Faith and Doubt: Can They Live In The Same Heart?

By: Stan Mast

Scripture Reading: Matthew 14:31

October 12th, 2008

Can faith and doubt live in the same heart? That’s what I want to think about with you for a few moments today. It’s not an easy question. The church I serve has a wonderful confession of faith called the Heidelberg Catechism. As it explains the Apostles Creed, the most ancient summary of the Christian faith outside of the Bible itself, it claims that the Apostles Creed is "a creed beyond doubt, and confessed throughout the world." Well, maybe it was once, but many Christians today have some real problems with that "beyond doubt" part.

I think of a teenage girl who is struggling with her sexual orientation. She was raised in the Christian faith, but she isn’t so sure about it anymore. As she agonizes over who she is, she hates God one moment and loves him the next. A PhD candidate at an Ivy League university doesn’t know whether he should continue attending church anymore because he doesn’t know whether he really believes. His first rate education has raised many questions about his childhood faith, and he is weary of the endless wrestling match between faith and doubt in his brilliant mind. I think of a middle aged professional woman who moves from one problem to another in her life. As comedian Gilda Radner was fond of saying, "It’s always something." And this devout Christian woman is sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. She prays in deep faith for solutions to her many problems, but the answers don’t seem to come. And she wonders if it does any good to pray. A couple in their 80’s just buried their 47 year old daughter. After she was diagnosed with cancer, they prayed for healing through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. They really believed that God could heal her, but he didn’t. As she slowly died before their tear filled eyes, they asked, "Why? Why her? Why not us? Why didn’t God heal her?" They still believe, but they have their doubts.

All of those personal struggles occur in a culture where the certainty of faith has been in decline for a very long time. Way back in the middle of the nineteenth century, Matthew Arnold captured the beginning of that decline in his famous poem, "Dover Beach," part of which goes like this:

The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night—wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Perhaps you are caught somewhere between the certainty of a "creed beyond doubt, confessed throughout the world" and the long withdrawing roar of the sea of faith in the modern world. Untold people are stranded on the shifting sands of doubt. And we don’t know what to make of it.

There are very different attitudes toward doubt in the Christian church today. The eminent Christian philosopher Kelly James Clark in his book, When Faith is Not Enough, says, "Doubt is the secret sin buried deep within our souls." While he teaches that we need to bravely uncover it, fearlessly name it, honestly understand it, and eventually make our peace with it, doubt is still a sin, "the secret sin buried deep within our souls."

The wildly popular young preacher, Rob Bell, hailed in Time magazine as perhaps the next Billy Graham, suggests exactly the opposite. In his book Velvet Elvis, he says, "Central to the Christian experience is the art of questioning God." Questions are rooted in humility and bring freedom. Does that imply that believing without a doubt is arrogant and restrictive? He quotes with approval the great modern theologian, Sean Penn, who said, "When everything gets answered, it’s fake. The mystery is the truth." Bell seems to say that doubt is a virtue. So, which is it—— sin or virtue, an obstacle to faith or a central part of faith? Can a true believer have doubt, or does doubt mean you don’t really believe? Can genuine faith and honest doubt live in the same heart?

This familiar story of Peter walking on the water helps us answer that, because it contains this crucial line: "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" Looking at the whole story, it strikes me that it is a perfect description of where we live a good deal of our lives. We row across a stormy sea, battered and buffeted by the wind and waves of life, struggling to stay afloat and make some progress toward the far shore. And Jesus is nowhere to be seen. He’s up there somewhere, out of our sight, but we are not out of his mind.

The story says that he was up on the mountain praying. What was he praying? Well, if his great prayer in John 17 is any clue to the way Jesus prayed, he was praying for them. As you may recall, Jesus prayed that prayer just before he left his disciples to die and rise and disappear from their sight into the clouds. In John 17:11, he prayed, "Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name." Perhaps even more to the point are these words in verse 15. "My prayer is not that you take these out of the world, but that you will protect them from the evil one." If John 17 is a sample of the way Jesus prays for his followers, then here in Matthew 14 he was praying not that God will immediately end the storm in their lives, but that God will protect them in the storm so that they could survive and continue the mission he would give them. In other words, they felt alone and abandoned, but they weren’t. And neither are we.

Then in the fourth watch of the night, sometime between 3 and 6 AM, after they have struggled for many terrified hours, Jesus comes to them on the waves. He doesn’t stop the waves right away, as he did in an earlier story in Matthew 8, with a simple but immensely powerful word. "Peace, be still." No, this time, as so many times in our lives, he comes to them on the waves, in the middle of the circumstances that threaten to sink their boat. And they don’t recognize that it is Jesus. They think that he is a ghost, a dark and evil spirit, something that will harm them. Because they don’t recognize Jesus in their storm, they are afraid, even of him. His presence with them in the storm only makes them scream.

Jesus speaks to them the same words he speaks to us again and again. "Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid." And Peter speaks for all of us, "Lord, if it is you…" Peering through the darkness of the night, straining to hear above the roar of the wind and the waves, he isn’t sure. He has his doubts—"if it is you." But he also has his faith. In fact, he goes far beyond where I would go in a situation like that. I would have said, "Lord, if it is you, come over here and tell this storm to stop. Join us in the boat and make the trouble go away. Give me peace by stilling the storm in my life." But in his doubt, Peter still has a powerful faith. "If it is you, tell me to come to you on the water."

Jesus said, "Come." Peter does just that. His boat had high sides. So with great faith, he slings his legs over the side of boat and lowers himself down until his feet touch the water. Then he lets go. So great was his faith in Jesus that he let go of what little security there was in his storm—tossed life and put his feet on water. Now, everyone knows water will not support the weight of a man, but Peter trusted Jesus more than the laws of nature. He trusted Jesus more than he feared the storm. By faith in Jesus, he did what only God can do. He walked on the water. That is great faith, faith beyond doubt.

Until he looks away from Jesus at the circumstances of his life. "When he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’" Just like that, his great faith is replaced with great fear. And with great fear came doubt. And with doubt came that terrible sinking sensation. When he doubted, he wasn’t able to walk on water anymore. When he doubted, he wasn’t able to cope with his situation anymore and he began to sink in despair.

Did he lose his faith entirely? Did he lose his salvation because he doubted? No. In his fear and doubt, he cried out to Jesus, "Lord, save me." And Jesus did exactly that. "Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him." Peter’s doubt did not make Jesus hesitate. There was no reluctance on his part to save a believer whose faith wavered and weakened in the storm of life. No, Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him. What a wonderful assurance for us. When we cry to Jesus, "Lord, save me," even if we are filled with doubt and fear, Jesus will respond.

Can faith and doubt live in the same heart? Of course. Peter was a true believer who doubted. Of course faith and doubt can live in the same heart, but not happily. And that’s not what Jesus wants. "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" What do you think was the tone of Jesus’ voice when he asked that? Was he encouraging Peter to doubt, perhaps asking Peter to analyze his doubt so he could grow from this experience? Was he saying that doubt is to be expected in fearful situations like this? Was he comforting Peter with the thought that doubt is a natural part of faith? No, he seems to be genuinely puzzled, or sad, perhaps even angry. Jesus continues to love and save the believer who doubts, but that doesn’t mean that he loves doubt.

In fact, think of other times Jesus encouraged his disciples not to doubt. The classic example is doubting Thomas. Jesus did not reject Thomas for his doubt; indeed, he reached out to him as he reached out to Peter, with hands now scarred by nails, in order to build his faith and save him. But then he said to Thomas in John 20 verse 27, "Stop doubting and believe." In Matthew 21:21 Jesus made this incredible promise, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to this fig tree, but you can also say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." James 1:5—8 echoes those words of Jesus. "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously… and it will be given him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not think he will receive anything from the Lord…."

That suggests why Jesus doesn’t love doubt. It makes faith smaller, and the smaller your faith, the less you will be able to receive the present benefits of your salvation. Little faith will not cost you your salvation; it’s already paid for in full by the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. But little faith can cost you the present enjoyment of salvation. Little faith cannot walk on water, or move mountains, or receive wisdom. Jesus wants us to stop doubting, because doubt keeps us from resting in the mighty arms of Jesus and experiencing right here and now the joy and peace of salvation.

Is doubt a virtue? I doubt it, if Jesus tells us to stop it. Well, then, is doubt a sin? It might be, or it might not be, depending on the kind of doubt it is. I’ll be looking at that question in more depth next week on the Back to God Hour. But even if it is a sin, it won’t make Jesus stop loving or saving us. All a doubting believer has to do is make Peter’s simple plea, "Lord, save me." And immediately Jesus will reach out his hand and catch you, even in the moment of greatest doubt and fear.

How can we stop doubting? The end of the story points us in the right direction. When Jesus and Peter climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God." That’s the ultimate cure for doubt—to fix the eyes of our faith on Jesus because he truly is the Son of God. Peter looked away from Jesus into the waves, because they were so overwhelming. But then in the boat, he and the others saw that Jesus is truly the Son of God. Compared to him, the storms of life are nothing. Now, sometimes Jesus may seem to be missing in action. Sometimes he comes to us on the waves of life. Other times he stills the storm with a word. But because he is truly the Son of God in human flesh walking over the chaotic waters of this earth to save us from all our sins, he always reaches out and catches the doubting, sinking believer who cries for mercy.

That’s the last word on doubt for now—the word mercy. That’s how Jesus responded to Peter. And that’s how we must respond to each other, to sexually confused teenagers and to bone weary Ivy Leaguers, to sick and tired middle folks and to grief stricken senior citizens—with mercy. Indeed, that’s how we should respond to ourselves when we find ourselves sinking with the Apostle Peter—with mercy. The mercy of God in Jesus Christ reaches out to doubting believers sinking in the storms of life. And so must we.

About the Author

Stan Mast

Stan Mast has been the Minister of Preaching at the LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church in downtown Grand Rapids, MI for the last 18 years. He graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary in 1971 and has served four churches in the West and Midwest regions of the United States. He also served a 3 year stint as Coordinator of Field Education at Calvin Seminary. He has earned a BA degree from Calvin College and a Bachelor of Divinity and a Master of Theology from Calvin and a Doctor of Ministry from Denver Seminary. He is happily married to Sharon, a special education teacher, and they have two sons and four grandchildren. Stan is a voracious reader and works out regularly. He also calls himself a car nut and an “avid, but average” golfer.

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