Doubt To Faith
By the time I was fourteen I had convinced myself there was no God. I’ve told this story many times. Then I was looking up at the stars one night and suddenly couldn’t believe the universe with all its complexities and interconnectedness just happened on its own in a series of random changes and adaptations. It was like, in an instant, the whole thing looked like an infinitely expanding Lego set—someone made the Legos and put it together.
So I started believing in God. Didn’t know who He was. Didn’t know if He was good—kinda seemed like a jerk, actually. Death and sorrow and pain and murder. Here kid, have an icecream cone, then He knocks it out of your hand, hands you a balloon then immediately pops it.
But I started believing in the existence of God. I also suspected that He was good, despite the circumstantial evidence to the contrary.
And I wanted to share my observation—my epiphany—with other people. But I couldn’t find anyone who was even slightly interested.
I’d say, “Dude! The stars! The atoms in your body! It’s all so purposeful, the design, it couldn’t have just happened! There has to be a Creator God behind it all! Legos!”
They’d stand there blinking at me in Morse Code. “That’s nice, Frank. Have you been taking your meds?”
It was a miracle that God shattered my materialistic presuppositions by giving me a little glimpse behind the heavens to see His fingerprints on everything. That same night I opened a Bible and read the first verse I saw,
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”
Psalm 19.
That was the second miracle of the night because that’s what had just happened to me. The night sky, the heavens, spoke to me and said, “God made this.” And then it was like, “I see you down there looking up here trying not to believe in me.” So when I opened the Bible to a random chapter it was like He was saying, “You need to read the rest of this Book and find out who I am.”
That’s how it happened for me. The stars led me to the Bible which told me about Jesus—and I was all in. Have been ever since.
And all I’ve ever wanted to do is help other people have that same experience. Have their presuppositions shattered so they could go from doubting God’s existence to believing. All those preconceived ideas and opinions and baggage we’ve picked up along the way—what we think we know about the world. All the lies we believe without questioning them. All the truth that we’re blind to.
So I tend to be a little provocative in my approach of telling people about Jesus. I want to make people think—maybe they’ll look harder and catch a glimpse of God’s fingerprints on the Legos.
I know it doesn’t work that way for everyone. How did it happen for you? How did you come to believe in God? How did you find out His name is Jesus?
Today I want us to take a deep dive into doubt and faith. Why do we believe in the existence of God? Why do we trust the Bible? What does it say about Jesus? And what does this mean for all of us?
I hope you take some notes. Write down some questions. The reason we’re doing this is so we have something to fall back on when we have doubts—to gain some confidence so we can share our faith with other people.
Why do you believe in God?
Some people say they believe in God because they’ve had a personal experience with Him. But that’s hard for unbelievers to hear. It’s too subjective. Their response is just going to be, “whatever works for you.” Or they just won’t believe us. Like when we say that new vegetarian cheeseburger tastes better than the real thing. Sure it does. When you tell people the reason you believe in God is because you feel Him or the peace He gives you, unless they’re a close friend who trusts you, you might as well be telling them about how nice it was that time you were abducted by flying saucer. At least then you’re not making them feel like they have to believe you because you have Jesus to back up your story and if they don’t they're going to hell.
Personal experience is awesome—I hope all of us have personal experiences with God. Like Mary Magdalene says about Jesus in The Chosen, ““I was one way, and now I am completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Him.” Personal testimony about what God has done for us in our life is the best way to share our faith with people who know us but it can be easily dismissed by those who don’t.
Some people try to share their faith by jumping straight to miracles. As if the thing that’s going to convince a person who doesn’t believe in God is an unbelievable story presented without any evidence. Especially when you don’t have any real relationship with the person. Why should they believe you or trust you?
I’ve heard people try to prove God exists by saying something like, “One time I was supposed to be on a flight but I had a flat tire and missed it—that plane crashed and everyone died! It was clearly God looking out for me!”
What about all the people who died on the plane? Why wasn’t He looking out for them?
You think you’re sharing a powerful story about God doing a miracle in your life but what they hear is something like, “One time I went to make a bologna and cheese sandwich but I was out of bread. I said, “Now what am I going to eat for lunch?!” Suddenly I remembered the bread had been left on the table. If that’s not a miracle I don’t know what is.”
And they think, “That’s true. I believe you don’t know what is.”
Even my argument that God exists based on the complexity of creation doesn’t do anything for some people. I had a friend one time who said, “I might contemplate infinity when I reach for a glass of water but I don’t think infinity ever contemplates me.”
The theologians and philosophers have come up with all kinds of reasons to believe in the existence of God, see if any of these resonate with you:
Contingency - Everything had to come from something so there must be an ultimate cause, which is God.
Morality - Since there’s pretty much a standard moral code that transcends human societies, there must be a divine standard for that morality, which is God.
Consciousness - The unique phenomenon of being alive and aware of existence must have come from an intelligent being, which is God.
Religion - Since every culture worships something and many people claim to have religious experiences, there must be a spiritual reality behind all this, which points to God.
Pascal’s wager - It’s just a better bet to believe in God than to not believe. If I bet my life on Jesus I can’t lose—if He’s real then I have a hopeful life and go to heaven when I die, if He’s not I’ll never know. I lose nothing. But if I bet on there not being a God, I live a meaningless, dreary life until I die and then hell. I lose everything.
There are other reasons. Why do you believe in God?
The Bible says every person is born with the knowledge that God exists. They might suppress it, they might even kill it, but the Bible says at one time they knew. Romans 1:19 echoes the Psalm I read earlier when it says,
“For 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 divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”
And in Romans 10:17 it goes on to say,
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”
Faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ. The Gospel. Which is found in the Bible.
Why do we trust the Bible?
It’s certainly stood the test of time. People are always taking pot shots at it but no one has been able to knock it down. A lot of the same arguments people use for believing in God can be applied to the Bible, too. Personal experience, miraculous explanations of things the authors couldn’t have known. The Bible mentions things like the solar system, human morality, consciousness—all kinds of things that wouldn’t be scientifically discovered until modern times.
But there are really strong logical reasons to acknowledge the reliability and authenticity of the Bible.
It has 40 authors who wrote 66 books over a period of 1,500 years—different countries and different continents. Most of them had absolutely no knowledge of the other writers or writings, but the story of the Bible, the contents of the Bible are consistent and tell one story with one purpose.
The cities, people, kings, kingdoms, and empires mentioned in the Bible are not fictional. Archaeological findings have confirmed facts mentioned in the books of the Bible over and over. In my lifetime there have been times when someone reports they found something that contradicts the Bible—and then a few years later, oops! We dug a little deeper and found the truth. I was still a teenager when I realized if someone thinks they’ve proven the Bible wrong, all I have to do is wait until they’re corrected by someone else who doesn’t have an agenda.
The events in the Bible are verified by other historical documents and ancient writers. There is no other ancient document that has been preserved so carefully with such accuracy through hand-copied manuscripts and translations into different languages.
And the skeptic might think, “How do you know the copies are accurate?”
Well, we have over 25,000 of them from all over the ancient world. More are found all the time. There are no significant differences between them. Other ancient languages have been lost or forgotten—not the languages of the Bible. And like I said, not for a lack of trying to wipe God’s people out.
That’s a taste of why we can believe what the Bible says is true.
Jordan Peterson, a Dr. of clinical psychology who is pretty much coming to Christian faith right before our eyes on the world’s stage, started studying the Bible to prove it wasn’t true. He said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that, “It isn’t that the Bible is true. It’s that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth, which makes it way more true than just true… It’s a whole different kind of true. I think this is not only literally the case, factually. I think it can’t be any other way.”
Not bad for a guy who was an atheist a few years ago.
When I hear people talk about how we can’t trust the Bible because it’s just an ancient book written by men and there’s no reason we should pay any attention to it—to me it sounds like this:
“People say the Bible is the ”Word of God” but history clearly tells us otherwise. Did you know it was actually written by 40 ancient authors, and it took them 1,500 years! Give me a break—the same guy who says he created the heavens and earth in six days all by himself needed 40 ghost writers and more than a dozen centuries to publish one book? Plus, it’s over 760,000 words, pretty much telling the same story over and over—God couldn’t afford an editor? And every time I hear about some archaeological discovery backing up the historical claims of the Bible I feel a little embarrassed for Christians and their obsession with a book that’s obviously so old it’s only purpose is to show Indiana Jones where to dig.”
In other words. All their arguments against it only point to the reasons we can trust it.
The Bible is also self-aware. It knows what it is. Some of the things the Bible says about the Bible are:
Hebrews 4:12-23 says,
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
2nd Timothy 3:16
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Psalm 119 is a 176 verse love poem written to the Word of God. The longest chapter in the Bible. It contains the words, “Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
We trust the Bible, we affirm that it is true, without error, and will not fail us. If at any time we find ourselves not believing something it says, if we struggle with some odd verse or idea, we assume we’re the ones who are wrong—not the Word of God. I might live the rest of my life having trouble with something it says but I’m never going to doubt that God has it right and I have it wrong.
So I was in the backyard looking at the stars, I started believing in God, I went inside and read the Bible—and then I learned about Jesus. What does the Bible say about Jesus?
Well, it definitely tells us Jesus is the Son of God. The whole Christmas story in Luke covers that. But that can be confusing to some people. Son of God.
Angel is my son. He’s the son of Frank. So what? That doesn’t make him the pastor of this church. It doesn’t mean he can play the guitar like me. The Bible says Jesus is the Son of God. It also says He is the Son of Man. So why do we act like Jesus is God?
In John 1 we’re told Jesus is the Word of God. The Logos. It says Jesus has existed with God from the beginning. That all things were made through Him and nothing was made without Him. That in Him was life and the light of men. That Jesus is light. That the Word, the Son of God, became flesh and dwelt among us. He came to show us His glory, His holiness, the glory of the only Son of God who came from the Father full of grace and truth. It says no one had ever seen God until they saw Jesus.
That’s a lot. That doesn’t sound like it’s talking about some red-headed stepchild of God the Father. Those are things that can only be said about God Himself.
In John 8:58 Jesus says,
“I'll tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I AM.”
The name God told Moses to call Him, “I AM.” If you’re wondering if that’s really what Jesus meant, the context makes it crystal clear because the people He was talking to accused Him of blasphemy, picked up stones and tried to kill Him on the spot.
Also, God alone is to be worshiped. This is the first commandment. Yet the Son of God let people worship Him. His disciples bowed down right in front of Him and called Him Lord and God. Because He is God.
That’s why He walked around forgiving sins. Performing signs and wonders and miracles. Showed He had power over nature. God things.
In Matthew 28:18 He said all authority in Heaven and on Earth belonged to Him. Who does He think He is? God? Yes.
In Colossian 1:15 and Hebrews 1:3 we’re told Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The exact representation of His being. Jesus is God Himself. Once you see that, when you read the entire Bible you find evidence of the three Persons of the Godhead all over the place. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity.
So, One moment the eternal Son of God was high and lifted up, sitting upon a throne at the right hand of God the Father as the Second Person of the Trinity; the next He was incarnated, He put on flesh, was conceived in the womb of a virgin as the God-Man in the form of an embryo.
I heard someone say one time, “If that doesn't blow your mind, nothing else should.”
Sinless Every person who was ever born was born into a world sick with sin—and then made it worse. Not Jesus, He was born without sin and never sinned. Never a selfish moment. Never a prideful moment. Never impatient, never unkind, never let His emotions drive Him to do something He’d regret. Can you even imagine?
He told us what we need to know to follow Him and then He died for us to pay for all our sin.
But then the resurrection. The cross and the resurrection. The central event of the history of creation. The Bible says Jesus rose from the dead and if we believe then when we die, we’ll rise from the dead too.
But again, why should we believe what the Bible says about a dead man coming back to life?
Why do we believe in the resurrection? This is an event that happened in a historical time and place. It’s verified outside the Bible, too.
The early Christians were willing to die for their belief in the resurrection of Jesus. That’s a lot of commitment if it was made up.
The books of the New Testament, written by a bunch of different people at different times and places give a unified account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. There was no internet or cell phones for them to get their stories straight.
The various books were in circulation while thousands of eyewitnesses were still alive. There is no record of anyone challenging the details or facts. Think about that in light of how we scream “fake news” at anything we don’t want to believe—whether there’s video or photographic evidence or not.
The Roman and Jewish leaders tried to squash the news of the resurrection with lies and rumors—they couldn’t do it.
The Bible says belief in the physical resurrection of Christ is essential for salvation. 1 Corinthians 15:17 says,
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
In other words, if Christ has been raised from the dead then nothing else matters. If He hasn’t been raised from the dead then nothing matters.”
This has been a message about going from doubt to belief. Why do you believe in the existence of God? Why do you believe the Bible is trustworthy? What do you think it says about Jesus? And what does it mean for you personally?
Probably most of us believe in God for whatever reasons. Most of us also believe the Bible is true—some of us more than others. Some of us believe it enough to spend time reading it looking for comfort and wisdom—like it says at the end of the Gospel of John, that God’s Word was given to us so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing we may have life in His name.
This is what all these things mean for you, it means:
Your sins are forgiven because of Jesus and you have the promise of eternal life.
You have been given true peace and joy to experience in this life and exponentially greater in the life to come.
You will experience a personal relationship with God—Whether anyone believes you or not,
You have been given a spiritual family, a community of believers to love and encourage.
You have been given direction through God’s wisdom to guide you and protect you in this dangerous world.
Your faith will give you supernatural strength to endure times of trouble, difficulty, pain, and sorrow.
Your life has purpose and meaning greater than anything this world could ever give you.
Because you have heard the Gospel, the Word of Christ, because you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and was sent by the Father for your salvation, because you believe Jesus is Lord, God in the flesh, you’re connected to the eternal life promised in His resurrection—you will also be resurrected just as He was.
From doubt to faith. What more proof do you need? Like Jesus said to Thomas after the resurrection, “Do not disbelieve but believe.” Stop doubting and believe. AMEN
Prayer: Lord I believe, help my unbelief. Honor him as God and give thanks to Him. Tell everyone you know.