GYC 2025: Follow Me

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Shane Anderson

Come and See: Faith in the Face of Doubt

Let's have a word of prayer and we'll begin.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for the Sabbath.

We thank you for an opportunity to pause and to study some important things here.

We pray that you would send your Holy Spirit and that you would lead and guide us here in our time together.

My name is Shane Anderson and I'm the lead pastor here at Pioneer Memorial Church and I want to begin in John chapter 1.

If you have a Bible or a device, take a look.

Obviously this is early in Christ's ministry.

He is just beginning to gather his disciples and we come across 2 guys here named Philip and Nathanael.

Verse 43, The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.

Finding Philip, he said to him, Follow me.

Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida.

Philip found Nathanael and told him, We have found the 1 Moses wrote about in the law and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Can anything good come from there?' Nathaniel asked.

"'Come and see, ' said Philip." When Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, He said of him, "'Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.

Jesus answered, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree, before Philip called you.

Then Nathaniel declared, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.

Jesus said, You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree.

From the very beginning of Nathaniel's life, he's a doubter.

The very first words that we hear out of his mouth are ones of doubt.

Now, how many of you have been to Nazareth before?

So Nazareth is a very interesting place to go, even to this day.

I rented a car while I was 10 days in Israel.

And if you're in Jerusalem, it's pretty much like driving in kind of a nice New York City.

Once you cross over into Nazareth territory all bets are off.

Silly you for thinking that stop sign was actually intended for other cars.

Okay it is total and complete chaos right driving over there.

Now the people that I met there were nice, if they weren't in their cars.

If they were in their cars, that was a different story, right?

And I confess it flashed through my head.

Can anything, you know, as I'm sitting there in traffic, that's bumper to bumper to bumper to bumper, people honking, then you know, all of this stuff.

Can anything good come out of Nazareth there?

Nathaniel has this doubt and becomes famous for it.

I don't know that he knew that he was going to be featured in a gospel at some point in the future.

But John writes this down and comes that famous answer in response to his doubt, come and see.

Which leads me to the question, is doubt a bad thing?

It gets more uncomfortable the longer you think about it, doesn't it?

Because in modern sensibilities, we're here in a prime academic setting, right?

I mean, here at Flagship University for the Adventist Church, questioning is a big part of learning, right?

And so it's very tempting to say immediately, well, you know, nothing, no, no, no problem with doubt, and that's true, but take a look at Roman numeral number 2, the nature of doubt.

This level of doubt rarely causes us trouble and when we say oh doubts not a bad thing this is usually what we're talking about right yeah ah boy does that does that really make sense you know but we're still gonna go about our day.

No nightmares are gonna happen because of this, right?

It's just like a curiosity almost, questions, right?

Now this can be a recurring interruption or a faith walk and it should be addressed.

And again, this is not saying that something is negative here.

In fact, my guess is Nathanael is at this point.

You're telling me the Messiah himself, God incarnate, came from where?

That's like saying Buchanan is the arts capital of the world, right?

Okay, so anyway, Buchanan is a nice place, but it's probably not the art capital of the world, right?

Number 3 is where we really get into trouble.

If I can't resolve this doubt, I will leave the church and or God completely.

This level of doubt should be addressed, any guesses?

In fact, some people have become skeptics simply because they didn't address it.

The natural momentum of humanity is away from God.

Sadly, this has been the case ever since Adam and Eve ate the fruit, and quite literally, when God showed up, they went away.

And if there are severe doubts that you're having, severe doubts that they are interrupting your walk with God.

They are interrupting your life Don't put them off these things need to be addressed and indeed if they're not addressed great harm can come imagine if you're married and Let's say husband and wife are married and every day at 12 o'clock the husband turns to the wife and says I just really doubt if I love you.

You know, I just really doubt if I love you.

That is a relationship ending potentially problem that must be addressed.

Now I say this because I think sometimes in the Christian faith we immediately feel like the best thing to do is to stuff it.

If we have serious doubts about something, Don't tell anybody.

And what I'm suggesting to you is exactly the opposite.

I would say you're made in the image of God.

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Come and See: Faith in the Face of Doubt

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