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Past Sermon Series: Faith & Doubt

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Faith is sometimes understood as the lack of doubt. As a result, doubt can be seen as the enemy of faith. But Biblical faith can withstand doubt and even be strengthened by it. God wants His people to wrestle with Him on the things that matter in their lives. We must not be afraid of struggling with deep questions.

 

Sermon 1: The Wrestlers

Wrestlers

God wants His people to wrestle with Him on the things that happen in their life. He wants His people to ask “Who are you, God?” Following the story of Jacob, we are called as Christ followers to struggle, strive, and seek to know who God is. We must also not be afraid of struggling with deep questions.

 

Sermon 2: The Wrestlers

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Faith is sometimes understood as the lack of doubt. Doubt can be seen as the enemy of faith; however, doubt is not always the enemy. When wrestling with God, it is important not to doubt God’s character. We will always have doubt about questions on a broad range because we are human and finite, but God’s character need never be doubted.

 

Sermon 3: Losing The Faith Game

Loosing-faith-game

Faith is often understood in measurement terms. Some say people need amounts of faith to receive benefits from God. Faith, however, should be understood in relational terms and not “faithometer” terms. The illustration of a marriage best serves the idea of how faith in God works.

 

Sermon 4: Toppling The House Of Cards

Topoling-House-Of-Cards

Questions can sometimes topple faith like a house of cards. In this sermon, we introduce the idea that following Jesus is the central aspect of faith. This frees us to question and critique different aspects of our faith, without losing that faith.

 

Sermon 5: Imagine

Imagine

How does a person keep their faith when facing an unfixable situation? In this sermon, Greg speaks to the question by examining his family’s own struggle with having an adult son with autism. Knowing that he can’t fix the problem, Greg describes how his vision of the solution provides a solid foundation for faith.

 

Sermon 6: Integrated Faith

Integrated-Faith

Our fallen world is full of dis-integration. This week, Greg takes the past topics of faith and applies them to this fallen world. In doing so, we are giving a way of integrating our faith in any situation.

 

Sermon 7: Trusting In God Knows What

Trusting-In-God

When we lock our doors or buy insurance, are we trusting in God? In this sermon, Greg talks about what it looks like to trust God in a broken world. He also talks about what protection looks like when following Jesus. Greg also tries telling a joke. We apologize for that.

 

Sermon 8: Growing Our Faith

Growing-Faith

Sometimes in life, Faith is an intellectual issue. However, sometimes faith comes after following Jesus. In this sermon, Seth talks to us about examples of people following Jesus and then having faith. He also talks about what it looks like for our faith to grow.

 

Sermon 9: Trusting In God Knows What

Trusting-A-Killer

The Genesis passage of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, raises questions about trusting in God. In this sermon, Greg honestly probes some of those questions about the passage. He also provides some thoughts on how we can replicate Abraham’s faith.

Related Reading

Signs of Hope

https://youtu.be/nl78l20AGP0 Greg taped this video for the Nomad podcast series called Signs of Hope. He discusses the hope he finds in the death of Christendom, and the rise in the beautiful new, peace-loving, non-violent, Jesus-centered, global movement.

Topics:

Practicing Faith

Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for and the conviction of things not yet seen, based on Hebrews 11:1 as I explained in this post. Practically speaking, this means that you become aware of what you are representing in your imagination as you pray, and that you take care to align it with what…

Is the Bible a Legal Textbook?

Olga via Compfight Too much theology treats the Bible as if it were legal textbook. In the following except from Benefit of the Doubt, Greg addresses the problems when we approach theology and Scripture this way. Incidentally, if you like these excerpts we’ve been posting from Benefit of the Doubt, you’re not going to want to…

Gospel “Contradictions” and Orality Studies

* This essay has been adopted from G. Boyd and Paul Eddy, Lord or Legend? (Baker, 2007). One of the standard tests historians put to ancient documents to assess their veracity is self-consistency. Generally speaking, fabricated accounts tend to include more inconsistencies than truthful accounts. Hence, the absence of inner contradictions contributes to a positive…

Greg Shares His Journey With Chronic Pain

Greg recently decided that he needed to discontinue taking his pain medication despite chronic neck issues for which there are no easy answers. Here he shares that decision and the journey he’s on to remain fully awake to God and others.

Confessions of a Christian Nation – LGBTQ Discrimination

Here is the second installment of the Confessions series filmed by Rex Harsin. We pray that it will bring healing and opportunities for reconciliation.