Video Transcript: The Benefit of Doubt - Dr. Chip Bennett
Who loves Jesus in here? Come on! How's everybody doing this evening? It's good to see everybody. Love all of you all. So there was a court case that had come into a local courtroom where a man had been accused of doing a very heinous crime. And as the court proceedings went on—see, here, there we go. Getting the... Hold on. Give me just a second here. The screen, there we go. We're good. So as the court proceedings went on, the attorney for the, for the one that had been accused started to think that his, his, his client was probably going to be found guilty. So towards the end of the trial, he walked over to the jury, and he said to the jury, he said, "Listen." He said, "You've heard a lot of information. You've heard a lot of things about my client, and you might be thinking that my client is guilty," he said, "but I want to let you know something." He said, "In less than a minute, through those court doors, is going to walk the man that actually committed the crime." Of course, the air went out of the courtroom. Everybody in the jury turned, looking towards the doors. A minute went by. A minute and a half went by. The attorney said, "Nobody's coming through those doors, but every single one of you on the jury, you looked because you had some doubt," he said, "and to convict my client, it has to be beyond a reasonable doubt, and you looked at the door, therefore you cannot convict my client." So the trial wrapped up, the jury went to deliberation. It was the fastest deliberation that any jury had ever had in the history of that courtroom. They delivered the verdict to the judge. The judge read the verdict. He said, "Guilty on all counts." Well, the attorney jumped up and said, "There's no way in the world that you can accuse him of being guilty. Every single one of you looked to the doors," and the spokesman for the jury stood up and he said, "Councilman, you're right. Every single one of us did look towards the doors, but your client didn't."
Why do I say that? Why do I talk about that? Because here's the reality. Everybody doubts. All of us. We know that we do, but here's just the real truth of it all, is that most of us just don't like to talk about it. We doubt a lot of things. We doubt family from time to time. Maybe we don't say anything about it, but we do. Not only do we doubt family, but we doubt friends. We wonder, are they really a friend? Is there a reason why they're my friend? Maybe we never say anything to them, but the bottom line is we know that we have doubt from time to time. We doubt our circumstances. Many people are doubting right now what's going on in our world, the circumstances that are upon us. We doubt. Every single one of us doubts. And here's the real reality for some of us, even as Christians and people who go to church, sometimes we even doubt God. But here is the stone-cold reality, the truth about doubt. Doubt makes us uncomfortable. See, we don't like to talk about it, because maybe you grew up in a family that said, "You know what this is." Maybe you were a Smith, or maybe you were a Jones, or maybe you were a Bennett, or whatever you were. And maybe your parents said to you, "We don't doubt in this family. We believe in ourselves. We pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, and this is what we do." And so doubt makes us feel uncomfortable. Maybe you grew up in a church where they said to you, "If you ever have any doubt, if you ever question anything, if you ever have any, any doubt at all, God's never going to do for you what he said he would do." Maybe some of you all watched self-help videos and read self-help books, and they said, "You got to be in it to win it. You can never doubt yourself." And so what happens is, is we live in a world, whether it's the church or the world. We live in a society that tells us, "Don't doubt," but every single one of us knows that we doubt. All of us do, and it makes us feel incredibly uncomfortable. And when we feel uncomfortable about things, when things bother us, we have coping mechanisms as people. It's just what we do. We find ways to inoculate ourselves. We find ways to insulate ourselves. We find ways to do things to keep us from feeling the uncomfortable feelings that we feel. And where's the place to talk about it? Where's the place to talk about it when you have no idea what's going on, when you have all kinds of doubt about maybe your relationships, maybe your family, maybe your faith, maybe whatever. Do you go to a small group and say, "Hey, let me tell you about all the doubt that I have," because everybody else would probably say, "No, no, no, don't doubt." Do you go to your family and say, "Hey, I'm really doubting what's going on here?" "Oh, don't doubt that." And so what happens is, is none of us feel like we can talk about it, and it makes us feel uncomfortable. So what do we do? Well, we learn ways to cope. And what we've done, and you can see it throughout society, and you can see it within the church. We have sold our souls to the myth of certainty. We got to be certain about everything. Never let anybody see you doubt, even though we do, be certain about whatever it is that you believe on this issue or this issue, even though you don't know the people, even though you don't know this situation. We don't even know our world. We have no idea what's underneath the ocean in the Marianas Trench. We have no idea about our world. This, this, this whole world is so much bigger. We just have ideas. We have thoughts. There's so many things that we don't know. But what we've done is we've sold our soul to be certain, and that the myth of certainty is simply a myth. There's so many things that we don't know. There's so many accusations that we make about people. There's so many accusations that we make about issues that we don't know. And we simply go and we type in our own stuff, and we go to our echo chambers, and whatever sort of feels, the thing we do, we go to that and whatever else. And what happens is, as we build this house of certainty, which is most definitely a house of cards, because all you have to do is kick one of the cards out from someone who is certain on an issue, and the whole thing comes cascading down. And because we're so certain about things, and because we have no place to doubt, no place to be uncertain, because in our world today, you got to be on one side or the other, and you got to be certain about it. And when you're so certain about it, what happens is rigidity sets in. You become rigid. We become rigid. We become very legalistic about the things that we believe. And so what happens is, we have to defend them. We have to argue about them. And what unfortunately happens, and listen to me very clearly here, we start to get our very life from this myth of certainty. And what happens is, is when somebody comes along and challenges something that you and I know, there's no way we could know for sure unless you know the people that you accuse of doing certain things, unless you've been in their shoes and you've been in their house and you've talked with them and you've discussed with them, you don't know, and I don't know, but yet what we do is we say that we are certain, and then what that does is it leads us to rigidity, because we're getting our life from this myth of certainty. And hear me as your pastor, I can tell you the one who gives life. He's the Nazarene carpenter that lived many years ago and went to a cross in Jerusalem and died on that cross and rose again on the third day. Christ is our life. He is the way, the truth, and the life, not all these things that we're trying to wrestle down. And what happens is, is when we buy into this myth that we have to be so certain, and then we get into our groups that we defend and argue and get our life from. You know what the outcome is of this? The outcome is a life of anxiety and paranoia. And if you don't think that's where we're at today, just hop on social media. If you don't think that's where we're at as a society today and as a church, you're just fooling yourself, and I'm fooling myself, because this is just the unfortunate part of not being able to deal with the very truth that every single one of us doubts. We all do, but certainty is overrated. Just for a moment, take this in. Jesus didn't say, "Here I come on the cross." He said, "Why have you forsaken me?" Mother Teresa in her diary after she died, her posthumous diary, it was discovered, here's what she wrote: "Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil his work and that our Lord may show himself, for there is such terrible darkness within
So over the next several weeks, what I want to try to do, and I hope you will come, and I hope you will participate, and I hope you will come hungry, and I hope you will come wanting to grow in your faith. Is I want to deal with this big overarching idea that just because we doubt doesn't mean we're out. Just because we doubt doesn't mean we're out with God. And I want to give you some biblical examples over the next several weeks of where doubt really is approached in Scripture, where people have some genuine uncertainty, and we live in a world of uncertainty, and the church needs to be speaking into the lives of its people to make sure that we're ready to go deal with the onslaught of the things that are going out there in the world. And I can assure you of one thing, the one thing that we don't need is the myth of certainty. What we need is to build everything that we have on the foundation of the person of Jesus Christ.
So let's, let's talk a little about doubt. If I were to mention to you John the Baptist, by the way, if you're new here, John the Baptist, he wasn't like a Baptist, as opposed to a Presbyterian or a Methodist. Okay, he, he was, he was a baptizer. Nothing against the Baptist church, either. This used to be a Baptist church, so it's cool. So all good. But John the Baptist was a baptizer. Let's talk about John the Baptist for a minute. I mean, if all the people in the world that you would think would get it right, wouldn't it be John the Baptist? I mean, this guy was pretty cool. Like he was born to a couple that shouldn't be having a child, Elizabeth and Zechariah, in a crazy way. Not only that, but he was the cousin of Jesus. I mean, come on, if you're going to have a family tree, being the cousin of Jesus is pretty good. Would you agree? Thumbs up, right? I mean, good stuff. Not only was John special, not, not only was John called of God, but he went away into the wilderness and sought God. He was a man of holiness. He's a man of faith. He's a man of passion. Spoke truth to power. Not only that, but John the Baptist was in the Jordan River when Jesus came to be baptized, and John recognized him. He said, "Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world." Not only that, but he got to see the Spirit like a dove descend upon Jesus. He got to hear the voice, "This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased." I mean, like if you were going to talk about like one of the greatest of all time, the GOAT, he's one of them. In fact, Jesus is going to tell us in Matthew 11 that there hasn't been anybody born among women up to this point greater than this guy. So he was the GOAT. He was the greatest of all time. I mean, this was a man that really did some incredible things for God, prepared the way for Jesus.
And so what happened was, is after Jesus came to the baptismal place, I'm sure John the Baptist got fired up. He said, "He's got to increase, I got to decrease." He said, "This man's going to do way more than I did. He's going to baptize you with the Spirit and with fire. He's going to really do some great things." So John probably got really bold. Jesus had come on the scene. God's going to do his thing. God's going to fulfill all the things that God said that He would do. He spoke truth to power. He. And it put him in jail. He would have been held at Machaerus, one of Herod's places. You know how you got fed at Machaerus? People didn't bring you food. You didn't eat. We're told in Matthew that this right here. We're told that when he, that's Jesus, heard John had been arrested. What do you think Jesus would have done? What do you think John would have thought, my cousin the Messiah, like, you know, come on, Jesus is going to show up, at least bring some food. I mean, he can do the food thing, you know, where food multiplies. Maybe he just, you know, yank him right out of prison and all of that stuff. What would you have thought? Should Jesus have gone and visited his cousin in prison? Of course, he would. I mean, he's Jesus. I mean, he would always do that. I mean, come on, it's Jesus. What happens? Says, when he heard Jesus, he, John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. He went north. He went to the beach. Surprised at that is your idea of Jesus, which you thought, "Oh, my goodness, he should have gone to prison and visited him." What type of ministry was that, Jesus? He goes to Galilee, around the Sea of Galilee, and he starts to do work, and John's in prison.
What happens? Well, a few chapters later, we meet up with John again. Says, when John heard in prison, because people would come and bring him food, tell him about what was going on. He wanted to know. He's like, "Hey, man, is Jesus out there? Man, is he? Is he taking over Rome? Is he doing? Is he doing what God's going to do? Is he? Is he turning everything back to right? Is he taking the oppressors and pushing them down?" But it says when he heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, sent his disciples out, he didn't like what he was hearing. Something wasn't right. This isn't positive. When he heard about the words of Christ that he went, yes, no, he heard what Jesus was doing, and it wasn't quite looking like what he thought it should look like. And he sent words by his disciples and listen to the question that he wanted to know. He said, "Are you the one that's to come, or shall we look for another?" This is the greatest of all time. This is a man of faith who says, "Jesus, I need to ask a question here, because you're not quite looking like what I thought. You're not quite measuring up to the way that I thought this thing would work." And listen, let me stop here for a second. Maybe some of you all can relate. Maybe you've been hurt by church. Maybe you've been hurt by God because somebody told you this is the way God was, and he didn't match up to that way. John's in prison. It's not going the way he thought. He says, "You need to ask Jesus. Are you?" This is the man who said, "Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." This is the man that saw the Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove. And what does he do? He says, "I need to know. Maybe I blew it here. A little uncertain, got a little bit of doubt, are you the one, or should I look for another?" See if it was me and you, we'd go out. You know, I can understand. This is John the Baptist. That's why these stories are here. These stories are here for you and me. They're here to read you and me. They're here to genuinely meet us where we are, which is people, they have a lot of uncertainty and a lot of doubt. What's interesting here is Jesus answered, and I don't know what you thought Jesus would have said, "Go tell John who needs to pray more. Go tell John he needs to get around to some people and do some more worship." Maybe you thought Jesus said, "Hey, you need to go read the latest self-help book off of the Jerusalem press." Maybe you thought Jesus would say, "You pick yourself up by the bootstraps, young man, get it together." He doesn't say that at all. It's interesting what he says. He says, "Go and tell John what you hear and see." Just go tell him what you hear and see. He says, "Here's what I want you to tell him. Tell him that the blind receive their sight. The lame are walking. The lepers are cleansed. The deaf hear and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them." And here's, here's the word, listen, here's, here's the word, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me. He says, "Go tell John what I'm doing. Tell him about me, because he's not going to find his faith and his certainty and all the other things. He's either going to find it in me or he's going to be offended by me." He says, "Go tell him that."
And then we're told. As they went away, Jesus turned to the crowds and he started speaking about John. They never heard it. His disciples went away. John never heard these words in prison. But Jesus says, "Let me tell you about John the Baptist. John the Baptist was the man. He was way more than a prophet. He was, he was a guy that God's hand was on." John never heard those words spoken over him. All he knew is he was doubting, and the word that he got was, "Amen. Look at Jesus. Look at what he does, look at who he is." And he said, "Blessed is the one that doesn't get offended in me."
What can we learn from that? Like, what can we, what can we take home from that? What can, what can we look at in this story that can change our lives as we begin the series? Well, first, when following Jesus isn't what we expect, we usually start to doubt. You may not want to talk about it. It may make you uncomfortable to talk about it. I get it, but that's the truth. I can be vulnerable. I can tell you how many times I've doubted. Can tell you how many times I've been uncertain. That's just this week. See, Chip shouldn't tell us those things. No, if we can't come in here and be vulnerable, if we can't come in here and be honest, what we will do is we will cling to our myths of certainty, rather than just being honest to say, "Hey, sometimes God doesn't work the way I want him to work." And you know what, I start questioning. Let me just give you some examples here. John expected Jesus would set the captives free, but he's in prison. John kept the law and remained holy, but Jesus eats and drinks with sinners. He heard about what Jesus doing? He said, "You need to go ask. Man, is this guy the one?" John fasted, but it appears to him, Jesus is a party waiting to happen.
See what happens is, is when God doesn't work the way we want him to work, or God doesn't do the things that maybe we thought he should do, we doubt, and we know that, and not only us here, but those who even are watching via the internet and the mobile app, we all know that. Where's the place that we can be honest and vulnerable, where's the place where we can share that? "Hey, sometimes I've got doubt," because this is the truth, folks, usually when God doesn't do what we want him to do, usually when it doesn't work the way that we thought it was supposed to work, we doubt, and that doubt can oftentimes take us to unbelief, but that doubt oftentimes can be something that moves us in a different way, because the second thing is to see doubtful times can be a setup for you and me to have genuine opportunities for faith. We're going to have to talk a lot about faith in the series. What is faith? What does it mean to have faith? Is there such a thing as big faith, or is it, is it not the quantity of your faith? Is it the quality of your faith? Can a mustard seed do it? What does it mean to have faith? See? What's interesting here is what Jesus says. He says, "Go and tell John what you hear and see." He, he doesn't, he doesn't tell him, "Go pray more. Go worship more." Which other things would be bad? But he says, "Go tell him what you hear and see." Because here's the reality, our faith doesn't come by convincing ourselves about situations, but by reflecting upon the words and deeds of Jesus. See when we just look at Jesus and we listen to what's Romans 10:17 say, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." When we look at Jesus, our faith is either built or faith is pushed away. Doubt gives you and me the opportunity to take a moment and reflect. I can't tell you how many times during this season, I've just had to go back and just look at the person of Jesus and say to God, "God, I don't understand. You don't work the way I want you to work. I can't ever get you to fit into my box. But I believe. God, I have a lot of uncertainty. I have a lot of doubt. I have a lot of questions, but rather than selling my soul to a house of cards to make myself feel certain, God, I'm willing to trust you, even when at times I'm uncertain," because here's just the reality, doubt can be a catalyst for you and me to focus on Jesus.
And the last thing I will tell you is this, when we're doubting, and this is important for somebody, Jesus is still for you and me. He's still for us. Because, see, it says, as they went away, he began to start speaking about John. And what did Jesus have? He had John's back. He said, "This is a great man." You know why that's there? That's there for you and me to read. Because oftentimes we may feel like that. We're in the situation where we don't know what to think or believe. And I'm saying this because I know there's nobody in here that cannot be, it's some place in their life during the week or over the last couple of weeks or over the last month that doesn't have some doubt and doesn't have some uncertainty. And rather than stand here and telling you, you need to pick up yourself by your bootstraps and you need to just push through or whatever else, I'm here to tell you that many of us need to just have a moment. Many of us need to rethink the way we do, what we do with God. Many of us need to be able to just be vulnerable. Say, "I hurt. I don't understand. I relate to this story, Chip. I relate because there's things that have gone on in my life that I just don't know." And I just want you. I want to say as your pastor, I want to give you some grace. I want you to know that you're loved. This story about Jesus saying how awesome John the Baptist is is written for you and me because he says the same thing about you and me as His children. "That's the one I died for. That's the one I love. I get it. Son, I get it, daughter, you don't understand. It's okay. You have some uncertainty. It's okay. Faith is not built on how well we perform. It's based on the person and the work of Jesus."
And so what I want to do this weekend, just to sort of get this started, because we're going to have to talk about a lot of things. We're going to talk about it that it's okay to wrestle with God. We've talked about what faith actually is. We need to be equipped for a world out there that's uncertain. What we don't need to be is people that are arrogant and rude telling everybody how they should view a certain issue. We need to be people that can point people to Jesus. Because let me tell you something. Jesus doesn't need our certainty. You know what he wants us to bring? He wants us to bring our brokenness. He wants us to bring you and me. You know the word confess in the original language means to speak the same thing when we confess our sins to the Lord. You ever done this where you go, "You know, Lord, you know, that thing that I did," rather than actually calling it for what it was, ever done that one? I've done it. See, Jesus wants us to just be honest, to say the same thing. What I want to do this weekend is I want to give everybody an opportunity, even those watching via the internet and the mobile app, is to just take a moment here and say, "Jesus, here, whatever this is, is my area of doubt, because probably all have them. Lord, here's my area." And right now what I want to do, Lord, is I want to bring them. I want to bring it to you. I want to bring you my doubt. I want to bring to you my uncertainty. And Lord, what I know is that I may not have a moment where I pray and I seek you, and all of a sudden I have everything the way that I want it. But I don't have to have all the answers. What I have to have is you. I need you, Jesus. And I'm going to tell you something, if the church in America can get back, back to the place where Jesus is enough. Not all the other entrapments, not all the other things that we fight about, not all the other stuff. If we can keep Jesus focused, if we can keep Jesus focused, if we can keep him the main thing, let me tell you something, if we can lift up Jesus in our lives, if we can put Him first, not only will we see a change in our lives, but we will see a change in the surroundings, in the community around us. And I'm just, I'm just going to give everybody a moment. I have mine. I have plenty of doubts. Just want to give us a moment here to just be honest and vulnerable. We're living in a tough time, a challenging time, and sometimes what we need is just a place to be able to say, "God, here it is." What's your area of doubt? Would you just take a moment right now? And would you just, would you just where you're at? Just, just take a moment and make that a sacred space, at your, at your chair, and just have an honest conversation with Jesus right now. "Here's my doubt." God, remember when, 15 years ago, and I was at that place, and this happened to me, and I suppressed it, and I didn't want anybody to know about it, but God, I, I don't know how to even understand that. I don't even know what to do with that. I've had so much doubt, God, and I'm bringing it to you. I'm bringing it to you because I don't know where else to, to take it, and I've been trying to hold it in and stand strong and smile and never let anybody see me sweat. But Lord, I got hurt. God, that church experience that I had, that marriage that I had, that financial collapse that I had, that business that I started, that I lost, the person that I love that passed away. God, I just sort of shoved it down because everybody told me that I can't doubt and I need to just pick myself up by the bootstraps. But Lord, if John the Baptist can doubt and you can speak over him and say that he is a great man, then Lord, I can come to you right now and say, "God, I doubt. I have some real questions. I have some real struggles, and God, I need you to meet me right here in this sanctuary on Saturday night. I need to start a conversation with you, Father." I pray right now in the name of Jesus for everyone here. I pray for those that are watching via the internet, the mobile app, home stream, Father, I pray in Jesus' name, that you would start to do a work in our hearts. Lord, help Grace Community Church be a church that can be vulnerable, that can be honest, that can say there's some areas of uncertainty and not be punished for it, that we can just be authentic and real, because we all doubt, every single one of us, and God, we bring that to you, and we ask that you would help us in our doubt, not to take that doubt and allow it to be unbelief, but to take that doubt as a catalyst, to look once again at who you are and what you've done, and to draw faith from that, not the answers, but from Jesus. Lord, let that be your reality for everyone that is here.
And if you're here tonight, and maybe you feel far from God, maybe you feel like you've never had a relationship with God. Maybe you felt like you had a relationship with God a long time ago, but you've suppressed some things. Would you just take a moment right now? And would you say, "God, I've been trying to do life my way, but Lord, I need to do it your way. I believe that you died on the cross for me. I believe that you, that you took all of my punishment, all of my sin, so that I could be forgiven. And I believe that you rose again on the third day, which means I can have eternal life. And I believe one day you're going to return and you're going to set everything back to right." Would you just take a moment and pray that prayer and let us know if you do? Father, I thank you for everybody here. I thank you for what you're doing in this church. And I pray, God, that over the next several weeks that we can become sensitive and vulnerable to our own doubts. And I pray, Lord, that we can allow those doubts to be used for your glory and for your honor.
Last modified: Tuesday, February 4, 2025, 7:11 AM