Why do doubts rise in your mind?

WELCOME
Pastor Chris Paavola:
Hey everybody, once again, good morning. Good morning. Very good to be with you, making sure there’s no water spills over here because that’s not what I want to do while I’m preaching. Yeah, good to be with you guys. My name’s Chris Pavila. I’m the senior pastor here at St. Mark and it’s great to be with you the week after Easter. He is still risen!

Response: He is risen indeed, alleluia!

Pastor Chris Paavola:
And if this is your first time here at St. Mark, that’s the last secret handshake thing we’ll do, I promise. No more of that. But we talked about last week how he has risen and then everyone responded. Has risen indeed. It’s a tradition of Easter. And actually the week after Easter, in the book of John, you can read how there was this pattern that was established and the week after Easter, they got together and decided they should talk about the resurrection.
And that was the first pattern established. And so the next week they got together and they talked about resurrection and wanted for their lives. And really that’s what we do here on Sunday morning is we get together, talk about the resurrection and try to figure out what it means for our lives. And one of the men who gathered with them the next week was a doubter. And I love that little detail because it means that Thomas, who didn’t believe in the resurrection yet, felt comfortable enough and welcome enough in their midst to sit with them even though he had questions. And really that’s what happened with Kyle as well. He felt comfortable enough to be here and asked his questions. And then today we celebrate his baptism. That’s just an awesome thing, man.
And we’re going to talk today as we continue this series, questions Jesus wants to ask you by asking a question about doubt.

WHY DID YOU DOUBT?
And we did this series kind of through Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Easter, all that stuff, looking at the questions Jesus asked, and we’re going to continue it because he’s a rabbi. And this is one of his primary teaching styles is to ask these kind of provocative questions so that we wrestle with the answer. And the reason this is a good thing to do is it kind of takes us to places we normally wouldn’t go. And it kind of takes us where we’re a little uneasy sometimes. Like today, his question that he asks in the account we just heard of Walking on Water, he asks, “Why did you doubt?” And that’s on him that he asked this question. He wants us to answer it as our rabbi.
And the reason I think we otherwise wouldn’t go here talking about doubt is because I think churches are afraid to talk about doubt. I think there’s a fear that churches have of like, “Well, if we talk about doubt, we’re going to give you things to doubt and we’re supposed to strengthen your faith, not weaken your faith and give you questions and make you wrestle with things.” And I actually think the opposite is true. When we don’t talk about it, that’s where we get doubts and people struggling in their faith. To put it another way, I’d rather you be in here asking your questions than out there not asking your questions, right? It’s just so simple. I would rather have the conversation and you can be here as little as you’d like or as long as you’d like wrestling with those questions as well. And that’s a pattern we see.
So, I’m unafraid to talk about doubt. Last year on January 5th of 2025, I actually preached a sermon as a part of a series called The Reason for God. The sermon was, “Can I still be a Christian if I have my doubts?” And since then, we’ve heard back a lot from people saying, “Thank you for doing that. That was very helpful.” And to kind of give you a synopsis, like a three bullet point synopsis of that sermon, I talked about how doubt is not the absence of faith. It’s not. Doubt is actually evidence of the presence of faith. And if you’re going to put doubt somewhere, doubt is the suspended tension. Doubt is suspended between belief and unbelief. And it’s something in between. And it doesn’t matter like the morality or the ethic or the worldview or the philosophy that you ascribe to. All of them kind of come to the end of themselves and will have to take a leap of faith and wrestle with doubt, all of them.
And so that means like we should be unafraid to ask questions and to look our doubt in the eye because that’s how we grow in the faith, is we resolve that question and we wrestle with it and we grow. That’s why he asks questions like he does. And so we’re unafraid to talk about this, but in that series then we followed it each week talking about some of the big usual suspects, the big culprits that cause people to doubt. Why do bad things happen to good people? What about all the bad things Christians have done? What about dinosaurs? And every week I went through like a different big question that causes people to doubt. And I encourage you, if you’re wrestling with some of those big existential questions or just doubt in general, go back and give that sermon or that series a listen, because I think it will be helpful for you.

WHY DID YOU DOUBT?
But today, when we look at doubt, it’s not going to be these big theoretical, existential kind of questions of what causes us to doubt. Today, it’s actually kind of in the practical, pragmatic, lived out, doubt. And that’s where Jesus’s question takes us. And it’s helpful if we kind of get the context and then unpack the question. So the context is what you heard in our reading just a moment ago. Jesus sends the disciples to the other side of a lake. It’s called the Sea of Galilee or Gennesaret, depending if you’re Jewish or Aramaic. And he sends them out across the lake to the other side and says, “Basically, I’ll catch up with you. ” And they’re like, “Okay.” So they row to the other side of the lake and it’s a windy day. It doesn’t say it’s raining or storming. It just says that it’s windy, like a windy night.
And so there’s all these white caps and the lake is really just difficult to navigate. And the disciples, it says they’re rowing all night, but they can’t make progress to the point where Jesus is on the hill and he still sees them out there and they can’t get to the other side, but they’re trying. And so in the middle of the night, at some point he decides, I don’t know if he’s going to pull them like, “Hey, I got you guys.” And I don’t know what he’s planning on doing, but he walks out on the water and they see him and they think it’s a ghost and they are terrified is what it says. And then Peter says, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you. ” And Jesus says, “Come.” And Peter gets out of the boat, starts walking on the water, but he looks around, sees the white caps, hears the howling wind, starts to doubt and he sinks and Jesus reaches out and pulls him up.
There’s a painting by a Korean artist, Yung Sung Kim. As a couple decades ago, he painted this. I love, love, love this picture, man. It’s Jesus reaching down into the water to pull Peter out. I love that picture for so many reasons, but then when he pulls Peter out of the water, he asks the question, “Why did you doubt?” Here’s Peter water logged, choking, coughing, dripping wet. And he’s, “Why did you doubt?”

WHY DID YOU DOUBT?
And then it says they get into the boat and Jesus gets in the boat because he doesn’t want to show off anymore. I don’t know. But he gets in the boat and they worship him and it’s this incredible moment.
Last week at Easter, we looked at the question Jesus asked, “Why are you crying?” And we unpacked that. And it was kind of like this obvious question, like he’s in a graveyard and he asks someone who’s crying, “Why are you crying?” It’s kind of an obvious … They’re grieving a loved one. It’s such an obvious question. And I think it’s kind of obvious in this moment too, like on a surface level for this question. Why did you doubt? Peter has to be thinking, “Really? Are you serious? Why am I doubting?” He’s been a fisherman his whole life and he has a whole lifetime of watching things go down into this lake and he has one of one examples of something not going down into this lake. The preponderance of evidence would suggest I’m not supposed to be able to stand on the water. It was like one of my early memories, like three or four years old, I had this rubber alligator toy.
I remember what it looked like and we were at the pool and it was floating on the water and I’m like three or four and I wanted the alligator on the shallow end there, thankfully. And so I just kind of, I go just to get it and I grab it, but I keep going down. And then my cousin picks me up and I’m choking and he put me on the side of the pool there and it was terrifying all that stuff. But like if we’re playing a game of will it float with Peter? Peter’s going to tell you, “No, I am not going to float this. I don’t walk on water.” And he looks around and there’s plenty of reason to doubt. Why am I doubting? Well, because people don’t walk on water. This isn’t what water does. Have you seen the size of these waves?
Have you seen the white caps? Have you seen how well I swim? I know what’s going to happen here. That’s why I doubt it. And Peter’s failed to make the connection that the one who makes the water can make the water do whatever he wants. He hasn’t made that connection and Jesus has power and authority, but like power and authority over water, the wind and the waves. And so that’s why he’s doubting. And if Peter is looking at all the reasons to doubt as he articulates it to Jesus or as he processes it, why did I doubt? He’s thinking he can’t swim that well. He’s thinking the wind is really strong. He’s thinking people don’t walk on water and every one of his doubts, you know what they have in common?
Him. Him. All of his doubts come back to him, which is what I think Jesus is actually asking. It looks like an obvious question because we focus on the word doubt, but I think the emphasis might be on the word. Why? Why did you doubt Peter? And Peter’s doubts all come back to him because deep inside of Peter coursing through every cell in his body is this thing called sin. I think some of us, and this is where I think we’re going to think about doubt a little bit differently today. Some of us think that sin is just the bad things you do, but sin is more than that. Sin is, it’s your condition.
It has corrupted every part of you. I say this often because I think it’s really important. You’re not a sinner because you sin. You sin because you’re a sinner. It’s who you are. You have fallen short of this standard, not even your standard for you, but God’s standard for you. And you are a sinner. And the reason that Peter doubts is because of sin. Put it another way. If you go to heaven right now where everyone’s made into a new creation and it’s everything’s perfect because there’s no sin, nobody in heaven is questioning God’s power. Nobody in heaven is questioning God’s character. Nobody in heaven is questioning God’s wisdom because there’s no sin.
But sin has made us question all of that about God, his power, his wisdom, and his character. It’s severed our relationship with him. Let me put some teeth on this, okay? God didn’t ask you to walk on water, but the reason you doubt his wisdom to not commit adultery is because of sin. God didn’t ask you to walk on water, but the reason you doubt God’s power to provide for you when he asks you to give 10% of your income back to him is sin. God didn’t ask you to walk on water, but the reason you doubt God’s wisdom, to forgive your enemy that you love slandering on Facebook is sin.
Sin has made you doubt not these big existential kind of questions like on a very day-to-day practical level. Sin is why you doubt his character, his power, his wisdom. That’s why you doubt, which brings me to Jesus. Actually, look at this picture again, okay?

JESUS MEETS US IN OUR DOUBTS
You know what that’s a picture of? That’s a picture of a sinless savior, reaching out to save a sinner, drowning in their doubts. Jesus is unfazed and unsurprised, I don’t even know if that’s a word, by your doubt. He’s not shocked by it. Jesus is not surprised when you struggle to trust him with some part of your life. He’s like, “Yeah, been there.” But he’s the one who perfectly trusted his heavenly father and he reaches out to save a sinner drowning in their doubt. Actually, if you think about it, his entire life, he’s surrounded by doubters. People doubt him when he’s born.
His family doubts him before his ministry even begins. People doubt him when he teaches. People doubt him when he performs miracles. People doubt him when he decides to go into Jerusalem. People doubt him when he’s arrested. People doubt him when he dies. People doubt him after he rises. There’s this line in Matthew, there’s this ascension when Jesus ascends into heaven and it says that they worshiped him, but some of them doubted. And I’m like, “Golly.” Beginning to end from arrival to ascension.
They doubt this guy, but he still does what he’s going to do. It doesn’t change him. He’s still Jesus. What Peter doubts is not if Jesus is walking on the water, he doubts if Jesus can make him walk on the water. So every week down the hall, our kids’ ministry, I think it’s one of the great things that we do. They have a kid’s ministry message every week that matches what we do in here. So we create our series and our content and what do we feel like God is trying to speak to us. We design all of that. And then our youth and family ministry takes that idea and translates it in an age appropriate way to kids. And so this morning they’re talking about, down the hall, having an awesome time, they’re talking about Jesus and Peter walking in the water. And the reason we do that is so when mom and dad get in the car on the way home and say, “What did you learn today?” The kid doesn’t say something really random about like, “A prophet made an ax head floats in the Old Testament and mom and dad have no idea what they’re talking about.
” At least now you have a leg up on and a frame of reference. So when they say Peter walking in the water, you can ask great questions for your car ride home or over lunch of like, “Oh, well, what does that tell us about Peter? And how does that tell us about Jesus?” And you can ask great questions. I love that we do that. It’s something unique when we do. It takes a lot of extra work, but I think it’s worth it. And so I was talking to Ashley, my wife and our director of youth and family ministry. I was talking about what we’re talking about and said, “Which direction are you going? ” And she made this observation that’s just, I think, brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Peter doubted Jesus, right? But who did he call out for when he was doubting Jesus?

“LORD SAVE ME!”
Jesus. Because while he’s sinking and overwhelmed with doubt, doubting God’s power, doubting God’s wisdom, doubting God’s character, he still cries out to Jesus. Lord, save me. I love that prayer. It’s not eloquent. It’s not poetic like, “Oh, great sovereign Lord, who makes heaven and earth and lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. Might thou grant us unto me rescue in my hour of peril.” That’s not what you pray when you’re drowning. What do you say when you’re drowning? Help. Lord, save me. And notice, you guys, okay? Notice he doesn’t think, Lord, save me.
He uses his lips and he cries out. Lord, save me. And I think that’s a beautiful prayer for us to not just think, but to actually say when we’re wrestling with doubt. So when you’re struggling with God’s wisdom, when he says, “Do not commit adultery.” And you’re dating someone and things are going so great and you’re wrestling with doubt on that very practical level, you should pray. Say it with me. Lord, save me. We’re going to get it familiar on your lips so it’s at the ready when you need it. Okay? And when you’re doubting God’s wisdom and God’s power to provide for you when he asks you to give or asks you to trust and you’re drowning in doubt, you can pray. Lord, save me.
And when you’re interacting with your enemy and you want so bad to strike back and to slander them, and you’re questioning God’s character and wrestling and drowning in doubt, you can pray. Lord, save me. And once again, like he always does, a sinless savior will reach out to save a sinner drowning in their doubt. Let’s pray.

PRAYER
Heavenly Father, it feels a little strange to pray something eloquent when this story just presses on us the simplest of prayers. So I pray that these words would be at the ready on all of our lips this week as we struggle to live out our faith on a practical daily level or as we just wrestle with daily doubts. God, you would prompt us to pray.
Lord, save me. And then do what you do. Reach out to save a sinner drowning in their doubts. And as we’re talking about a prayer that Peter teaches us to pray, it’s fitting that we would also pray the prayer. Jesus taught us to pray full of trust for you, his heavenly Father. And so we pray together. Our Father who arts in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Forever and ever. Amen. Amen.