I will live for you first. Today, I receive the free gift of forgiveness of sins, apart from anything I've ever done. No matter how long I've walked away and how much I've rebelled against you, just as a free gift. Thank you for adopting me as a son or a daughter."
No matter how far we run from God, he will run farther to bring us back. No matter how long we resist him, he will redeem us. The second we take a step back toward home, God is on the porch staring at the horizon, waiting for our silhouette, ready to come running to welcome us back in.
