Sunday, May 4, 2014

BEYOND DOUBT


Sketchnotes
Sermon: Christ challenges lives
Beyond doubt and doors

Rev Philip Lim

4th May 2014
Wesley Methodist Church Singapore

Sermon Illustration
Man gets electrocuted
Sent to mortuary
Revives
Calls for help
Mortuary attendant, thinking he was dead an is now a ghost, screams and runs away
Phones wife: she screams and faints
Phones friend: he screams and faints

He has to call overseas to someone who has not heard he has "died" and convince him he is alive, and tell his family and friends

A modern day parable of Doubting Thomas

The story of Easter gives us new life
But after Easter glory, what next?
do doubts set in?

Resurrection glory: Can it impact me today?

 Thomas missed the first Easter experience

Told that Jesus is alive
Thomas doubted

He knew Jesus had died

"Unless I see
and put my hands...

BUT
doubt is no the opposite of faith

Doubt is the begining of faith
"Faith" is what we tell those we love

Thomas doubt: Inability to trust

There is a difference between genuine doubt and cynic scepticism

Doubt can open doors and let faith grow

Two famous doubters
Josh McDowel, Christian apologist, evangelist, writer. Started as an aetheist out to disprove God: His research led him to write "Evidence that demands a verdict"

CS Lewis:" Surprised by Joy"
"He was the hunter and I was the deer"

I never had the experience of looking for God. It was the other way round: He was the hunter (or so it seemed to me) and I was the deer. He stalked me like a redskin, took unerring aim, and fired. And I am very thankful that this is how the first (conscious) meeting occurred. It forearms one against subsequent fears that the whole thing was only wish fulfillment. Something one didn’t wish for can hardly be that. [C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1956), p. 169.]612

there is the implicit promise
God will provide what you need in order to believe.

LORD I believe
Help Thou my unbelief!
Mark 9:24

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