Well, welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm so glad that you are here hanging out with us today. Um, today is something new that we haven't done before. It's our doubt sundae. And so for the past month or so, I've been asking you guys to send me questions. Send me questions about things that either have caused doubt in your faith in the Lord, or maybe friends and family members that you have that have caused them to have doubt, and and I'm gonna answer them. I'm so excited for it, okay? It should be really good. The question I have to ask though, who in here has ever had doubt before? Like we've all have had doubt before, okay? You know, it's a normal thing. If you're an Eagles fan right now, it's a lot of doubt going on for you. You're not sure what's happening there, okay? Even our commanders fans, right? We were so good last year. Um but here you go. Here you go. Doubt is a normal thing that happens. I remember when Aaron and I first got married, she may have had some doubt in why she married me. Because when we first got married, we moved into this nice little condo down in Virginia Beach. And you little did I know, when you first buy a house, you got to assemble a bunch of stuff, a bunch of furniture. And when I began the process of putting our dining room table together, our TV stand together, it would take me hours trying to do this, and at the end of it, I would start throwing stuff. And so Aaron may have some doubts. She's like, who is this nice man I married? And maybe he's a crazy one, you know? There was some doubts, okay? No, but for real, she didn't have any doubts. She was good. She was good. Okay. No, but for real, we all have doubts, and the truth is there is nothing wrong with them. There's nothing wrong. We have doubts in relationships, doubts as parents, doubt in our work performance, and of course, of course, we're gonna have doubts when it comes to God. Like we don't even see them. It's not like we're just like riding along. Hey, how you doing, man? You know, no, there's doubt. It's a faith journey. There's a mystery to this thing called Christianity. There's a mystery to it. I love what the Father in Need says says to Jesus when he is asking Jesus to heal his son. He says, I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief. Now, what a good posture that is. I believe God, but um, there's some things I don't believe. There's some things I'm struggling with. Could you help me do that? Because here's the truth about doubt. Doubt isn't the enemy of faith, it is often the doorway to deeper trust. It is often the doorway to know God more. Okay, so like I said, I took all of the questions that came in, and what I was able to do, I was able to group them into three categories. And so I'm gonna answer them by each category, and that's God's character, God's revelation, how God reveals Himself to the world, and the last one, God's presence. Okay? So you ready for it? Here you go. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make it through all the questions. There was a lot, but we're gonna do it. All right, first one, targeting God's character, looking at God's character. Here's the first question. What exactly did Jesus' death accomplish that God's forgiveness could not have done otherwise? That's a good question. That's a very good question. Now, because what this question is getting at is getting at the heart of the atonement problem. The atonement, which is a big, big thing in Christianity. I want to rephrase the question, though, to really get to the heart of it. Here's how I rephrased it. If God is loving and powerful, why couldn't He just forgive us without the cross? Why does someone have to die? All right. Why did Jesus have to die? Couldn't have God just said, You are all forgiven. Go and be merry now. Couldn't he have done that? Why did someone have to die? Now the problem with this is even though that sounds kind of nice, it sounds kind of like kind of like whimsical and kind of kind, we all know that's not kind. We know just opening a blanket statement, forgiveness isn't kind. Because forgiveness isn't just a fill-in, forgiveness comes with a cost. Forgiveness always comes with a cost. You know, when when when real harm is done, someone has to absorb the cost of it. Probably one of the most practical illustrations I can give, but all illustrations kind of collapse a little bit. But here's here's one of the best ones I can get. If someone wrecks your car, just drives right into it. Drive, wrecks your car, and you forgive them, right? And you say, hey, I know that was an accident, I forgive you. Your car, even though forgiveness is given, your car is not magically repaired, is it? Somebody has to fix it. And it's either that person or it's you. Or it's you. Even though forgiveness is offered, there still is a cost. Forgiveness means observing the cost yourself. And that's what that's what God through Christ did on the cross. That's what he's done. He took the cost of sin. This is so important because God's forgiveness isn't sentimental, it's just. It's just. Peter says it like this He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. Key word there, right? By his wounds you are healed. God through Jesus personally carried our sins. The one who knew no sin became sin. He became sin for our place, in our place. In other words, he took what was bent and he made it right by taking it upon himself. Now, I want you to get this. The word right and the word just are two of the same. They're two of the same. It means rightness, fairness, harmony, restoring things to how they ought to be. So when we think about forgiveness, when we think about the cross, it's not just punishing the wrong deeds of man, it's God's plan to set things back right again. Come on, that's good. It's God's plan setting things back right again. Psalm 33, the Psalm writer says, He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of his steadfast love of the Lord. So the Hebrew mindset there, justice is relational. It's about restoration, not retribution. So when I say it's not sentimental, what I mean is it's not, okay, everyone, just be free and forgiven. Just go on. I know you don't you're doing all these bad things. Just go. No, no, no, because that's not just. Oh, it's not right. But it's just, it's right when we make things that are wrong and we and we're bringing them back into formation. Things that are bent, we're moving it, restoring it back into the right spot. And that's the beautiful work of forgiveness. You forgive, we forgive. When we forgive people, it's because there's been a violation in our relationship. Someone bent the relationship. And forgiveness and reconciliation is the process of bringing that relationship back right again. Bringing it back to the right spot. Okay? And so emotionally unhealthy people, they want forgiveness. They want people to forgive them without the process of things about things being made right and just. I said sorry. That's what my three-year-old always says. I said sorry, dad. Well, you still punch your brother. You know, it's like, you know, but God, who is emotionally healthy, understands true forgiveness comes at a cost. It's taking the violation, and here's the power of the gospel. It's taking the violation and putting it on himself and making it right. And making it right. Paul says this for God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross. Okay, the next question kind of goes into it, okay? It follows up. If Jesus is God and God needed Jesus to die to forgive sin, isn't God effectively sacrificing himself to appease himself? Good question. Again, the short answer there is no. Is no, it's not. God wasn't trying to appease himself. The cross, this is so important. This is so important. The cross wasn't God against us. The cross is God for us. It's God for that's a that I know it's a difference of words, but words mean a lot. Our words mean a lot. The cross is God for us. Um, God wasn't in heaven saying, Someone's gotta pay. I'm gonna get them. No, no. He came to earth saying, They made a mess of it, and I'll make it right. I'll make it right. It wasn't divine anger demanding blood, it was divine love offering grace. And Paul says, for God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us the wonderful message of what? Reconciliation. And couldn't our world use that right now? Couldn't our world use the gospel message of bringing people together instead of dividing people? And so here you go. Jesus wasn't the innocent son trying to calm down the angry dad. No, no, no. Jesus was this. Philippians says this, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, like likeness, and being found in the in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself. This is what Jesus did. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. That's a God who is willing to suffer to set his people free. To set his people free. That's not God demanding payment, it's God making the payment. He's making the payment. Okay, so here you go. The next question is this. And I'm gonna go fast. I got a lot of them, okay? But hopefully this is good. Okay, how is infinite punishment in hell just for finite sins committed in a lifetime? Would a loving God condemn his own children forever? Again, this is a care, this is a question about God's character. This is a question about God's character. For time's sake, I'm gonna encourage you because this time last year, I actually did a three-part series called One Minute After You Die. And in part two of the series, I talked about hell on earth and what hell is. I encourage you to go and look at that message because I give I'm gonna give you way more in that than I am right now. Um if you're if you're interested in that question. But I'll give you a little snippet of it. Um, here you go. God is full of grace and God is full of truth. God is full of grace and truth. He's perfectly loving and he's perfectly just. And they don't fight each other, they complete each other. They complete each other. Hell isn't a place that God created to torture people. Hell is what happens when we choose a life apart from God. That's what that's what it is. And again, we we gotta get this mindset of this big, angry God. You go to hell, Aunt Betsy. You know, it's like it's like poor Aunt Betsy. She just loved too many cats. Because we know what happens to cat lovers. Um, no, no, that's not God. That's not that's not the God of the Bible, anyways. That may be your God, but it's not the God of the Bible. It's not what we see in that. Um, it's it's it's not God's choice. It's against human. It's it's it's not God's choice against human. And Jesus said this. Jesus said hell doesn't just show up later in the afterlife. Jesus, very vividly, when you look at the gospels, talks about hell on earth right now. Right now that we experience it. And we see it when we see anger over love, control over surrender, bitterness, when we devalue people, when we when we know, when we know we live in our comfortable suburban homes, but sex trafficking is happening all around us. That is hell on earth. Here's the good news about hell being on earth. Heaven is on earth too. And the kingdom of God can evade the here and now. And even though even though there's hellish issues, heaven can come. And we are called to be signposts of heaven here and now. When we live out the Lord's prayer, may your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. That's our commission. That's our call. And so when people ask, how would a loving God send people to hell? I think Jesus would say, I can't speak for him, but I think he would say, I'm not sending anyone to hell. I'm trying to rescue everyone who will let me. Everyone who will. Okay. So why would God demand worship under the threat of punishment? Now, again, again, we talk about God's character here. And I want to and I want to speak to someone who feels like God wants your worship under the threat of punishment. He is not angry at you. Your sin, according to scripture, your sin is as far as from the east as to the west. Meaning that when God looks at you, he loves you. There's a story of the prodigal son who does these, you know, he runs off, does his own thing, and when he's coming back home, he comes to his senses, scripture says, and he's coming back home, saying, ready to apologize to God. I love what the text says. While he was still a long way off, the father saw him and ran towards him. Meaning that God's grace is always searching for us, always looking for us. He's not angry at us. God is not, God isn't a cosmic dictator saying, bow down or else. That's not who he is. Worship isn't about God needing attention. God is not insecure. He's not insecure. It's about God inviting us into the healing process. It's about God inviting us into his presence. He doesn't need anything from us, it's what he wants for us. And that's why at LVC we start every service with worship music, with worship music. Because we think it's beautiful that we get invited into the presence of God. And we think it's through our singing is a way to do that. Just like how when you start singing some other songs that aren't good, you get in the mood, right? You start getting like, oh, I'm angry now. But when you sing worship songs, it gets it gets you in that spot. It gets you closer to the Lord. But here's the thing: worship isn't just music. Worship is not just music. We worship God with our lifestyles. Because worship reorders our hearts. And this is the bottom line truth. We all worship something. Here you go. Whatever you hold at the highest esteem in your life, that is what you worship. And that could be success, it could be money, it could be that relationship, it could be that trauma, it could be whatever it is. Whatever you hold the highest, whatever your eyes are fixed on the most is what you worship. We believe when we hold God the highest, everything else falls into place. Everything else falls into place. So I'm gonna hold God the highest. So that's that's what we're gonna do there, okay? So worship is what happens when lost people come home and realize how deeply loved they are, and it's when found people keep coming back to the heart of God and look for the heart of worship. Okay. If God created everything, including the capacity to sin, how is humanity alone responsible for moral failure? Why was temptation even possible in the first place? When we ask this question, what um, why did God allow sin or temptation? We often imagine a world where God could have just made us robots and programmed us to do good things and never rebel, right? But that's not love. That's not love. Anyone who's ever been in love, anyone who's ever loved, you know. You know the hardest part about love is that love always comes at a risk. It comes at a risk of someone really hurting your heart. Love is always a choice. And so, and so for God, for in order for God to love us, for love us, he had to give us choice. Love requires choice. The ability to sin isn't a design flaw, it's what makes love real. It's what makes goodness real, it's what makes God's relationship with us possible. So the better question isn't why did God allow sin, but what did God do about sin? What did he do about it? And the answer that we see through scriptures is Jesus. It's Jesus. It's Jesus. The creator stepped into his creation to take responsibility for what his image bearers broke. The cross again isn't God punishing an innocent man, it's God absorbing the cost himself so the world can be made right again. And the resurrection, this is beautiful, the resurrection is the start of that renewal that God's creation is breaking into the old and setting things right again. So sin doesn't prove God is cruel, it proves that God values love over control. I just want to speak to someone. Because we do we do refer to God as our heavenly father. Maybe you grew up in a household where you had a father that was controlling, that you had an authority figure that was controlling, manipulative. I feel like the Holy Spirit wants to say to you right now, that's not him. That he loves you, that he wants to do life with you, and that he's for you. Okay? I just feel like the Holy Spirit dropped that on my heart. Okay, so so God doesn't, so here you go, God doesn't walk away, he steps in to redeem the world. Alright, was that good? That's God's character. There's a lot, and but I want to honor the people who who who gave me these questions, okay? So here you go. God's revelation. Can I can I um really trust what's true? I'm thirsty today, too. Okay. If all cultures develop religions claiming divine revelation, what distinguish what distinguishes Christian revelation from myth? Another good question. Because if you do study human human history, every culture does have stories of heroes and villains and gods and all these, you know, you see this throughout throughout. Um so what makes Christianity stand apart? Christianity isn't built on mythic imagination, it's built on historical revelation. So myths typically start with what? What's the phrase? Once upon a time. You know, once upon a time. The gospel, however, starts with this. In the 15th year of the reign of Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judah, not the best title opening. But what we see here is there's literal names, governors, and dates. There's dates of where Christ was. Christianity didn't grow from oral legend over centuries, like ancient myths. It exploded within the same generation. Like, for example, Alexander the Great. But the first written article, first written documentation of Alexander the Great was 500 years after his death. A lot happens in 500 years. Like our we're barely, we barely can relate to our grandparents, right? Our great-great-grandparents. Jesus? It was only within 30 to 36 years of his death and resurrection that there was written documentation. And it was from people who are still around. So so there's more written historical evidence over the resurrection than any other historical event in history. And so that they were eyewitness accounts. Peter said this: we do not follow cleverly invented stories when we when we told you about the power of Jesus Christ. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. They saw it. They saw it happen. Christianity is not humanity reaching up to God through religion, it is God coming down to humanity through relationship. Through relationship. So, if God transcends human understanding, how can any religion claim exclusive knowledge of his will? Again, a good question. And I like this one because it starts with something true. God really does transcend human understanding. And we're arrogant to think that we can fully always understand God. There is a mystery in this thing that we won't understand. And there's a freedom in accepting the mystery. And accepting that there's, hey, some of it is faith. There's faith attached to this thing. It's not all just logic. The prophet Isaiah said this, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declared the Lord. Again, we can't climb our way up to God through intellect and religion. We must remember Christianity doesn't start with humans reaching for God, it starts with God reaching for humans. Every other religion begins with a revelation through ideas, our instructions, a prophet, a book, a set of teaching on how to find God. Yet Christianity says God Himself came to find us. It's not that we have all the answers about who God is. It's just that God answered some questions through Christ Jesus. And we can look at them that way, okay? Alright. So how do you, me, me, Jacob, that's me, how do you personally reconcile the numerous denominations? How can Christianity be true? There's so many various interpretations, doctrines. Which one is the correct one? Such a good question. Especially this one makes a lot of sense for people who first look at Christianity from the outside looking in. It can look like we can't even agree on anything because the truth is we actually can't in a lot of ways. Okay? And so the best illustration I can give is this. Aaron and I, we have three kids. We have three kids, same, same household, same household rules, same parents, say the same. We're all the same, same. Yet all of my kids relate to us differently. Like Aaron Kingsley, she she loves to talk. She asks you deep questions sometimes, like too deep. Why are you thinking so deep sometimes? You know. That's what she likes. Then Jameson, my son Jameson, he loves to wrestle and play and do obstacle courses. That's how you can connect with him. And Hayden, our youngest man, he is just so silly. He's a silly guy, he's funny, but he loves to joke around. Same parents, same household rules, but different ways on how we connect. A lot can be said the same way with the capital C church. Okay? And so what theologians have talked about is what's called essentials and non-essential beliefs. You got your essential beliefs, these are things that you have to believe. And if you're a part of a church that doesn't believe some of these essential beliefs, I would just caution you that you might be a part of a cult. You know, being dead serious, being serious. You know, and so some of the essential beliefs are that God created the world and loves it, that Jesus is God's Son, fully God and fully man, that he died for our sins and rose again, that salvation is by grace through faith, not by works, and that one day Jesus will return again. Come on, amen on that one. Yep. And uh so those are, you know, there's a couple more there I could add, but but those are the those are the essential beliefs. Honest and non-essential beliefs are things like how do we baptize, spiritual gifts, church government, styles of worship, things like that. That that's those are based on kind of preference, honestly. So they don't they don't define the gospel, they describe how different families live it out. Okay? Alright, so how do we know which part of the Bible are meant to be taken literally versus metaphorically? Here's where Professor Jacob comes in a little bit. How to read the Bible faithfully, what's called hermeneutics. It's called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is just a big word that means how we interpret, how we interpret scripture. It's the lens, it's the lens we look through when we read. So before asking, this is so important, this is so good, this is so good. This is where my nerd side comes in, okay? So before asking, what does this text mean to me? Ask, what did it mean for them back then? What did it mean for the original, the original person reading it? The Bible was written for us, but not to us, so context matters. Because reading one verse without context is kind of like this. It's like, I don't know if you got an iPhone and you're in a group chat, and now the new AI and the iPhone tries to summarize the group conversation before you open it. And sometimes you'd be like, what the heck are people talking about right now? The way it summarizes. That's how if you just read one scripture out of context, you can be like, Well, this is what I believe. Well, you don't have the whole context to what to what the writer is saying. So we so we can't assume the whole conversation, which leads to exegesis. And that's just letting God speak, not making him say what we want God to say. So when we take scripture and we try to manipulate it and make it say what we want it to say, that is not good. That is not good. Exegesis means we draw meaning out of the text, not read our meaning into the text. And so we ask questions like, what does this text say? What did it mean to them? How does it re what does it reveal about God? Here's an important one. How does it point to Jesus? Good exegesis humble, keeps us humble, okay? So and then and then also, also the Bible. The Bible isn't just one book, it's a collection of 66 books. It's a collection of books. And these books are all different genres. There's historical books, there's there's poetry, there's song, there's wisdom, there's prophecy, there's letters. They're all written different ways. So each one communicates truth in a unique way. So read poetry letters like poetry. Read history like history. Every word is true, but not every word is literal. When Jesus says, I am the vine, he's not a real vine. He's not really that. It's a metaphor, but it reveals a powerful truth. You can't live without staying connected to him. That's the truth there. And so the question is, is it literal, is it, is it, is this literal? Is what kind of truth is it communicating? And then ultimately, Jesus is the lens. Every page points to Jesus. So the best question you can ask is this how does this reveal the heart, character, and mission of Jesus to me? Okay? Because the goal isn't, this is so good, when you're reading your scripture, the goal isn't just information, it's spiritual formation. And that's why reading the Bible is one of the best spiritual habits that you can have. To regularly read scripture is so important, okay? All right. I lost the question here. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. You guys are awesome. Okay, I see it. Yeah, okay, okay. Okay, so let me go back. I was like, yo, I lost it. Okay, so if God wants all people to know him, why does he remain silent or hidden? Okay, I'm sorry, let me go back. I messed up my notes a little bit. Here you go. Now I'm entering to God's presence. Okay, so that was God's revelation. We did God's character, God's revelation, now God's presence. Okay, so where is God when it hurts? All right. If if um if God wants all people to know and love him, why does he remain silent or hidden, especially to sincere seekers and non-Christian cultures? I combine these two questions, okay? If faith is required for salvation, what happens to people who never hear about Jesus or who are raised in other religions, though no fault of their own? Okay, I'll hit on the silence one in a second in the next question. I want to hit on the last part, that first question, and then the second question, okay? I'll answer this one with a summary from a book by C. S. Lewis. Um, if you don't know who C.S. Lewis is, he's one of the great Christian, modern Christian theologians. Um, C. S. Lewis gave us um also what's known as the The Chronicles of Narnia. It's uh it's it's a Christian allegory book for children. So if you ever want to kind of expose your kids to some more Christian truth, that would be the book I would recommend to read. Okay, so in the last book of the series, The Last Battle, um, C. S. Lewis describes this. He tells the story of a soldier named Emoth who spent his whole life serving a false God. When he dies, he stands before Aslan, who is the Christ-like figure in the Narnia stories, expecting judgment. Instead, here you go, Aslan welcomes him, saying that every act of genuine goodness or truth was really done in service to him, even when Emoth did not know his name. Okay, so Lewis isn't saying all religions are the same. That's not what he's saying, and he is not supporting a universalism view. What he is showing us is that God's mercy is bigger and larger than our categories. Is that God's mercy can expand way more than what the box that we like to put God into? The Bible says the same thing. God's law is written on every human heart. He's not far from anyone who seeks him, his light shines on every person. So even in places or cultures that haven't heard the name of Jesus, I want you to get this. The Holy Spirit is stirring and working in those places. The Holy Spirit is moving. And this is what I got to say to that, though. This is why international missions is so important. This is why mission trips are so important. This is why by um by financing and supporting missionaries to support. This is why by raising up missionaries to go to go to the ends of the earth is so important. Because the Holy Spirit is moving, but God still speaks through messengers. He uses people to bring in his good work, to bring in his good news. And so we gotta, we the Holy Spirit is moving. Is this are we available? I want to make it more practical to us too, though. The Holy Spirit is moving in our community. Are we making ourselves available to be used? Holy Spirit's stirring people. This is the most, they're saying Barna Group, a Christian data group, is saying this generation, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, is the most spiritually hungry generation ever. Ever. And that this these two generations are leading the cause of people coming back to church. Not millennials, not Gen X. Not boomers. It's this new generation. And so I just gotta ask us will we allow the stern of the Holy Spirit and God to use us to reach people? Back to international missions, though. Um, LVC, I want you to know you've been doing something great. You may not have known it. But we but we have been sponsoring a family of missionaries in Beijing right now. Katie and Al Woods, um, you're giving ghosts to supporting them, and I mean they can be persecuted any day. Any day. They can be persecuted for sharing the gospel for their faith. But we're supporting them financially and through prayers. And so, so you know, I just want to let you know that. So that's that's what that's what I think. Okay, so now I want to end these last two questions, okay? We did it. Last two questions, and we're still good on time. Come on. God is good and all the time. God is good. And if he ain't, then you okay, never mind. All right, these last two questions are very personal. There's personal attachment to it. And I save them for the last because at the end of the day, we we have a lot of doubts, we have a lot of questions, but we want to know, God, how are you gonna move in my life? God, I have I have hurts, I have pains, I have things that happen. And God, where are you in those places? Where are you in those places? So I want to first thank the people who post these. Everything was anonymous, so I don't know who posted things, but I want to thank them for being so vulnerable. And I believe that God wants to use these two questions too to help to help us too, okay? The first one is this I'm really struggling to understand if God hears me. I think we've all been there before. I've been through so many awful challenges continuously since 2009. There's too much for me to write here. It's been something terrible every year. Three or four huge challenges a year. I pray and pray, and then another challenge hits. I'm exhausted in my life. Haven't we all been there? Doing our best to serve God and life still hits. Things still happen. Second question is this why does God allow so much suffering before people are called to be with him? My spouse's dad battled bladder cancer for three years before passing at 60. He suffered greatly the entire time. This is the reason he stated he stated that he no longer believes in God. My my good friend had brain surgery, chemo, radiation three times to remove cancer from childhood to adulthood. The fourth time she had it, it was so aggressive, we couldn't repair it. It couldn't be repaired. Why let her beat it three times? Here's a good question. Why let her beat it three times only to have her suffer in pain and perish at age 37? To leave behind a husband with two with twin 10-year-old boys. She was one of the strongest, deep-rooted Christians I knew. It doesn't make sense to me. Guys, haven't we been there before? Just things happen like God, God, this doesn't make sense. Like, I don't understand. I was trying to do the right thing. I was trying my best. This doesn't make sense, God. I'm struggling here with this. I don't know how to deal with that. I first again want to acknowledge that this is tough. Going over a decade of time, and what I'm assuming is very overwhelming challenges is hard for anyone. So my hope here isn't to explain this. My hope isn't to explain, well, bad things happen, but God is good. Amen. Come on. Come on. We can't fluff up people. We can't fluff up people because fluffed up people pop when life gets hard. Okay? And so so so he here's one of the most liberating things that I can say for Jesus followers, though. For Jesus followers to know. God does not need us to be his lawyer. God does not need to lawyer up. He doesn't need us to be his lawyer. He needs us to be his witnesses. So a lawyer has all the facts, the data, the evidence to make a case win. A witness, they may not have all the facts, data, and evidence down to a T, but they can speak from a place, much like the man born blind in John 9. I don't know who he was, but I was blind, but now I can see. I don't have all the data. I don't have all the facts. I can't answer every question, but I know my life was going this way. I met Jesus and now it's going this way. There's been a change in me. There's been something different. So he just needs a witness. Can I get a witness? Sorry. Okay. So with that, I'm gonna say two things here. I do not believe God is silent. I don't. I do not believe God is silent. I don't at all. I think we are often distracted. I think we are often distracted. We are the 2.5 people. What does that mean? We spend 2.5 hours a day on average on media. 2.5. And that's on average. And I know we're all above average around here. It's 2.5. We give that amount of time to media, but we barely give God five minutes of undivided attention. And we say, I just don't got time to pray. I don't got time to do it. See, God often isn't our first choice when life gets hard, especially with the increase of AI, right? With the angry, I mean, it's it's it's even easier to talk to everything but God. And but let me remember let me remind you of something about chat. I love chat. It's good, it's very helpful, but remember, chat doesn't have a soul. It doesn't have a soul, so we gotta be cautious on getting therapy from someone that doesn't have a soul. So pain does not negate the presence of God. One of the problems with the prosperity gospel heresy that that went through the church, it taught us that God only shows up in the good stuff. That's what that was that then the root was that was what the prosperity gospel was telling us. And this has and this has still bled into church theology and how people view God. We start believing that he's a God of blessing, mostly material blessing. And when life falls apart, we assume he's silent, absent, or absent, or we did something wrong. But that is not the truth. The truth is this to suffer is to be human. And God meets us in our suffering often more than our success. See, if Jesus would say this, if Jesus says, in this world you will have just an abundance of Cadillac Escalades. Oh, that's not what he said. In this world, you're gonna have your own private jet. Is that what he said? No, if Jesus says, in this world, you will have trouble, you think we should believe him? In this world you will have trouble. But then he says this, but take heart. I have overcome the world, meaning that we can lean into him when trouble comes, when trouble hits us. It means we are not alone, and you are not alone. You're never alone. You're never alone. And so Jesus makes it clear we're gonna have troubles. Now, I do not know why certain things happen. I have no idea. I do not know, but I do know we live in a space and time called the already and the not yet. And when Jesus came, lived the life we couldn't, died a death we deserved, three days later rose again. Now he ascended to the right hand of ascended to heaven, sits at the right hand of God, and he is to come back again. And we find ourselves in the middle of the already came, and now because of that, the kingdom of God is breaking into our world, and we see this. We see this through through healing and justice and peace and generosity and demonic deliverance and feeling of the poor and healing of addictions. Those are signposts of the age to come. Yet, yet, we still have pain, sorrow, stillborn births, hunger, racism, idol worship, etc. Because the kingdom has not come in its fullness yet. And so we live in this tension of the already and the not yet. And what I'm about to say here is hard. It's hard. This next thing I'm about to say is hard. But honestly, I'd be a terrible pastor if I didn't say it. So I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it, okay? Can I say it? Okay, I'm gonna say it. Instead of asking the question, why, God, is this happening? Definitely not a bad question in the beginning of sorrow or grief. Wonderful question. But if that's your only question, you may never find a satisfying answer. The better question to ask is this God, what are you teaching me in this? God, how are you using this thing to form and shape me into the likeness of your son? How are you using the thing that makes me want to give up, quit, tap out? How are you using this thing to elevate my life to the place that you called me to be and to take the mess in my life and make it a message for other people? How do you want to form me in this? What are you teaching me in this? And and and Paul says it like this: he says, not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings. Like again, I don't even understand where the prosperity gospel comes from. What are you what Bible are you reading? The apostle Paul says this. He says, We glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. The Spirit of God is within us and God pours it out on us. Pain is real. Pain is real. But the key, the key is this. We must spend daily time with God. We must spend daily time with God. This is why spiritual habits are so important. This is why, this is why having daily time with God is so important. And the two spiritual habits I encourage everyone with is this. Number one, give God the first of your morning. The principle of first things. Give God your first. And I know some people got different wacky work schedules. Make it make sense to your work schedule. But wake up early, get into distraction-free space, get desperate to be in God's presence and just spend 15 minutes with the Lord. You don't gotta spend an hour in your prayer closet. Just 15 minutes with the Lord. Five minutes in prayer, five minutes journaling, five minutes, just listen to a worship song. An oldie but goody, preferably. And then give God the end of your day. Do what's called a prayer of examine. Where you just sit for five minutes at the end of your day, and you just go over your day hour by hour, just visualizing it in your head, asking the question, God, what was my high for today? What was my low for today? And God, where were you in those moments? Then at the end of your day, this is my favorite. Keep a thankfulness journal. Just write one thing down that God did in your day. What I do, I write one thing down that Aaron did, my wife, and then one thing my kids did that I'm thankful for, and then one thing God did. And it just helps me train my brain to think about God. Because it's easy, man. It's easy to think about the negative. It's the easy thing about that one negative text message you got. But we gotta train our ways to think about how God is doing, okay? So God is not silent, he's speaking. In church, doubt isn't the enemy of God, it's the doorway to deeper trust. And so we looked at some big themes today, okay? That God is good. Jesus is the clearest revelation of that goodness, and that God is with us even when it hurts. So, what do we do with our doubts? We bring them to Jesus. We spend time with Jesus, and then we stay with the family. We stay with the church family that can encourage us to become who God has called us to be. And the cross proves he's with you, the resurrection proves he's not done with you, and your daily time with him will remind you that he's still good, even in this thing. Is that good? Come on, let's pray. Thank you. Thank you guys for the questions. Thank you for the people being vulnerable to ask those questions. And I hope this really helps your heart. Let's let's spend some time with Jesus. So we say, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, thank you so much for your goodness and your mercy. Thank you, Lord, that you're not afraid of our doubts, but you welcome them. You welcome any conversation we have with you. Friends, I just got this image in my head of us just sitting. You, the thing about yourself, you sitting on God's lap, just telling them all your stuff. Just kind of even kind of just going through it, mumbling through your day. And there's joy on his face when you talk to him. So Lord, I pray for deeper intimacy with you, deeper union with you. And that we can have critical conversations with you, Lord. Hear our Christ. Holy Spirit, I pray that you expand people's prayer language today. That people will become raw and honest with you, God. Writing out their real feelings and their doubts and their fears. Knowing that you're not a mad God. Demanding things from them. But you're lovingly inviting them into your presence. That's like the Holy Spirit saying he wants to heal you of that addiction in Jesus' name. I don't know who that's for, but it's real life for someone today. That that thing cannot answer the questions that only God can answer. So come, Holy Spirit. We thank you, Lord, for your goodness. We thank you that you are Emmanuel, God with us. You walk beside us. Come follow me. You invite us to nearness and closeness. You are not a distant deity, but you are a personal God. So Lord, we love you in this place today. We say more of you. In Jesus' name. The church says, Amen. Amen. Amen.