We GET To
- Behind bars in prison.
- Upset and battling the one you vowed to love.
- Head bent over, struggling to understand this health issue you’re facing.
- Troubled by the fact that your child does not believe in Jesus.
- Heartbroken by the state of the world.
- Sudden Job loss.
- Deep Financial burdens.
- Feeling the security of the home is no longer your safe-haven.
- Found in a valley of grief, pleading with God.
Asking, “Why, God, did You allow this?”
- Do you ever (like me) question God’s timing?
- Have you ever (as I have done) doubted your faith and wondered why?
In what areas of our lives OR in what situations have we experienced the most vulnerability?
In those areas AND in those situations, do we find the barometer pointing low, as we walk within spiritual doubt?
In the Bible, we are afforded many examples, narratives that detail the lives of those who came before us, stories of faith that provide us evidence of what it means to WALK BY FAITH.
Welcome.
I am so glad you have joined me on this day when we can see—
- HOW WE ARE TO WALK WITH JESUS.
- HOW WE ARE TO BE LED BY GOD’S HOLY SPIRIT. &
- HOW EVEN IN OUR TIMES OF DOUBTING, STILL WE CAN MARCH ON, RIGHT BESIDE OUR SAVIOR, KEEPING HIS RHYTHMIC STEP (instead of ours).
“So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people.
(The Gospel According to Luke 3: 18-20 NASB)
But when Herod the tetrarch was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife,
and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done,
Herod also added this to them all: he locked John up in prison.”
If we had been Jesus’s cousin, born to Elizabeth, and the babe who leaped in the womb when Mary (the mother of Jesus) announced that she carried the Messiah inside her—
If we had been God’s chosen one, the person God filled with His Holy Spirit, even when we remained in the womb, before birth—
If we had been John the Baptist, the one who was sent as the forerunner, the voice of the one crying out, the person sent by God to proclaim the Good News of Jesus—
If we had been THIS PERSON—then surely we would never dream that we would doubt our faith.
However, locked up in prison, detained for only doing exactly what God commanded us to do has a way of making us plead with God.
Asking, “Why, God, did You allow this?”
That was John the Baptist’s situation. This is the biblical evidence we need to read, to study, & to understand GOD’S TIMING IS NOT OUR TIMING.
Two of John the Baptist’s disciples come to visit him in Herod’s prison, and when they do, their master (John) sends them to Jesus. When they reach Jesus, these two are instructed to ask Jesus a question.
“Summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord, saying,
(The Gospel According to Luke 7: 19-20 NASB)
“Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?”
When the men came to Him,
[when they came to Jesus Christ the Messiah, the One sent by God]
they said,
“John the Baptist has sent us to You, to ask,
‘Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?’ ”
- In prison, John doubted as he struggled with his faith.
- During his valley, John wondered if the Messiah was really Jesus, the One sent by God.
- Imprisoned, John questioned: ‘Jesus, are You the One who will overthrow the Roman government and set up Your earthly kingdom?’
John the Baptist was so much like us & We are so much like John the Baptist.
When the devil observes how we are on fire for the Lord, then he attacks us with everything he’s got. Satan shoots his cold water of doubt on the fire the Lord has placed inside us.
- When we doubt God’s purpose—
- When we doubt God’s plan—
- When we doubt God’s timing—
We GET To look to JESUS for the answer.
Amazingly, Jesus does not despise our questions, nor does He see our questions as a lack of our faith, for the Lord understands our frame, our dustiness, and our humanity.
God knows WHAT we are and WHOSE we are.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
(The Book of Isaiah 55: 8-9 NASB)
Nor are your ways My ways,”
declares the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Consider just exactly what the child of God gets to do.
We GET To—
- We GET To see how God works everything out for our good and for God’s glory when we realize the only way possible was God’s way.
- We GET To see how God provides for our every need.
- We GET To accept Him as Savior, believe in what He did on the cross and in the grave, & confess our sins committed against Him.
- We GET To receive His forgiveness & His salvation.
- We GET To be patient and wait for God’s timing.
- We GET To not run ahead of God’s Holy Spirit. &
- We GET To not try to pull along His Holy Spirit.
- We GET To TRUST in HIM & follow HIM.
- We GET To KEEP in step with HIS TIMING, HIS PLAN, & HIS PURPOSES.
- We GET To WALK in HIS RHYTHM.
Trust is a privilege!
- We GET To TRUST the FATHER despite what comes.
- We GET To WALK by FAITH, LED by GOD’S SPIRIT & FOLLOW JESUS, GOD’S ONLY SON.
- We GET To OBEDIENTLY PLEASE JEHOVAH GOD.
We GET To!
- We GET To Go Home to Heaven One Day Soon!
Jesus does not despise our questions. Jesus does not see our questions as a lack of our faith.
The Lord Jesus understands our frame, our dustiness, and our humanity.
The same Lord Jesus understood John the Baptist’s question, and we are afforded to see narratives that detail the lives of those who came before us, stories of faith that provide us evidence of what it means to WALK BY FAITH.
This might be the best time for us to pause with our earbuds and listen to Jordan Feliz sing the melody
“Let You Go.”
In the Bible, when John the Baptist was imprisoned for preaching the gospel, the Good News of Jesus, we read Jesus’s reply to John’s question. Amazingly, we do not see Jesus condemn John’s lack of faith. No, we see Jesus lovingly supply John with EVIDENCE SHOWING HIM WHY HE FIRST BELIEVED IN JESUS.
“And He answered and said to them,
(The Gospel According to Luke 7: 22 NASB)
[Jesus responded to the two disciples John sent to ask Jesus the question:
“Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?”]
“Go and report to John what you have seen and heard:
the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT,
the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed,
and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised up,
the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM.”
Today marks the anniversary of Religious Liberty Sunday in the Southern Baptist Convention.
“A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal, . . .” 2000 Baptist Faith and Message
Let us remember how God blesses those who do not fall away from their faith but believe by faith in Jesus until the end.
“Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”
(The Gospel According to Luke 7: 23 NASB)
So, even when times of doubt come our way, doubt caused by hardships, life-struggles, grief, health issues, career changes, life-burdens, and on & on—We Simply Need to Stop & Look Up to Jesus, Recalling What We GET To Do.
We GET To Go Home to Heaven One Day Soon!