Lie #8 “My Faith Isn’t Strong Enough.” | Jud Wilhite + Central Live | Central Church

well welcome to central my name's nick i'm on the host here and i just want to say thanks so much for starting your weekend right here at central whether you're in one of our live experiences you're watching online from your mobile device or your living room thanks so much for being with us here this weekend my name's nick this is chloe we'll be your host and chloe there's been some pretty incredible things going on around central live and just recently brand new out is a studio performance at the hideout the hideout's the name of a studio where you guys did all i really need is you yes you perform that song to be completely honest i haven't even watched the video yet you guys it's been sent to me but i haven't seen it yet so i'm gonna watch it when i get home tonight and i'm so excited because all i really need is you i got to sing that song on the album and it's a beautiful to me it's like a beautiful love song to god because in spite of everything we're going through right now as a nation as a world as a religion it's so important to stop and remember that even in the midst of this all we really need is jesus so that's what the song means to me and you guys have always done such a great job at just through all of our worship pointing us to jesus the environment in that studio can you just describe a little bit like as you guys are performing it just like the team what was everyone feeling it's chaos and it's joy and it's jesus it's his present me it's his presence meeting us where we are not just on stage not just in our church but in a studio in an industry that doesn't normally have jesus he meets us in that place and it's just an amazing time of worship so check it out along with the other videos i'm gonna go get ready for worship go lead us in worship it's all i really need is you you can search it on youtube with central live but hey we're so glad you're with us we hope that you will get in that same spirit that they felt in that studio that day where we're focusing on him we're lifting up our worship to him we're making it all about him because here at central he is why we exist it's for jesus get ready to join central online [Applause] what's up central family we are so glad that you guys chose to start your weekend here i just want to invite you to stand and let's sing let's put our hand together we are going to declare today that a breakthrough is coming church family let's sing this together [Music] [Music] [Applause] breakthrough [Music] made me [Music] is [Music] you jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Music] well aaron i don't know about you but one of my favorite parts of the weekend i don't know if you caught it just seeing a couple of our central family getting baptized making decisions to follow jesus always so cool to see during worship my name's nick i'm here with the fabulous aaron who will be your host this weekend we're just so thankful that you're online with us central is a place where it is okay to not be okay and if you're just joining us thank you so much for being here with us you belong here and we're so thankful that you're here absolutely in fact for those of you who don't know all of our central locations are actually open and gathering in person and next weekend we have an exciting event here at our central henderson location called fall fest so for those of you who are joining us in the las vegas valley come join us at central henderson for fall fest next weekend every kid that comes is gonna get a free pumpkin and pastor judd is actually kicking off a brand new series it's gonna be an awesome weekend but for those of you who are joining us online we'll be here celebrating with you as well hey if you forget anything that we mentioned during this experience you can just visit family central.family just a page with all of a bunch of quick links to everything that we're talking about today or you can even download our central church app there's a lot of awesome things you can do on there like you can even become a generosity rock star what what is that nick that's right just giving 20 a week and spurring on life change feeding people it's an awesome way to give back and think outside yourself and here at central we're all about celebrating stories of life change that's why we exist is to tell those stories so make sure to check out valerie's story and i think the very first time i went to church on my own i was about 27 years old and i got baptized in 2012 but again it still did not click for me i was still in and out coming to church sometimes going right back out into the world coming back to church and it finally clicked in december of 2017. my lowest point came when i went to a christmas party and i really thought i was ready that i could do this and i can go and hang out with these people and i so yeah i had struggled with drugs and alcohol all of my life but since i had been sober now for about a year and a half i really thought it was safe that i would be okay that i had control of myself if the one drink wouldn't cause any harm but that one drink turned into a five-day drinking binge but having to go home and open the door and see my family and just just the hurt that was on their face and and and i felt i i never felt like that before in my life and and i'm sure it was because seeing my son there i felt like i just i wanted to disappear i just wanted to disappear and run and hide but instead of running and hiding i knew it was time to stop that i had to stop at this moment because i i don't i don't know that i could have gone any lower but that feeling was so bad that i knew i never wanted to feel that way again and that's when things turned around in my life and i started coming to central on a consistent basis i got baptized again in may of 2018 went to first and second step started volunteering first on the care team and then i went to the safety and security team and then i started central academy i finished my first year now in my second year i'll be graduating in may and i'm also doing my first year of internship right now as well uh the next steps are our major because it's it's because of doing these different things i'm just growing so much spiritually having that relationship with jesus that i don't think uh had i not gone through the academy i know that it wouldn't be like this if i wasn't just you know taking these next steps to and before i started serving i was showing up going home showing up on sunday going home and it just just i didn't start to feel alive until i actually started serving and started you know being here and getting involved with community and having my central family now it's made all the difference in the world serving has made all the difference in the world [Music] what god's done in valerie's life is so amazing and now she's one of our intricate team members here at central we're so proud of what god's done let's give it up for her one more time i'm excited to introduce to you this weekend kelly jones kelly and his wife leslie are part of our legacy ministry here at central yeah and many of you know that his generosity is inspiring right kelly was one of our first volunteers at our food pantry and has been out there serving on day one and he's been on the front lines at our food pantries four to five days a week ever since yeah in that awesome in fact kelly and his wife leslie wrote the very first check to our food relief efforts and now they're a vital part of what god's doing and they help bring food relief to over 660 000 people with nearly 8 million pounds of food come on church don't ever let that grow old all right and not only personally generous kelly and a team of volunteers have been instrumental in reaching out to area businesses in the greater las vegas area to inspire them to get involved in the hope for the city food relief efforts and they have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars towards these efforts to keep these relief going come on church and kelly now now you're helping us with our christmas outreach efforts called hope for the holidays where we want to give hope this christmas and a christmas to remember to over 50 000 children and central's hope for the holiday events will assure that no child goes hungry and no child goes without christmas i love this i love the vision behind it why do you believe this is important especially this year well mike my experience is out in the food pantries uh i've seen firsthand how families have been impacted by this pandemic and uh you know it's estimated that over 135 000 children don't have the basic essentials like food or school supplies and much more so it's our goal to give them a christmas that they'll always remember i love that and i love you know uh just what god's put in our hearts with that share with the central family the vision we have for these children and their families sure well we have two events uh the week of thanksgiving on november 23rd and then one week before christmas on december 18th we are providing an event called hope for the holidays um central's hope for the holidays is an experience will be an immersive drive-through holiday event that will incorporate fun uh filling the physical needs and also the of their families and the community there will be holiday treats there'll be a light show there'll be christmas characters there'll be so much more along with the fun we'll be providing clothing and the necessary food for and school supplies for the toys for them wow so holiday meal groceries school supplies and toys i mean that is just awesome i mean these are kids that would not have christmas they just wouldn't have christmas they come from families that are greatly challenged and under-resourced and we are thrilled that as a church we're taking on something that maybe no other organization in las vegas is going to do 50 000 kids will get a christmas no kid will go hungry and no kid would go without christmas come on church kelly tell us how we can get involved i know the central family they'll want to join in these efforts and they'll want to hear how well i tell you we can't do this without all of you out there there are a few ways you can get involved right now first we need everyone to make a gift please make your first christmas gift a gift to a child in need for just 447 per child we can give them a christmas to remember so it's just 47 dollars to impact a child you can give a gift of hope so you can go to kids.gift another way to get involved is spreading the word to businesses that's how we were able to go out and raise a bunch of the money is by going to businesses to donate and there's a lot of businesses in las vegas if you have business contacts maybe you'd like to join our business partner team area businesses can join by making a tax deductible donation we also appreciate donations of gifts and kinds uh by direct involvement in the drive-through experience for example if you're a business that does clothing you could you know be a vendor that gives clothing out for that day we're looking for clothing holiday treats just let our team know in the lobby if you'd like to be part of that team or maybe you'd like to join our fundraising team we have a whole fundraising team that reaches out you can reach out to your friends your family your business contacts and what we're doing cared for the needs of the child and ask them to be part of these efforts if you're interested in being part of the fundraising team we actually have uh training right after the experience at our henderson campus all weekend on the second floor in the moniker if you're not able to make that meeting we're going to be filming it and so you could still be part of the fundraising team and we'll get that information to you please reach out to me at kelly kelly at hope for the city dot tv or let our lobby team know how you'd like to get involved and they'll get the information to ask yes so they can simply go out in the lobby and let our team know in case you don't get his email correct but well kelly we can't wait to celebrate the huge impact that we're going to have on children's lives this christmas and central family let kelly know that you're with him you're praying for him you're joining him and let's thank him big for all that he's done through these last seven months thank you kelly [Music] well central families kelly said let's make our first gift this christmas go to a child in need you can make all this possible by giving a gift to our year-end offering called hope for kids it's easy to give you can go to hope for kids dot gift hope for kids dot gift or central online tv or on your mobile app you can give a gift to hope for kids or right after our experience you can give a gift just going up to our generosity team tell them how many kids you'd like to sponsor at 47 they'll swipe your credit or debit card or you can give by check or cash our ushers will be have offering buckets at all the exits and they'd love to receive that but here's the deal central these are kids that you'll be giving hope to a christmas to a blessing to and one day we pray when they experience this love and this outpouring from the central family that they'll know that there's a god in heaven who cares for them and they'll name him the leader and forgiver of their life are you with me we can impact them for eternity let's pray together well jesus we love you and we thank you that you gave us the very first christmas gift you sent your son father to be a ransom for our life to live a life we could not live and he ultimately died a death that we deserved to die but it was a gift and you did it on our behalf so god give us a heart like that that we would do something for someone else and that we would bless them and give them hope and encouragement and as we do bless our lives and on the recipients may they know that you love them and that you want to be an eternal relationship with them and god on our worship may be pleasing to you for we ask these things in jesus name amen well right now i'm going to invite you to stand as we just continue in this very rich time of worship [Music] enjoy [Music] you've shown me you're making all things [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] is [Music] every sunrise i give it all to you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you jesus [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we have a new song to introduce you today it's called the blessing make his face shine upon you and be gracious [Music] amen [Music] i'm [Music] and keep make your face shine upon him and be gracious [Music] peace [Music] i'm [Music] [Applause] [Music] generations and your family and your children and the children and the children [Music] generations and your family and your children and my children [Applause] [Music] [Music] he is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] me church i just want to take a second and pray for you if you need prayer you're hurting today would you just slip a hand in the air and let's just pray god we just thank you for your love and the kindness that you show us every single day god we just pray for healing in this room we pray for healing over our burdens of healing over our addictions healing over our losses god but we trust you because you have gone before us we've gone behind us god we know that you are with us and that you are always for us god we pray this in your [Music] and your name and the children and the children [Music] he is for you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] thanks christian and chloe an incredible couple leading us in an incredible time of worship and hey we just want to give a couple shout outs right now we've got larue watching from floral city florida we've got robert watching from tucson arizona and we've got marsha who's watching in transit on a bus on her way to wherever she's going which just shows that you can do church from anywhere you can experience central anywhere well hey we want you guys to know that october is the month of pastor appreciation month and i would love to give a special shout out to my co-host pastor nick you're absolutely incredible and a shout out to all of our pastors here at central we appreciate them so much but we want to give a huge shout out to our senior pastor he has led us so well through this pandemic and i think i can speak for myself through pastor nick through all of you joining us online or in the room that he has helped us experience hope in this season so let's give it up big for pastor judd as he comes out and shares a message of hope with us [Music] [Applause] ah come on thank you please please be seated be seated i did not know that was happening so thank you guys and thank all of you um very grateful and grateful to be here with you i saw somebody right before this experience and they said judd it's my first time back and i said wow you are going to love it and i know they are it always feels so good to be able to gather together and worship together and experience god together so thank you for being here i want to say a huge shout out to each of our central family locations so grateful for all of you love you guys and if you're watching online so thankful for you thanks for being with us if you're joining us in our partnership with god behind bars at different prison facilities around the country we love you we're grateful to have you with us today i don't know how you're holding up right now but i know there are some parents that are still trying to navigate home school stuff in their life and so i saw this uh this last week jimmy kimmel on twitter asked people to send in their home school fails i thought some of this was pretty funny one person said this on the second day of kindergarten the teacher had to send out an email saying parents and guardians please stop arguing in the background it's very distracting home school fail anybody that feel like they're up in your living room right now you know like hey back off a little bit all right check this out here's another one uh this kid says what does copious mean me use the context clues in the sentence to try and figure it out kid three seconds later hey alexa what does copious mean homeschool fail that's real right there that's just a smart kid's all that is that kid's gonna rule the world all right next one look at this uh i got a call from the vice principal telling me that my kid attending class from the hot tub is inappropriate and cannot happen again home school fail how many of you are parenting that kid right now yeah you're in it right now yeah i was that kid so kind of love it but um we all face different fails there's home school fails there's life fails there's sports fails i'm a cowboys fan i got to tell you this last week it was pretty brutal when our quarterback dak prescott like you know dislocated and fractured his ankle tragic tragic uh if you're a miami heat fan then you know you're going through your own championship fail right now we all face fails personal fails financial fails but one of the toughest things that we can wrestle with in a moment of crisis in our life when things are really hard and really difficult it's what we might call a faith fail or when you feel like your faith is slipping or failing when you go through a tough time a difficult season a crisis like the one we're in the middle of right now it can do all kinds of things to your emotions it can do all kinds of things sort of to your feelings and particularly to how you perceive your faith and i am confident right now that there are some people who are facing a crisis of faith in their life and that crisis of faith may be coming from a couple different directions on the one hand maybe it's sort of a crisis of faith where you doubt yourself you just feel like i don't know i'm not good enough i don't know maybe maybe it's just something about me but i don't feel like i get it other people seem to be getting their miracle come on somebody but i don't know where my miracle is i'm not sure where god is i don't sense him anymore man i used to feel god i don't really feel him anymore then you start to think it's about me it's you start to doubt yourself and that's something i've wrestled with a lot in my life and continue to wrestle with and you can kind of enter into a crisis of faith where you're like maybe it's just me it's just not not working for me or maybe it's more like god related you just start to wonder like maybe he's not even there if he's there maybe he's not powerful enough to do anything in this situation maybe he doesn't care because you know i can't believe i'm in the situation some of you right now are in a situation financially or with unemployment or with your job or with your work we're like i never thought i would be in this situation and we're navigating this global pandemic that just keeps going i never thought i would be here in this situation it can lead you to a faith crisis and you can start to feel like my faith isn't strong enough it just isn't strong enough to see me through this season and i want to encourage you today i think sometimes we believe that doubt is the opposite of faith and that if you have doubts about god or doubts about yourself that that means you don't have faith but i want to suggest to you today that faith and doubt are like two sides of the same coin in fact if you struggle with doubt self-doubt or even doubt about god if you struggle with it that actually is an indicator of the faith in your life otherwise we wouldn't call it faith we would just call it certainty right like hey i'm just certain i don't need faith but because there's faith there's doubt and in the midst of that struggle it's okay your doubts don't disqualify you they actually define you as a person of faith and so some people today may be struggling you may be going through your own kind of wrestling with doubt and if so i'm going to bring some encouragement to you today i'm going to bring some hope to you today we're going to talk about how we get out of our mind the idea that our faith isn't strong enough because listen your faith may fail but your god never will he's faithful even when our faith fails and so i want to look with you today at um a story in the new testament that really gets to this whole tension between faith and doubt let me just set it up jesus has died on the cross he's risen again after three days and he actually appears to his uh disciples the twelve apostles this unique group the inner circle if you will of jesus he makes his appearance to them they experience him it's an amazing thing they're blown away except one of them wasn't there and we read about it in john's gospel john chapter 20 beginning in verse 24. when we get to the red word i'll just ask you to say it out loud here with me but it says one of the twelve disciples thomas nicknamed the twin was not with the others when jesus came and they told him we have seen the lord they're like thomas bro he's alive it's amazing right but he replied i won't what believe i won't believe it unless i see the nail wounds in his hands and put my fingers into them and place my hand into the womb wound in his side thomas is like i i i don't believe not unless i see it not unless i'm there now this is why thomas gets the nickname doubting thomas right but i think sometimes we're a little hard on thomas here we call him doubting thomas but we forget that just a few chapters before i think thomas sort of misunderstood a situation where jesus was talking about going and visiting lazarus who had um who was really sick and had died and and when he leaves thomas says this he says let's go with jesus and die with him so this is a guy who has faith that's what i want you to see he had enough faith to say i'm willing to die with jesus i'm willing to follow jesus to the end i'm willing to go all the way yeah he's having a moment right here but it's not his only moment don't we all have our moments yeah we all have our moments sometimes that's mostly what we have right but they're not our only moments you know and so thomas yes in this moment he's doubting he's struggling he may be in his own faith crisis things haven't turned out like he thought they would god hasn't done what he thought god would do come on somebody jesus died he was put into a grave that was not what he expected and so he's wrestling with discourage and disappointment and here's the thing about doubt i think a lot of people that wrestle with doubt if we're honest there's something underneath the doubt especially intellectuals become a god you know and and make all the intellectual arguments for against god or whatever but you know what's often underneath those intellectual arguments if you peel them back it's hurt it's discouragement it's disappointment and i think thomas feels a little left out thomas is like he wasn't there when jesus showed up right he kind of missed the moment and maybe he doesn't even know why but i think there's some hurt here there's some discouragement here and in this moment um he lets his doubt kind of come forward so we call him doubting thomas what do we do when we're struggling with doubt what do we do when we've got this thing in our mind that my faith just isn't strong enough well the first principle from thomas's faith journey is this just to keep showing up just keep showing up even when you're struggling even when you aren't sure what's going on with your faith it's easy to want to give up especially in romance i saw a few of these on social media i thought they were pretty funny one of them says a pretty lady in a restaurant just asked me are you single i happily replied yes she took away the empty chair at my table this is some of you're like this is my life yes oh man all right here's one more uh i sent my wife a text this is i've had this experience uh her typing bubble popped up for 10 minutes and all she sent was k i'm as good as dead yes oh that's real that's real sometimes we can get frustrated sometimes we can get discouraged and i think that's where thomas is right now he's frustrated he's discouraged some of you are there right now in your life but don't miss this look at this john chapter 20 beginning in verse 26 it says this eight days later the disciples were together again and this time thomas was what with them see that he kept showing up even though he doubted he kept showing up even though he wasn't sure he believed jesus rose from the dead he kept gathering he kept showing up and because he kept showing up he was with him it says the doors were locked but suddenly as before jesus was standing among them peace be with you he said listen this is a word for somebody today you're hurting you're struggling maybe you're in your own faith crisis one of the most powerful things that you can do in your life is keep showing up thomas kept showing up even though he may have wanted to give up commas kept showing up even for eight days he'd been we got to assume discouraged eight days he had been frustrated eight days he had continued to sort of be in this tension with the other apostles who were like hey i saw jesus and he's like yeah i'm not believing it till i still i see you with my own eyes and he kept showing up and he kept showing up and he kept showing up and eventually because he put himself in a position to be blessed by god he was blessed and in this case with an appearance from jesus himself listen you can drag your doubts to god or you can allow those doubts to drag you away from god right you can drag those doubts to god or you can allow those doubts to drag you away from god so take your doubts about who you are and your failures and your sin and your junk and drag them to god take your your concerns your cares could maybe you're not feeling it anymore maybe you're not sure what's happened it's okay bring that to god pray about it to god bring it to a spiritual friend bring it to your group start talking about it and journeying it out with others and with god and you'll see god begin to show up in the middle of that i mean when it comes to faith i think a lot of times we sort of see faith and doubt like this we've got faith over here and we've got doubt over there and we think well hey as long as my faith is big man things are good things are awesome you know everything's awesome god's moving he's working things are great and our faith is big and then on the flip side let's go to the next slide if we see you know our doubt begin to grow and it feels like our faith is shrinking then we think man i'm all alone i'm lonely i'm hurting i'm frustrated i'm discouraged and we sort of see these as two separate worlds but again let's go to the next slide i want to suggest to you that this is faith and doubt and that it's all the same circle and if faith represents the the blue sky if you will then doubt may show up in clouds along the way and we've all got but listen i can have faith and i can have doubt and i can hold those two things in tension together as i walk with god and truthfully i've got faith and i've got doubt and i'm going to have some faith and some things i'm going to doubt and struggle with probably my whole life this is more accurate as a picture of the human experience these doubts don't disqualify you from your faith they just come along with your faith and you go through certain crises in your life certain difficulties and those doubts can feel more prominent but your faith is still there god's still moving and working in your life i want to encourage you to trust the light you have until god gives you the light you seek right trust the light that he that you have until god gives you the light that you see keep walking keep showing up thomas kept showing up but check this out john chapter 20 beginning of verse 27 it says then he jesus said to thomas come on y'all check this out put your finger here and look at my hands put your hand into the wound on my side don't be what faithless don't be faithless any longer believe this is jesus now my lord and my god thomas exclaimed so doubting thomas gets his moment his moment of certainty his moment of proof where jesus right here says go ahead put your hand here jesus think about this jesus doesn't judge thomas he restores him he doesn't judge him he restores him he doesn't say where were you you know i came before you weren't here the city says here i am right and by the way i think it's powerful that jesus offers up his own wounds to heal thomas's wounds you see that you know the bible says by his wounds we are healed so if anybody's feeling wounded today know that you are loved by one who is wounded you're healed by one who understands i mean think about it jesus wasn't even like physically in the room when thomas said he wanted to put his finger in his wounds but jesus heard it jesus knew right he knew his issues he knew his struggle god knows how to give you what you need look even though the door was locked jesus came to him even though thomas was doubting jesus came to him even though he missed the miracle initially jesus came to him just like he came to you and just like he's come to me in different seasons in my life think about it when you were lost jesus still came to you when you felt left out jesus still came to you when you were messed up in your mind jesus still came to you when you were running for with the wrong crowd jesus still came to you when you made a bad decision in fact bad decision after bad decision jesus still came to you listen when you cheated jesus still came to you when you gave into temptation jesus still came to you he showed up in your life he didn't abandon you look when everyone let you down jesus still came to you after you let everyone down jesus still came to you when you had no idea how to get to god come on somebody jesus still came to you so when you have your doubts when you have your discouragements when you have your hurts just that's normal it's okay but keep showing up to the places god shows up you know to this day when people are getting baptized or they accept christ into their life for the first time and i get to interact with them often they'll ask me like what should i do you know what where do i go from here and you know i always say to them the same thing i say just keep showing up just keep showing i can say a lot of things but they won't remember that anyway so i just say just keep showing up you know if you'll say i'm going through a hard time what should i do just keep showing up i feel like my life is on hold what should i do just keep showing up i'm not sure what god wants me to do just keep showing up i'm not feeling like god is moving in my life just keep showing up people say i messed up again well look just keep showing up people say i feel like giving up keep showing up until jesus clears it up listen drag your doubts to god so they don't drag you down it's okay to doubt we don't need to be afraid of those doubts because you know your faith may fail but your god never will so keep showing up here's another thought and that is to remember your reasons remember your reasons i don't know if you've ever um messed around with the timehop app at all but the timehop app will like bring up things that you posted like a year ago on social media and it's pretty amazing because you kind of get to look back but it's very it hasn't been so amazing for me and covid to be honest with you it's kind of discouraging like recently the timehop app was like boom a year ago and i'm like oh concert with emma people yay you'd be like boom a year ago pack churches people worshiping yay you know like i mean so i'm kind of like wrestling with mom i'm kind of like i'm going to mute time hop for a while we'll be back but i recently had this moment where you know my time hop popped up and i saw this picture of emma and this concert and i was like oh that's cool and it just kind of took me not some of you are really like detailed with your photos and and you keep them all organized and all of that my photos are all just sort of random and they get kind of dumped into iphoto or whatever they're just sort of out there and i'm like when i retire someday i'm going to go through all that junk anybody know what i'm saying but i had like a over an hour i just started looking through those photos i started looking at faces and people and church gatherings and memories and experiences and i'm getting sentimental in my old age y'all i start cropped tearing up i'm having a moment you know i'm just remembering right life flies you know i mean my son was born yesterday and he just turned 17. what the what and he can grow a beard i can't even grow a beard it's not right it's amazing right it just fly so i'm i'm emotional i'm having a moment but it was powerful sometimes you got to go back and you got to remember what god has done in your life you got to remember the journey you've been on you got to remember where you've come from because it will strengthen you in a moment of faith crisis some of you are in a faith crisis right now one of the most powerful things you can do is just remember your reasons remember what god has done in your life when i was in graduate school i i went through a pretty significant faith crisis of my own i was studying to be a pastor i got really discouraged i was reading a lot of material and i was interacting with a lot of different very smart people who had very different views of god and it just all kind of brought me down and it came to this head where i was sort of in this faith crisis and i was thinking like i don't know i don't know that i should go into ministry i don't know if i should do this like i'm not sure kind of where i'm at in all of this and a couple things brought me out of that one was i was at church and i heard a testimony of somebody else and what god had done in their life and they came from addiction as a background and all that as as do i and it was so powerful to me to just remember again what god had already done in my life and that was bigger than a book or an argument that was what god had done in my life even though i didn't deserve it right the other thing was when i was at church i saw somebody get baptized and they had so much joy on their face and everybody was celebrating and cheering and there were tears and they were talking about how different their life was and i just remembered again like what god had done in my own life but i want you to understand those things hinged on the fact that i kept showing up even though i still had doubts i kept putting myself in the faith community until god used that faith community to bring me back from my moment of crisis john chapter 20 beginning in verse 29 says this john says this then jesus told him thomas you believe because you have seen me check this out what blessed or blessed blessed are those who believe without seeing me he says look thomas you believe you saw me you felt my wound you you put your hand right there but blessed are those of us who believe even without seeing remember your reasons for belief and these reasons are not just out of nowhere we have personal reasons we have reasons from history we have eyewitness accounts there are reasons for our faith our faith isn't just irrational it isn't illogical but it's still faith you can't put it in a scientific test tube and prove it like at the end of the day we still have to believe we have to have faith right but there are reasons for our faith let me just share with you a few reasons why i have faith first of all when it comes to jesus resurrection like thomas i could say you know or like jesus says to thomas i never touched jesus side you know i came into this thing thousands of years later right this is an act of history but here's what i do have i have evidence from eyewitnesses and what i mean by that is we have the accounts of the gospels matthew mark luke and john and i think those accounts are very compelling when it comes to reasons for your faith and to give kind of evidence for your faith for example um you know when it look when you basically any historian worth his salt would say hey look jesus lived died was crucified i mean you you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody that just writes that off there's probably more historical evidence than jesus lived than just about anybody else on earth okay so they'll go that far but then what do you do with the resurrection well some people say well you know they stole the body maybe they just stole the body and that was the deal but the challenge is like the body was guarded by roman guards that's what they did they guarded bodies and not only that you had the early followers of jesus who had these encounters with jesus who were literally willing to die for their faith i mean many of those early apostles of jesus died for their faith church tradition says peter was crucified just like jesus was but he refused to be crucified right side up like his lord and savior and he was crucified upside down dang look people will rarely die for something that they know is a lie right but these people were all willing to die for something they experienced we say well maybe it was just a hallucination right like you know they just thought jesus rose from the dead they had too many wheaties that morning and it threw them off but hallucination but the interesting thing is you go to the first corinthians and paul says there were 500 witnesses jesus appeared at one time to 500 people and and is he writing this about 20 years later and he actually says um you know many of those some of those eyewitnesses are still alive he's like fact check me go talk to the people that witnessed it go see those people yourself you know he's just sort of laying it out but i think one of the most compelling things for the eyewitness account of jesus resurrection is the fact that women were the first people to show up at the tomb and women are the ones who are declaring the resurrection of jesus and culturally listen if you were going to fabricate the gospels and make all of this up i'm sorry but you in that culture you would not have women showing up at the tomb first they they couldn't even give testimony in a court of law right like so it almost sort of undermines in some ways the account that women showed up first or i think it gives the account great legitimacy because you can't even make this stuff up y'all women showed so you have the evidence from the eye witnesses not only that uh but secondly you've also got evidence from history you look at like what happened what happened for this anonymous carpenter in this nowhere part of the world to all of a sudden be literally i mean if not the most influential person in all of history this top two or three period hands down like what happened to these men who were hiding out in this room with the friends of thomas and all of a sudden jesus comes to them and now they're out declaring messages and preaching and and 3 000 people are getting baptized and they're traveling all over the world they're putting their selves at risk their families at risk their kids at risk and they're taking the message of jesus to the whole world what happened back then 2 000 years ago that we would still sit here and talk about it today that we would look down through our history and realize hospitals were started by people of faith universities were started by people even science didn't it didn't arise in a non-christian culture it didn't arise in a non-faith salt culture because science itself presupposes a world that's predictable a world that in many ways like has a creator that's organized it so we can understand it all of that science history you look at universities hospitals so much of that traces back to people of faith it traces back to jesus you look down through the centuries and you're like what happened and i don't think you can explain that with an empty tomb so there's evidence from eyewitnesses there's evidence from history for our faith and i would say thirdly there's just the evidence from experience your personal experience in mind i know for me when i was 17 years old and four years in a drug addiction and i had nowhere to go and nowhere else to turn all i can tell you is that god moved and worked in my life and god helped me get around people who helped me the church community helped me god saved my life and restored me and that's why i always say i'm not just a pastor of a church right i'm the product of the church um god did that in my look back at my experience every good thing that came in my life i can trace back to the time when i originally surrendered my life to jesus christ and turned a corner there that's my story you have your story but we all have our collective experience and then we see it every day we look around and people are coming to faith every day in our faith community we see people's lives being transformed so you you look around and you say i may have doubts i have faith but my faith isn't just kind of irrational and not based on anything it's based on history it's based on eyewitness accounts it's based on my personal experience i can't put it in a test tube and prove it that's why it's called faith but i still believe it and i can affirm it even when i'm struggling with doubt and so sometimes we just got to remember where jesus met us to be reminded of how far he's brought us john chapter 20 beginning in verse 31 john sort of sums it up with these words he says these are written so that you may what continue you see that so that you may continue to believe that jesus is the messiah the son of god and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name john's saying i wrote this i captured this so that you may continue to believe you know this past week i was really moved by a baptism of one of our central family members sweet little girl has been wrestling with leukemia for a while now and leukemia has stole more and more and more from her but she said she wanted to get baptized and her family was here for the baptism in the midst of the weekend experience at the end i'll often ask people to raise their hands if they are placing their faith and their trust in jesus christ and i was talking to her grandfather he said you know what's interesting is she's lost the ability to control any of her limbs except one hand and when you ask people to raise their hand if they want to pray and receive christ she raised her hand and then she had the courage to allow people to carry her into the baptistery and to baptize her i will tell you i don't understand i do not understand why kids get cancer i don't understand why kids suffer at all frankly there's a lot i don't understand i don't understand why people suffer i don't understand why we go through all the different things that we go through as human beings and so yeah there are moments where i have my doubts about different things things i just don't understand i was talking to the sweet little girl's grandfather and you think in the midst of that kind of situation you can get pushed one way or another when it comes to your faith and he just looked at me and said what thousands of people have said to me over the years he said i don't know how anybody goes through what we've gone through without god and without the people of faith around them [Applause] doesn't mean there won't be things you and i don't understand doesn't mean there won't be moments where we don't i don't understand why somebody lost their job i don't understand you know why we're in the situation we're in globally i don't understand a lot of things and that's okay i can still affirm my faith even though i don't have all the answers it's okay to have doubts but we can still proclaim with thomas my lord and my god thomas was affirming his faith with that statement look it's possible to have doubts and still affirm my faith i can say i believe that that god is good even when life is tough i believe that god is in control even when the coronavirus hits hard i believe that god is working in my life even when i'm still so far from perfect i believe god still performs miracles even though i may not have received my miracle i believe there is more to this life even though i can't prove that in a scientific test tube listen i believe god is good even though bad things still happen i believe that god so loved the world that he sent his one and only son not to condemn us for our sins but to save us from our sins i can i believe even though it's hard i believe that jesus was more than a man that he was god incarnate sent to declare the arrival of god's kingdom and make a way for us to enter in i believe that jesus is the way the truth and the life and that no man comes to god except through him i believe that jesus gave his life on the cross to save us and three days later rose again so that he can one day raise us i believe jesus appeared to more than 500 of his followers as the bible says and that he sent his spirit to build his church and that not even the gates of hell can stand against it i believe that jesus is alive that he sits at the right hand of the father that he's been given all power and all authority in heaven and on earth i believe that jesus is moving and working in the world and he's moving and working in my life i believe he hears me i believe he forgives me i believe he empowers me i believe he guides me and i believe he loves me i believe jesus was with me yesterday he's with me today he'll be with me tomorrow and i believe that one day he will return in power it's okay to have doubts but to still make the declaration of thomas my lord and my god see one day i believe he's going to dry every tear heal every wrong right right every wrong heal every wound and that one day every knee will bow and every tongue's going to confess that jesus is lord so if you're in a faith crisis keep showing up just keep putting yourself out there and keep trusting affirm what you can affirm right now in your life because your doubts do not disqualify you they simply define you as a person of faith drag your doubts to god so that those doubts don't drag you away and even when you have no idea how to get to god remember that jesus can get to you and then remember your reasons the evidence of the eyewitnesses the evidence of history the evidence of your own personal experience where god has brought you from and let that encourage you and strengthen you and help put out of your mind the idea that your faith isn't strong enough look it's not about you it's not about your faith it's about the one you put your faith in and even if your faith feels like it's not strong enough god is strong enough and he has not abandoned you or turned his back on you maybe you're here today and maybe you've yet to cross the line of faith and i'd love to just give you an opportunity to surrender your life to jesus christ to ask god to move and work in your life and to take that step of faith so would all of you please bow your heads and close your eyes and if you'd like to become a follower of jesus today you can begin that journey by repeating this prayer after me either out loud or in your own heart and say dear god i thank you for loving me thank you for sending jesus into the world i believe he died on the cross for my sins i believe he rose again forgive me for my sins give me the gift of eternal life help me face the challenges that i'm up against god i surrender my life to you in christ's name friends with every head bowed and every eye closed that's your prayer today if it's your commitment i'm gonna ask you to just slip your hand in the air just make eye contact with me just to say before god to say to me you're gonna follow him in your life you're gonna trust him slip your hand in the air god bless you guys thank you thank you bless you thank you just reach out to him today thank you god we love you i thank you for each person reaching out to you across our central family locations at home watching online incarcerated right now i thank you for all those who are reaching out to you and i pray you'll show up in their life in a huge tangible way work restore heal forgive we commit them to you in jesus name amen well let's put our hands together for those who made spiritual commitments in their life today [Applause] friends if that's you if you made a spiritual commitment i'd love to introduce you to a resource that we've created that i think can be super helpful to you uh it's simply called how to follow jesus we'd love to give it to you electronically for free just let us know that you made a spiritual commitment and the way to do that is just go to central.family and just click the link i decided to follow jesus we'll get that resource to you it'll help you over the next days and weeks kind of know what it looks like to follow jesus and to grow in your faith so make sure to let us know if you made that spiritual commitment let's put our hands together now as our location pastors come and close out our experience wow what an incredible and powerful message from pastor judd we are so thankful for him that was a great way to wrap up our series out of my mind in fact if you'd love to catch up on that series or watch any of those experiences you can watch them all on demand at our website or you can just visit central.family but hey if you raised your hand today i want to say congratulations that's one of the best decisions you'll ever make in fact like pastor judd mentioned we have a guide just for you all you have to do is visit central.family click the button that says i define i decided to follow jesus and then we'll have that guide for you digitally well hey if you haven't known we are gathering live in person at all of our central locations and next week at central henderson we have fall fest happening so if you're in the area we'd love to have you join us here but if you're continuing to join us online don't forget our experiences are on saturday nights at 5 p.m and sunday mornings at 8 a.m 10 a.m and 12 p.m we can't wait to see you guys again next week but as you go through this week remember to hang on to what romans 8 says if god is for us who can be against us keep showing up

Channel: Central Church

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Id: Vf_7h6v9bAY

Length: 68min 46sec (4126 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 17 2020