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From chapter 11 to chapter 14, we are going to look at the rejection of the King. How Jesus will be opposed by His people and in particular, the Jewish leaders. But this morning, we are going to look at verses 1 to 6 of chapter 11. If you have your Bibles, it will be great if you could turn to that passage of Scripture.  And I believe verses 1 to 6 of chapter 11 really tell us about lessons on dealing with doubt.

And when I talk about doubt, I'm not talking about doubt about your economy, about your PSLE results or about your own abilities. This is about spiritual doubt. This is about doubting God, doubting Jesus, doubting the reality of faith. These are the spiritual doubts we are going to talk about today.

Perhaps it is a little bit far and distant for some of you, but let me give you a typical story. Imagine a young couple, they grow up in church. They met each other, they got married and they are expecting. But when they go to the doctor's office, the doctor having done the scan, said to the lady, to the husband, “I'm afraid that you have just suffered a miscarriage.”

Can you imagine the thoughts that must race through the minds of this couple? Can you imagine the turmoil, the uncertainty, the questions that may flood them? They probably would have a hard time getting their minds around this issue. And they begin to ask questions like: “Where is God in this? How can a God who is said to be good, allow this to happen to us?  We are followers of Jesus and how can we suffer a miscarriage? Didn't the Bible tell us that God is love? Didn't the Bible tell us that God is wise, that He's sovereign and is all-powerful, why is this happening to us?"

And because they cannot really understand why, they began to have doubts about God, doubts about their faith and it is not long before they leave church and ultimately leave, at least externally, their faith. This story can be repeated in many other ways. It might be, when your husband walks out on you, when you're diagnosed with a terrible disease, when you suffer a betrayal, you experience a loss, your child denies the faith. When something bad, something painful happens to you, we, we tend to have these questions. And if we do not deal with them properly, it results in dangerous doubts.

So today we are going to look at a passage that teaches us simple lessons on dealing with doubts. It really focuses on this man, his name is, John the Baptist.  And let's read the Bible before us. “When Jesus had finished instructing His twelve disciples, He went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. Now when John [that is, John the Baptist] heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, [about Jesus, about the Messiah], he sent word by his disciples and said to Him [that is Jesus], “Are You the one who is to come, or [maybe] shall we look for another?” [Matthew 11:1-3]

"..Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.”” [Matt 11:4-6]

So John the Baptist is dealing with doubt.  He, in prison, asked, “Jesus, are You really the Messiah? Are You really the Saviour or maybe we are mistaken, maybe it is someone else? Should we look for another?”

Now what do we learn in the passage like this? I see a few things.

 

Number one, I see that doubts are a very real part of our lives. The reality of doubt, that if doubts can happen to a spiritual giant like John the Baptist, it can happen to anyone of us. You see, we are not immune from doubts.  The best of man is man at best and John the Baptist, I think, is the best there is or one of the best there ever is, and he was a victim of torturing doubt.

I did not say that he's one of the best. I think Jesus did because later on in verse 11, in the same chapter, Jesus gave this commendation about John, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.” [Matthew 11:11]

He was an unusual man. He was a phenomenal follower of Jesus or an amazing servant of God. His birth was prophesied centuries before he was even born. Isaiah said he will be the messenger, he will be the forerunner, he will be the one that will prepare the way for Jesus. So he was the anticipated messenger before Christ.

John the Baptist would be said to be filled with the Holy Spirit from the mother's womb. I mean I, I, I can’t imagine what that must be like. He, before he popped out into the world, he was already filled with the Holy Spirit. He was raised as a Nazirite.  A Nazirite, in Jewish custom and in Biblical teaching, is someone who is wholly dedicated to God. The outward symbols are that they cannot touch anything from the vine, they cannot eat of it.  They cannot touch, of course, dead bodies and they have to keep their hair unshaven, like Samson.

But he was a man raised to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God. He lived in the wilderness. He was cut off pretty much from society. He lived there eating wild locusts and honey. And when he emerged to preach, he was a magnetic preacher because the Bible tells us people from Jerusalem, Judea and all around Jordan, they came to hear this hotshot preacher called, John the Baptist.

He was fearless, he preached against sin and compromise. He called people to repentance. He exposed the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day. He was a spiritual Titan.  But yet John the Baptist would be assaulted by spiritual doubts. “Are You really the Christ?” You say, “What happened? Why did he? Why did he have this kind of a doubt?”

Well, there's a little hint possibly why and the Bible tells us he's currently in prison.  What, why is he doing?  What's he doing in prison? Why did he get thrown into prison? Well, the story goes that John the Baptist being an uncompromising preacher, fearlessly exposed the sin of the Roman governor, Herod Antipas.

Herod had a problem. He, he was a sinful man of course.  But one of the sin that was exposed by John the Baptist is that Herod Antipas was having an affair with his brother's wife. In other words, he was having an affair with his sister-in-law. I did not make this up. Jesus or the Bible tells us so in Matthew 14:3-4. “...Herod seized John...bound him and imprisoned him..[Why?] for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife [his sister-in-law], because John had been saying to Herod Antipas, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”"

Now, of course Herod ‘bei song’.  He's not happy about this, he's upset.  How dare you? And so he caught him and threw him in prison and scholars tell us John had been imprisoned there for some 12 to 16 months.  He's been there by himself - cold, dingy, dark, damp dungeon. That's where he, is in solitude. And days go by, weeks go by, months go by, he's still in prison. He must be, together with the rest of the Jewish people, saying, “If the Messiah is come, He will overthrow the Roman Empire and set us free. We will be a free people.  We will serve our king.  But why is it that nothing has happened yet? I'm suffering here in prison and that Herod is having a good life out there, living scot-free. What's happening? Is Jesus really the Messiah?”

And all those experiences he had of the dove, the Spirit of God lighting upon Jesus like a dove. The voice that he heard in heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”, seem like a distant memory. Because these pains, these stresses, disappointments are eating into him. Doubts begin to creep in and he begins to be shaken.

This spiritual giant at the end of the day is man at best.  And anyone of us can experience doubt if John can experience doubt. Isn't it? It was Oswald Sanders who said, “Even a man of granite can be a prey of torturing doubt.” What a statement! Even a man who is so rock solid, he is not immune to spiritual doubt. When distresses come, when pains come, there is always a danger of doubt.

See, some of you must be thinking, “No, no, I've never had doubts in my life. I'm very clear about the Bible. I'm very clear about God. I'm very clear about Jesus, about the Gospel. I've never been shaken in my faith and I will never be shaken by doubts.” But you see, you, you cannot be so complacent because a lot of life has not happened to you yet that might happen to you later on.  Because it might be a miscarriage, it might be a disease, it might be a loss, it might be something catastrophic you are not prepared for.  And when these pains and difficulties come, you can never be complacent to say, “I'll never doubt.”

Now, I'm not asking us to look for doubts. I'm not saying that we should celebrate doubts. “Aiyah, ay, finally I got doubt.” No, of course not. That's perverse, that's weird, that's crazy! But I'm saying you must never swing to the extreme of saying, “I would never, ever doubt.”

John the Baptist doubted. And we might doubt especially when things that we hope would change, don't change and indeed got worse or gets worse. So it's a clear and present danger.  Spiritual doubt - doubt about God, doubt about the Bible, doubt about Jesus, doubt about the Gospel.

Perhaps some of you are already right now experiencing doubt in your life because you're having a difficult marriage, you're having difficulty with coming to terms with cancer, you're having difficulty coming to terms with a loss and you're beginning to struggle with doubt.  What do you do when you have doubts? And maybe this message might be more relevant for some of us going through that.

Well, the first thing I learned in this is that you need to acknowledge the struggle.  You need to acknowledge that this struggle with doubt is not something you should neglect or deny. But you should acknowledge it because it is necessary and because doubt is not always shameful or sinful. [George ah], Martin Lloyd Jones, he said, “Doubts are not incompatible with faith. Some people seem to think that once you become a Christian you should never be assailed by doubts. But that is not so."  So, you may be believing in Jesus, you are still believing in Jesus, but that doesn't mean that you will never have doubts. “Doubts are not incompatible with faith”.  And so doubts by themselves are not shameful or sinful. I know what you're thinking, “But I thought there must be something that is wrong, right, when we question God?”

Yes, there is.  We call that ‘unbelief’. Ah so, what is the difference between doubt and unbelief? Some of you sleeping, so I will wake you up.  Can you tell me the answer? Try. What is the difference between doubt and unbelief? Would you want to have a shot at it? It's really important because doubt is not shameful or sinful. It's, it's quite alright, it's quite natural.  It's not wrong by itself, it's how we deal with it that's going to determine it.  But unbelief, on the other hand, is bad. So what's the difference between the two?

Number one, I think doubt is when you say, “I can't believe.” But unbelief is when you say, “I won't believe.” One is grappling for more evidence, more assurances, but he wants to. Unbelief is no matter what you tell me, I don't want to.  You get that?  Doubt is can't - I, I am struggling, I can't. I want, but I can't.  But unbelief is, I won't.

And then secondly is what you, you guys have also correctly highlighted. I think doubt is about honesty. I really want to...almost like that man who says, “Lord, I want to believe, help my unbelief.” I'm honest about it.  But unbelief is obstinacy. Your mind is already made up. I won't believe. Doubt is when you are looking for light, but unbelief is when you're contented with darkness.  You don't want to.

Now, I think unbelief is to be entirely rejected. We must not have unbelief in our heart towards God. In a sense “I will never believe God, I'll never believe Christ, I'm happy to remain where I am.” That's a bad spirit and that indeed is forbidden. But when someone says, “I want to believe but I am struggling, I can't, I'm looking for light.  Help me! I'm honest about it.” That's not wrong you see.

So the first thing about dealing with doubt is you got to acknowledge the struggle, that I'm really going through some hardship. I want to but I need help. So Lee Strobel, he's a well-known apologetic, apologetic (sic apologist) is someone who defends the faith because there are questions about the faith, and he wrote in 'The Case for Faith' :

“For many Christians, merely having doubts of any kind can be scary. They wonder whether their questions disqualify them from being a follower of Christ. They feel insecure because they're not sure whether it's permissible to express uncertainty about God, Jesus or the Bible.  [Added by Pastor: They're not sure if it is doubt or unbelief. You see, you got to be clear. So because of this they, they are scared to open up, they're scared to confront the issue. They do not want to acknowledge the struggle. And what happens is that] ...they keep their questions to themselves - and inside, unanswered...[These questions] grow [and rot] and fester...until they eventually succeed in choking out their faith.”

 

 

So I think it is wisdom to understand the issue of doubt and to acknowledge the struggle.

 

And after you acknowledge the struggle, you got to bring it somewhere. Where, who do you bring it to? Well, look at who John the Baptist brought it to. Verse 2 and 3, John the Baptist brought his doubt to Jesus. “..he sent by word by his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the one..?"" I want to ask you Lord, I want to ask you, Jesus, are You the one? It makes sense!

Now suppose today, I've, I've a question about Fabian. He's sitting right here, alright.  If I have a question about Fabian, what should I do? Google? Should I ask Mark about Fabian? Hey, Fabian, you said that, ah, ah Mark [sic] he said that yesterday, you know. Why do you think he said that? "Aiyah, I don't know, maybe he's crazy." Oh, yah I think he's crazy too. James, what was he crazy? “Yah, I think he's crazy too.” And after a while, we decide that's he's crazy.  But that's not wise, if you have doubts about Fabian, go talk to Fabian.  You have doubts about God, bring it to God.  If you have doubts about Jesus, bring it to Jesus.

So I think this is a simple principle. When you're struggling with doubts, bring it to the Lord, bring it to Him in prayer, in the Scripture. It's so strange. It's so natural however that when people struggle with doubt, they start to leave church.  They don't want to read the Bible.  They don't want to be in God's community. They start to ask all kinds of people.  They read different kinds of philosophers.  They read different kinds of religious books and it messes them up.  You just got to go back to who you have doubts with. And Jesus is not upset with John for asking Him this question.

Jesus didn't say, “Eh, John, you stupid ah? Why You ask me this? This is a bad question.  Don't ask.” He didn't do that! In fact, Jesus later on gave him a glorious commendation amongst all born of women, there is none greater than John the Baptist. Nothing wrong with you asking Me a question but this is My answer to John, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” [Matthew 11:4-6 ESV]

And you say, “Well, the answer is simple. Jesus says I am the Messiah because I did all this miracles.  That's true, absolutely. How can doubt when I've done all these miracles? Who else can do this?

But I think there's another slightly deeper level of understanding we need to grasp here. And that is, when Jesus said these things, not only is it true of what He has already done but these are words from Scripture. These are words that were written by the prophets from God.

In other words Jesus is saying if you have doubts, let Me tell you how Scripture is being fulfilled. Isaiah 35:5-6, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer.” John, you have questions about the Messiah, but let Me tell you the Word of God is being fulfilled. In a sense Jesus is replying him this is where you get your certainty. This is where you get your answers  - the Scriptures, the Word of God. And He says this is what Isaiah 61 verse 1 says, “..because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor.” John, don't you see? It is written, it is written, it is written.

You know, when the devil wanted to cast doubts in Jesus' mind, he said, “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.  If you are the Son of God, then jump from the top of the temple. And if you're willing to bow down, all these glories I will give to you.”  How did Jesus response? “It is written.. It is written.. It is written.”

See, this is a age old principle.  "..faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God." [Romans 10:17]  How do you defend against doubt if you're not going to the Word of God?  You've got to bring, you've got to approach the Saviour.  Bring your doubts to Him and He tells you in the Scriptures.

All of you probably would have known of this preacher named Charles Spurgeon - great guy, extremely gifted preacher, spiritual giant, a man of granite.  But he was also a prey of torturing doubt. There was a period in his life where he was depressed, dejected, doubting.  And this is what he said of himself. “I felt at that time very weary and very sad, and very heavy at heart; and I began to doubt in my own mind whether I really enjoyed the things which I preached to others. [Added by Pastor: I'm starting to have spiritual doubts about my walk with, my relationship with God]. It seemed to be a dreadful thing for me to be only a waiter, and not a guest at the Gospel feast.” I'm just mouthing the words of the Gospel but I'm, I'm doubting whether I really have the Gospel. So he was plagued by this, in a season of his life.

Well, one day he was not preaching, he was on holiday.  And he slipped into a church and heard the preaching in that church. What's amazing is that the preacher of that church actually heard Spurgeon preach some time ago and copied his sermon. And now is preaching exactly the same thing Spurgeon preached. But when he heard the Gospel being preached in that church, although it is his own sermon some time ago. He said, “The tears flowed freely from my eyes; I was moved to the deepest emotion by every sentence of the sermon, and I felt all my difficulty removed, for the Gospel [added by Pastor: the Word of Christ] I saw, was very dear to me, and had a wonderful effect upon my own heart.”

It is the Word of God that brings the healing to a doubting mind. Bring your questions to God.  Fight doubt.

This week we had a public holiday called, Hari Raya. And on Hari Raya day, my son wanted me to bring him out. Shawn wanted to bring, wanted me to bring him out. He has many fascinations in his life, different seasons, different fascinations. He used to be fascinated with ants.  Then, he was fascinated with spiders and now he's back to fascination with ants. It's like a kind of regression. I thought, you promote, go more complex creatures, but he went back to ants.

He says, “I want to look for ants.” I said, “There are lots of ants at home.” “No, no. that’s not the kind of ants I want. I want to look for queen ant. The mother ant that lays eggs.” And so I said, “Okay.” He's an expert at it now I think. He reads up a lot and he knows where to hunt, so brought him to the outdoors, to somewhere near my place.  And he was looking at the ground, looking at the tree, he knows where they will be. So after a quick survey, he said, “Dad, that's where the nest is. I think that's where the queen ant might hide.”

So we went there.  Nothing very spectacular, but he asked me to hack at it so I hacked at it. Took a branch, hacked at the roots area, and after about what, 10, 20 seconds, ants began to emerge and swarm of ants begin to emerge.  It’s like, I'm not kidding you, hundreds of thousands of ants come forth. They are, there are some of them are like a normal size ants you have at home. Unless your house really dirty, bigger ones, but usually the small ones.

And then in the midst of these small ones, they have the bigger ones. They are called the majors. Majors are like 10, 20 times the size of the normal ones.  And when we hacked at them they began to be, they emerged from their whatever nests or dwelling place and they swarmed all over. And they began to crawl, they began to attack me, they began to attack Shawn. They were relentless in attacking.  They bit us but I was hacking them away.  And somehow they know this is the enemy and they, they.. so on and so forth.  But okay, enough talking, let me show you a video of a what they look like. Alright?

[Video playing]
26.40

So, I'm not exaggerating, right? I think the majors, you see the majors, they're like 20 times the size of the worker ants.  And then some of you may comment, “Pastor, your videography skills are hopeless.” Why are you shaking every..  Ah, come on, I was being bitten all the time.  And I ‘wah lau’, hurry up ah.  It's no joke!  It's not easy, alright!  But we, we hacked at it, and we hacked at it. We wanted to reach the, we wanted to force the queen to emerge. We wanted to dig at it and we hacked and we hacked and we hacked. And …. this is a test of how much you think of me.

We hacked and we hacked and … No, you tell me whether you believe me or not first or what do you think of me? Ah? Believe what? Thank you for the confidence but we failed. Hey guys, these ants are no joke, alright. This is a picture from a book, of what …  I didn't show my own leg lah, this is, these ants are aggressive defenders.  It's a particular species called, ‘The Marauder Ants’.

So they are fierce and the bites, these guys are kamikaze ants.  They send out their defenders.  And the defenders, they can die and they don't care.  They just send wave after wave after wave.  I kill, I kill, I kill and they still come at me. And I was like doing a tango, you know. Hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, wah, then go to the back and then go back, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit.  I was doing this all the time and after a while, it's so tiring.  I cannot take it and, and so, Shawn and I, we aborted mission. Say, “This, this is impossible.” Because you keep hacking at it and it can't go deeper, it's against a root.  You need proper time and it’s not possible.

But I don't give up so easily. So, the next day, Thursday, we went back and we brought reinforcement – Matthias. So, the three of us now try to work together.  And Matthias brought some tools.  We, we brought a bottle of water. We want to drown them out, to force them to come out.  And so we said, I said to Shawn, “Shawn, this time be smart, alright? Be smart.  Don't dig slowly.  They do not know we are here, so we count to three, we whack it with all our might.”

“One, two, three” Ah, piak, ah piak, ah piak.  We really gave it a good hit. We maybe got a little bit deeper and the ants all came again.  And then, I go back to my tango. It's this again and this time, we, we, we failed again. It was nigh impossible to get to the queen. Why? The marauder ants were aggressive defenders. They defended with all their lives and will not allow us to touch their queen.

And I was thinking to myself, Christians need to be like this.  We need to defend with all our lives, because the most precious thing in our lives is faith in Jesus Christ. You got to fight with it, fight against doubt with all your life.  Life is going to be like Shawn and Matthias and Jason.  They are going to bring sticks and they are going to dig up your life. They want to reach the deep recesses of your faith.  They want to uproot your faith.  They are going to come over and over and over again.  But like the marauder ants, we need to go out and fight - in Scripture, in prayer, in God's community of people, otherwise you're gone.

That's what perseverance look like!  Perseverance is not a laid-back passive attitude that says, “God, once saved always saved, right? You are going to defend me, so I'm okay.” No. God's perseverance is in our diligence and activity in Scripture, in prayer and in Gospel communities.  But you fight with your life.

So, some of you today go through doubts because you're living in sin.  You are experiencing hardships, trials.  You're wondering why things are happening to you when you don't think it should. And you feel an erosion of your conviction.  What do you do? Passive? Suffering? Oh no, aggressively, faithfully approach your Saviour.  And ask Him, “Lord, help me in my unbelief. Lord help me to see the reality of Scripture.  Help me to see Your character.  Help me to see the cross.  Help me to see the Gospel.”

“I know life is hard, Lord and I can't understand why these circumstances are happening to me, it makes me doubt You.  But when I see the cross, when I see how You love me when I was yet a sinner, how You gave Your Son to die for me, I see Your unchanging, unconditional, amazing radical love.  Establish me in the Gospel. Help me to see Your justice, Your sovereignty, Your wisdom, Your power. Let my roots be formed there.”

Amazing thing about these ants.  After we hacked them, when I went back on Thursday, it was no more a hole. I start to see the ridges and the tunnels being formed.  Amazing! They got back at work to rebuild their protection, rebuild their homes.  And I think we need to learn diligence from these ants.  Learn to aggressively, faithfully defend ourselves against doubts.

Now, I think this is true not only for us individually, but it's true for us as a church.  Because we are called to be a faith community, isn't it? And that means that we understand that people of the same faith may also experience doubt and not only must we take care of ourselves, we need to be our brother's keeper. We need to protect one another.  We need to help one another.

And this is where I think church can do very poorly.  And, and I totally agree with Philip Yancey when he says, “Doubt is something almost every person experiences at some point, yet something that the church does not always handle well.” Because sometimes we can be very dismissive about it, too soft. “Aiyah, doubts no problem one lah! It will go away.  It's all right.  Don't bother.” That's not good.

On the other hand, we swing to the other extreme that says, “Hey, why you doubt? You're such a weakling.  You're such a failure. These are the Bible verses.” And we thump his head with the Bible, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok.  And when we do this, when we are harsh and when we are not compassionate, "..The church [then] sometimes chastised people who admit their weakness and failure, and our society has an aversion to suffering. So [what happens is that the] Christians [now naturally[ naturally tend to hide behind a thin veneer [disguise] of cheerfulness and health, while they secretly hurt and doubt [inside]."

So when the church is excessively harsh, we create people who put up a strong front but who are struggling within. And when the church is excessively dismissive, we help nobody at all. What does the Bible say? Jude verse 22, second last book of the Bible. “And have mercy on those who doubt.” We must be a church of compassion, of love, of commitment, one with another.

Satan is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He's going to whack your life as best as he can, to get to the queen of your life.  But that's where we need to fight aggressively.  “A faith that's challenged by adversity or tough questions... is often a stronger faith in the end.” [Lynn Anderson]

I was speaking to a lady after service, first service, and she said, “When you said about the miscarriage, that's exactly what happened to me. It was really hard, but I'm thankful that God saw me through that. And that allowed me to have stronger roots in my faith in God.”

Someone said this, when you hit rock bottom in your life, then you realize who is the rock at the bottom. It's God and His Son Jesus Christ.

Let's bow for a word of prayer together. I speak to a few groups of people this morning, I understand.  Some of us have never gone through serious periods of doubt in our spiritual life, in our faith. And we are thankful to God for His mercy and for His protecting hand.  But never gravitate to such a state where you say, “I will never have any doubts anymore.”  That's complacency and that's unwise. If a spiritual giant like John could experience doubts then so can we. And I pray you'll be armed with this knowledge.

But perhaps, I speak to a second group who right now is experiencing serious doubts about God, about Christ, about your faith. Perhaps you are living in sin and that has dulled your spiritual senses.  Perhaps you are living in adversity, in trials, and that has created many, many holes in your faith. It has caused erosion of your faith.  Then brothers and sisters in Christ, can I say to you, don't pretend.  Don't neglect. Don't ignore.  Acknowledge the struggle.  Doubt is not shameful or sinful like unbelief. Acknowledge that struggle and then approach the Saviour. Come to God in His Word and in prayer upon your knees.  Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together but provoke one another to love and to good works.  That is God's plan for you, that you will fight for the queen of faith in your heart.

Perhaps, some of you today are not believers of Jesus Christ. Let me tell you the best news of the Bible.  The good news of the Bible, the central message of the Bible, it is Christ and Him crucified. This is a message of astonishing love, because Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died for sinners.  Christ died for God's enemies.  Christ did not die for good people because there's no such thing as good people in the eyes of God.  We are all sinners.  We are all enemies.  We are all ruined.  We are all hopeless.  But this is God's love, He died,  Jesus died for us undeserving people.  This is the love of God.

This is the wisdom of God to save man from his sins.  This is the power of God to save man from his sins.  Look at His sovereignty.  Look at God's plan. God is faithful.  And when we look at the cross, we have our anchorings of the faith. And when you look at the cross, you have salvation from your sins. It's not about what you can do, it's all about what Jesus has done.

I pray this morning, if you're here and you do not know Jesus as your Saviour, you will turn your eyes from your sin, from yourself, and look to Jesus to be saved. He shed His blood to wash you clean.  Will you humble yourself, repent and believe in Him today?

So Father, we thank You today for Your Word. Bless Your people here, according to their varying needs.  But this is our prayer, all of us today would be drawn closer to Jesus Christ, Your Son.  May we find our joy, our certainty, our salvation in the good news - the Gospel of Jesus today. Bless each one here, glorify Yourself. We pray this in Jesus’ Name.


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