Did Jesus Really Copy Other Ancient Myths?

Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · April 21, 2024 · Did Jesus Really? series

Jeremy MacDonald looks at Peter's doubt on the water and in John 6 to show that doubt is part of following Jesus. He invites honest questions, from Jesus and ancient myths to slavery, and offers Peter's words, "To whom would we go?"

More from Jeremy MacDonald · The Did Jesus Really? series

Topics: Hope, Faith, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] You know, even the Jesus story, His biography is, is completely unoriginal. He makes outrageous claims. He claims He has the authority to forgive sins and the power to raise the dead. You can debate about whether or not He actually lived and whether there's credible objective evidence for that, do so. You do think He was a real person. Most of the scholars I've talked to say He probably was. The evidence is not great, of course, but there's lots of rules about slavery in the Bible. None of them are, "Don't do it." They never even thought to say that. Read about Jesus, seemed to be a really good guy. They killed Him. That's just the nature of people. So what you have in the figure of Christ is an actual person who actually lived, plus a myth. And in some sense, Christ is the union of those two things.

[0:48] The problem is I probably believe that. Do I believe it? Of course not. It was written by people in the Bronze Age who didn't know what a germ or an atom was. And Jesus healed everyone that He, and then he couldn't walk. And now he touched when he can't walk. I don't know what to do with that. The Jesus of the Gospels is either God in the flesh or a terrible imposter. There is no middle ground. Who do you think He was? Well, God is real. Jesus existed. He was of outlaw and has changed my outlook on life. And so in some sense, I believe it's undeniable. I love that trailer for one simple reason. And that's, it encapsulates the questions that so many people wrestle with and think about these days.

[1:35] And when we gather in a place like this, there's kind of an assumption in some ways that we of course are gathered around this person of Jesus. This is a church. Welcome. You know, we're gonna open up the Scriptures. We're gonna see what it says. But at the same time, there's so many still questions. And because you all are thoughtful, smart people, you see and hear those kinds of conversations all the time. And some of those kind of conversations are your kind of conversations that you've had in your head or that you've wrestled with on your own. And you get to these questions. Did Jesus really, like, did He really exist? Did He just actually copy? Is it just a story born out of the way that people tell stories time and time again over the centuries, over the thousands of years of history?

[2:25] And so I want us to kind of wrestle with, and think about, and for you, I want you to think specifically for you and your journey, this kind of question, if you're a person of faith or if you've got any measure of faith or trust or hope in this person of Jesus, let me just ask you this. Why would you, you in particular, your story, not so the person next to you, not the person that you were growing up to be, but like the person you are right now. Why would you walk away from Jesus? I'm not saying that you're going to, but if you did, what would be your reason? What's the thing that still kind of rattles around, that you're not quite sure about? The thing that, oh, if somebody pushed you on, you just, you don't know a hundred percent, you're not fully confident.

[3:11] And that's okay. But like there's something that is still there for you. And I want us to kind of wrestle with that a bit. Or maybe for you in this room, the fact that you're here. I mean, it's not because you're all in on all this stuff. It's for some other reason. Somebody drags you here, you have to come here. It's a condition of your parole maybe. I don't know. But like the question is for you, there's all kinds that are here, just so you know. Why don't you follow Jesus? I mean, you've shown up in a church, but, for you and your story, why? What's the holdup for you? What's the thing that you would say, oh, if this could come down, this wall could come down, this thing could be solved, that maybe I would decide to follow Jesus? We've all got stuff, then it kind of falls into different kinds of categories, right? So for you, when you think about these things, again, if you're a Jesus follower, what would hold you back?

[4:00] Or what would keep you from falling and cause you to disengage? If you're not a follower, what's the thing that's holding you back? It kind of falls into different categories. For example, it might be like just a disbelief. There's this sense that you've thought about it, but you just can't track with it. And maybe it's a thing or it's a part of the Scriptures, or it's a story, Jesus. But it's just, you've put the thought in, you're just not going with it. For other of you, and if you're honest about this, it comes down to more of like a disinterest. Like, I'm going so far, but I'm just not really interested. If you watch like some of those, some of those figures from the trailer, some people, and if you track with their journey, it is disbelief. They thought about it, they're disengaged. Sometimes it's just a disinterest. I don't feel like I need this thing.

[4:47] For others of you though, it comes down to this, it comes down to doubt, that we have doubts. We wish it would be true, but there's something that has caused us to have a sense that maybe it's not. And we hold onto a doubt. Lately, over the last number of years, what's happened kind of culturally in Christian circles and in, it's usually kind of born outta the US, there's this sense of like professional Christendom, people that are on the news, people that are famous. And what's happened lately is that folks have disengaged from their faith and have made the news for it. And we kind of have this word for it. We call it deconstruction. This idea that maybe you were a part of the journey or you had some type of faith, but at some point you thought, oh, what I was, had come together to experience this kind of faith that I was given.

[5:38] It's not the correct one. I'm gonna deconstruct, I'm gonna piece it apart. And it's usually because of disbelief or disinterest or doubt that kind of leads to this kind of deconstruction that happens. And that's not to say that there's lots of folks that they didn't deconstruct, they just never constructed anything. And again, if that's your journey. But the interesting thing, when you hear people's stories where they maybe grew up in church or they've heard the experiences of Jesus or the stories of Jesus and they've walked away, it usually comes from a place of, of kind of like three different experiences, three different circumstances maybe that has led to people disengaging from faith that kind of causes the rise in disbelief or doubt or disinterest. And so these are the kinds of things that when you think about what would cause you to walk away from faith or what's causing you from stepping into faith, it's kind of perhaps some of these circumstances.

[6:30] So think about deconstruction and the first thing is that oftentimes your experience becomes a hindrance. And what ends up happening for some of you is you had faith until the diagnosis, like your faith was real until that interaction with that person, like you had faith, but then that person is no longer here. And that just wrecks you. And it causes the disbelief and the doubt to rise up within you, your personal experience and your story. And if I sat next to you, I would probably say, I completely understand. I don't fault you personally because if I lived what you've lived and your experiences, I would have the same struggles. And maybe more around this question about faith.

[7:17] You know, a blogger wrote a story just explaining kind of how this worked out because he had a diagnosis, the person that he loved, who died, and he had faith and had prayed so hard for this person. And after they died. And the way that he explained it, and this is again, for some of you, this is the journey. This is, maybe you haven't even admitted it, but it's sitting inside of you. He said, "Suddenly the God I had known and grown up with was no longer big enough. I had questions and doubts and nowhere to take them." And we all have those stories. You know, just this last week, I have a friend, and it's, I mean, it's emotional 'cause it's fresh. But you know, a couple weeks ago we prayed in our service for healing for people. And this is a practice that we have as a church. We believe that God has invited us to pray for healing and that there would be signs and wonders of the Spirit of God at work in us.

[8:08] And we just think that's true and we experience it. And we have stories at our church of God healing people of things. But then there's also these stories. I have a friend who I knew from Ontario as a pastor there for a while, and there's this small group of us and we were raising kids together, we're all the same ages, young families. And in December, he was diagnosed with this aggressive form of cancer for the first time hearing the news in early December. And so we prayed, we prayed for healing, we prayed that God would transform his body and just do something miraculous, knowing that Kyle would give all glory back to God. And this last Friday, he passed away. And there's this frustration and doubt that wells up when you experience it because you just wonder what is what is happening in the midst of this experience.

[9:00] It happens to me and it happens to you. And we're forced to wrestle with what does it mean when we go through what we go through? Your experiences will cause you to wonder about your faith. There's all sorts of other things that might come up. For some of you, your experience is actually a little bit more specific. You think about the experience that you've had with other Christians. And if we go back, we think about there's your experiences, but there's actually just bad Christians that have been in your world that have caused you to question this faith. And it's understandable because of the things that people have done in the name of Jesus, or the things that people have said, or the experience that you had in church, or, you know, the Sunday school teacher that, you know, just wasn't in line with what Jesus has invited us into.

[9:45] And yet your experience of bad Christians can cause doubt and deconstruction and disbelief and disinterest. And then the last kind of category that things come from is the doctrine, the actual teaching of this faith that you contend with and you wrestle with and you come and you sit and you hear, and we talk about ideas and we open up these Scriptures. Then at some point you have to decide, do I actually believe the words that are written on the pages of these Scriptures? Do I actually believe the guy that's got the microphone? And let me just tell you, let me make sure, you know, you should test and wonder about all things and everything. And so when it comes to the doctrine and the things that we preach and we talk about, you have to wrestle with, is this something that I truly believe?

[10:33] And for some people, that's the thing that causes them to disengage. You know, from this trailer that we watched, one of the characters, one of the people, it's not a character, he's a real human being. Richard Dawkins is one of the more famous atheists in the world, and he's the one that's like, well, there's not a lot of evidence for Jesus. And I watched this interview with him just this last week or the week before where he's not renounced atheism. He's continuing to be an atheist, but he's starting to be a little bit disappointed that we're losing the Christians. This is what he said, which I thought was so fascinating. He said, "I would not be happy if we lost all of our parish churches. I'm a cultural Christian," which makes me wonder, and I've got all sorts of questions about his atheism. And yet there's this sense that life is complicated. Of course, there's questions, of course, there's doubts, of course there's things, but what do you do with them?

[11:22] How do you wrestle with them? What are you responsible for with them? And so we come to the conversation today, and my hope is that we would come with big questions and that we might tackle one or two of them, but maybe we could offer, or maybe I could offer an idea of what to do with questions and doubts. Because somewhere if somebody told you that you're not allowed to have doubts and questions, you were told something really wrong. You know, I've been open before about, you know, ending up in different wild places of YouTube and the internet. And so I've gotten into hearing some stories of cults, which is fascinating. I don't know what that says. I'm not a cult leader. Please don't. Oof. But what happens in cults is that cult leaders try to clearly cut out all kind of dissent.

[12:10] There's no doubt allowed. You gotta know the line. And if there's any kind of like you get to speak up. If you think somebody's kind of doubting and like point them out and they get reprimanded and they get punished. And the idea is that we have to dispel anything that isn't the party line. And so sometimes for some of us in the circle of the church and faith, and maybe this has been your journey, there's this sense that I'm not allowed to come with questions. And I would rather us actually flip that on its head and say, we have to come with our questions. We have to come with our doubts. We have to be honest about what we wrestle with. And so if you got invited here from Easter, you know, we handed out cards and we said, "Hey, there's a big question." And kind of coming from the trailer, there's this big question that we want to tackle or wrestle with.

[12:58] Did Jesus really copy other ancient myths? This question, this wrestle, like, is He a historical figure or is it just a rehash of all the things that have happened historically? And Jesus is just one of many different gods that, you know, humans have come up with before. But it's not just that. Like, there's so many more. And so for you, your question might actually be, "Why doesn't the Bible condone slavery?" We just heard Bill Maher talk about that. Like, why not? That's a thing that can get in and it can, like, what is going on in our Scriptures? What is their deal? What do we actually believe? You know, is He, Jesus, actually a historical figure? Isn't the Bible, isn't it? Anti-science. Isn't God filled with hate? The list could go on and on of the things that you've wondered or wrestled with, or the people that you care about wrestle with, honestly and authentically.

[13:46] And what you need to know, what you have to know is that disciples, that disciples of this person of Jesus, that the disciples of Jesus have always doubted. That disciples' doubt is just, you have to carry this and understand that this is actually baked into the story. That doubt on its face isn't an evil thing. And so we actually go through the Scriptures and we discover that even when Jesus was present with His followers, His disciples, doing miraculous things, there's doubt. Jesus feeds the 5,000. And then that evening, the disciples are in the boat. Jesus is off alone praying to His heavenly Father, and the storm rises and He walks on the water towards them.

[14:38] And Peter sees this and calls out to Jesus, "Ask me to step out in faith towards You." Jesus does. And Peter steps and walks on the water, and then the waves start crashing around and he starts to be frightened and doubt and loses sight of a guy walking on water in front of him. The miracle is right there. He saw the feeding of the 5,000. He's in the moment and he doubts and he starts to sink. And Jesus says, "So long, sucka"? No, of course not. That would be hilarious. But that's not the point.

[15:23] The point is that Jesus has got so much more foresight and care and love than I do, certainly, in that moment. And so in Matthew 14, this is what we read. Jesus says, "Why did you doubt Me?" He grabs a hold of him. He doesn't condemn him. He asks the question, "Why? What is it? What is it that's causing this doubt? Where does this come from? Let's think about it. Let's talk about it. Come with Me, Peter." In the resurrection, Jesus is a resurrected person. He has this interaction with two men on the road to Emmaus. They're talking about the Scriptures together. And then eventually the two men, kind of, their eyes are open, they realize they've been talking with Jesus. He disappears, they go, they talk with the disciples.

[16:08] And Jesus appears in the moment as a resurrected body. And in the midst of that room, there's kind of this fear that wells up. And Jesus looks around at them, them seeing a resurrected body, a person. And He says this. He says, "Why are your hearts filled with doubt even after the resurrection?" His disciples doubted. And then at the end of Matthew, at the very end, as Matthew's concluding the narrative of the story of Jesus, and again, the resurrection has happened. They are watching a person they watched die on a cross. And now He's wandering around amongst them, continuing to teach them and talk to them. And what we read at the end of Matthew is that when they saw Jesus resurrected, they worshiped Him.

[16:56] But some of them, even some of them doubted. And here's the point. This is the point. Doubt is baked into the story of our faith. And so where you have doubt, where you have things that you're not quite sure on, it's actually okay, but you shouldn't just leave it. You should wrestle with it. You should let Jesus ask the question, "Why do you doubt?" And you should chase it down to understand where does that come from and what does it mean? And maybe there's an answer that you could be given. Maybe there's a response that could help you understand that could actually build your faith.

[17:46] And so we go to this question that is a classic old question. It's a funny one. As I was doing this studying, 'cause I remember it growing up, I grew up in church. And so as the internet was taking off, I was a student, you know, searching all of the wild and wonderful things about the Scriptures and about, is the Bible real? And is Jesus historical? And so in the early two thousands, there's this book that, or this movie story online that wrestles with the question, did Jesus just really copy other ancient myths? And so Zeitgeist, the movie, I mean, you can watch it, it's ridiculous. But it sparked this big conversation. Lots of people were watching it. And then later, and some of you would remember this if you were a little older, The Da Vinci Code came out and then there were, again, there were all these questions people were wondering about, "Oh, are there different Gospel accounts?" And there's this story of, like, did Jesus, was He different than what we see in the Gospels?

[18:35] And so it sparks this interest and again, this rise of doubts. And then there's even scholars that will write books about the nature of how we got to the story of Jesus. And so How Jesus Became God is this interesting account that you can take a look at that completely disagrees with so much of what we talk and teach about. And yet, because of all of those things that people wrestle with, it's worth taking a hold of and wondering, okay, in light of that, what do you do? And in light of this question, the response is, well, you should study it. Are they actually true? Because let me be clear and honest. If the resurrection of Jesus is not a historical fact, then our faith has nothing.

[19:21] And so we should be willing to investigate and to ask questions and to dive in and be truthful. We're not out to hide anything at all. But the fascinating thing, at least about this one, this one's again fairly innocuous. It's fairly straightforward. And again, Google around, you can take a look, and what happens is, in this movie, and this is like the birthplace of what you see on the internet isn't always true. You guys realize that, of course. But when this came out, it was like, "Oh, it's in a YouTube video." Surely it's all fact-checked and accurate. And so you watch this movie, and I did, and I went back through, I've seen it before, but he explains this story about Jesus being the same as these ancient gods and uses the Egyptian god Horus as this marker of, like, look at all the similarities between the two.

[20:09] Horus is from 3000 years before Christ and Horus has got all of the same markers as the Jesus story. This is in this movie, right? This movie Zeitgeist. So, you know, Horus was born on December 21st of a virgin, was a teacher at 12, baptized at 30, 12 disciples, was crucified, dead for three days and resurrected. And so what's the deal with Jesus? And when you hear that and you tell that to, like, a middle school boy, it's like, oh, well, I guess Jesus is not real. But what happens when you dive in and you read and you understand what's actually going on? It's actually all false. You know, just because somebody comes up and tells you a story doesn't necessarily mean it's true. And so you can read and again, you can check it out, do some research. It's fascinating. Um, but Charlie Campbell did a kind of an exposé on it and kind of peeled it apart.

[20:57] Lots of people have done it though. If you even read just a good encyclopedia or dictionary of ancient religions, you'll quickly discover that Horus wasn't born to a virgin. Nowhere did the myth say that Horus was born on December 25th. And we don't actually believe Jesus was born on December 25th, just in case. You know, that's just when we do the presents and the thing, because we need a date. But it's not necessarily, we knew exactly it. Crucifixion hadn't even been invented in 3000 BC. So the idea that there would be a connection, I mean, it's ridiculous. And so, you know, you take all of this and strive to realize, oh my goodness, when you have doubts, it's worth wrestling with. And when you come to the person of Jesus, you have to understand and realize that in the first century, when all of these things were happening, nobody at all expected no body, nobody expected no body.

[21:52] The resurrection of Jesus was as much a shock to His closest followers as to the Romans at the time. Everybody expected, this person is gonna stay dead, 'cause that's what dead people do. And you can actually watch the interesting notes around the transmission of the Scriptures as the disciples were trying to make sense of, like, what Jesus said before, and then the resurrection. And as they articulate over the course of the next number of years, and we have these documents that are from the years following Jesus' resurrection. They're current documents, that eyewitnesses are still around, they're writing things down. We have those words and they're wrestling with the fact, what do we do with a resurrected Jesus?

[22:37] This wasn't a story or a myth, but it was born out of the truth that it actually happened. And so if you have a doubt, you bring it and you wrestle with it. Here's another one. This is another big one that, again, lots of people have. And maybe this has been your thing, and this is obviously what Bill Maher in the thing in the bumper was referencing. Why doesn't the Bible condemn slavery? And there's all sorts of interesting memes on the internet about just this. In fact, this is perhaps the best one: could have banned slavery or shellfish. Shellfish. He chose shellfish, of course, making fun of the idea that there's a Levitical law about not consuming shellfish, of which I actually preached about. So if you're newer to our church, you can go back to August.

[23:25] And the sin of shellfishness was my message. Yes, that was appropriate to laugh at that one. Thank you. And we talked a little bit about that, but, but yeah, what do you do if you've got doubts? We've got this Christian scriptures. Yeah, I get the Jesus thing. I get, we can sing songs. It's nice to come and to gather in this kind of place, but, like, the book's got some wild things in it. What am I supposed to do with the wild things in the Bible? Well, if it's a doubt, if it's something that causes disbelief, you should wrestle with it. You should ask somebody. I would love to chat with you. Our team, our pastors would love to chat with you. You should not be scared of those doubts. And on this particular topic, you should read Dr. Esau McCaulley. He's a theologian who has done an incredible work of unpacking this particular question as a part of his larger work, Reading While Black, recent book.

[24:20] He's been on some wonderful podcasts. And the truth is, that there's a lot baked into this kind of question. There's a lot of things that come with it. It's not something that you can just simply shoot a one-liner here or there and have the whole thing kind of solved for you because there's so much context to the nature of the world at that time, and there's so much context from the Scriptures of what God's actually doing and what His commandments are actually inviting us into that you have to move beyond just hoping you'll get a one-liner that will explain it all. But this is just a snippet from Dr. McCaulley's book. This is what he writes specifically about this topic. He says in his book, he says, I'm not gonna sketch out the differences between ancient Near Eastern slavery and American chattel slavery.

[25:06] That information is readily available, and it really is. You can go and you can understand the difference of the fact that there were, you know, 20 or 30% of the population were in Near Eastern slavery, more like a servitude. And certainly some of it was bad, but some of it was extremely different than you would expect. And then you come to our current expressions of slavery from the last century, but also the expressions that we're seeing today. And you realize, my goodness, there is so much happening that we should be absolutely frustrated and terrified by. And the story of slavery throughout history is one that there's shame amongst Christians because there's shame for those that stood up and used Bible verses to condone acts that are absolutely abhorrent.

[25:52] But then there's also stories of the Christians that have stood up and said, the Jesus that we serve calls us to bring freedom for all people. And that the abolition movements are so often led and run by those that have this strong faith in Jesus. And to this day, if you look at organizations like International Justice Mission or Ally Global, the global movement against slavery is often led by people who take seriously Jesus. And so what Dr. McCaulley says is, he says, instead though going back to the book and to the Scriptures that we referenced, he says, I'm wondering whether the Bible actually gives us space to hope that God intends freedom for all people. And He would say, "I think that the Bible does give us room for that hope." And so He'll unpack three particular examples from this, and again, lots more detail.

[26:39] But if this is the thing that holds you up or you've wondered about, you don't have to be nervous about that doubt. You should contend with it and wrestle with it. And what he would say is that there's three examples. And again, he walks through the practice of manumitting Hebrew slaves, this invitation in the Old Testament to actually say, every so often we're gonna completely flip the world economics on its head. We're gonna free the slaves, we're gonna return the land, we're going to cancel out debts in this Sabbath year, every seven years. And then this interesting year of Jubilee experience that happens in the seventh Sabbath, and it's just, there's nothing like it in all of history. And yet God was wanting the people of Israel, His people, to show a different kind of way of being in their world.

[27:30] And so you'd have to look at it, you'd have to look at the rules around the mistreatment of slaves. You'd have to understand the sanctuary given to runaway slaves in the Old Testament. You'd have to see how the Christians in the New Testament were called because of the words of Jesus to dismantle the systems of oppression, to raise up and bring dignity to every human being. But it's still complicated and it's still complex. And if that's still your doubt, and if that's still your story, you gotta know doubt is baked into the story of our faith. It's okay. The story of Jesus walking on the water and the feeding of the 5,000 the next day is this, again, at least for me, this fascinating example of Jesus leaning into the discomfort that comes from sometimes following after Him.

[28:25] And it was like He wasn't concerned or He wasn't nervous that these words and that His invitation to us all would be challenging. That there's hope in Jesus. Absolutely. And yet sometimes on the journey there's gonna be difficulties and challenges. And so you gotta imagine, if you can, just picture yourself in the crowd experiencing this miracle where 5,000 people, more than 5,000 people, 5,000 men were fed miraculously. The night falls, that interaction of Jesus walking on water happens. And then the next morning, the next morning they go looking for Jesus. And He starts teaching them again after this miracle.

[29:11] And so the crowds are still all around Him. And really at that point, they're assuming, "This person is somebody we're following, we're willing to give up things for. He's gonna be the one that's gonna overthrow our Roman oppressors. He's gonna be the one we can champion." These are the kinds of thoughts that probably were going through people's minds. I mean, if you show up to a sermon and miracles start happening, it's easy to sign up for that kind of faith. But Jesus starts speaking to them and inviting them into something, and it ends up becoming kind of difficult and challenging. This is what He actually says. So John 6, and this is what I'd like to leave with us all today. Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you cannot have eternal life within you."

[30:03] Wait, what? Like that? "I liked the part where you gave us the free bread and you had, like, the nice, you like, love your neighbor stuff, you know what I mean? Like, Jesus, can we just go back to the message from yesterday and kind of redo that?" And to be honest, that's what they ended up saying to Him. They said, "Well, Jesus, can you show us another sign? We'll follow You, but we wanna see this bread trick again." And He starts going off on eating His flesh and drinking His blood. And then this actually becomes something that the Romans would end up bringing back to the Christians. And they would say that practice that you do, the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper or communion, all of these words that describe those moments, if you've experienced it where you eat a little bit of bread and you drink from the cup in remembrance of Jesus, they're like, "You guys are cannibals," 'cause they can quote the words of their Savior.

[30:58] This is a cannibalistic kind of thing. It's a hard teaching. In fact, it's exactly what the disciples said in John. Many of His disciples said, "This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?" Right? What do we do with that? And Jesus knew it. And instead of trying to code it all and make it all easy and give you all the pat answers, this is what happened. Jesus was aware that His disciples were complaining. And so He said to them, "Does this offend you?" And they're all like, "Yeah, aren't you getting it? Like, this is crazy talk." But Jesus goes on, He says, then "What will you think if you see the Son of Man ascend to heaven again?

[31:44] The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing," which is wild in those days. Human effort was so much of their faith. I've gotta earn my way. Even beyond the Jewish faith, the idea of Roman faith and anywhere in that time period, the gods were angry with you. You had to do something to earn the favor of the gods. Jesus telling this completely different story is absolutely outside their realm of understanding. "Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I've spoken to you are Spirit and life." And they're like, "We just wanted some bread." And so what happens? What happens in the midst of this teaching at this point? We read in the Scriptures, many of His disciples, they turned away and they deserted Him because it was difficult, because it was hard, because there's doubt and there's disbelief and there's disbelief and there's doubt and there's things that you wrestle with.

[32:42] And nobody would fault you if, in light of what you've gone through or are going through or thinking about, you walked away from it all. But that doubt that you're wrestling with was in the first century with Jesus right in front of them. And you can do something different if you lean into the story of what the 12 did. So Jesus, as people are wandering away, walking away because this is a hard teaching, this is a hard truth, this is a hard faith. It's not always easy. It's not always simple.

[33:28] The miracles don't always happen. Jesus turned to the 12 and He asked, "Are you also gonna leave?" And Simon Peter repeats the line that I carry with me and that you can carry with you. Simon Peter, the one that doubted just the night before, he turns and looks and replies to Jesus, "Lord, to whom would we go? To whom? To whom would I go if I couldn't follow Jesus?

[34:24] Where is the truth? If this isn't real, if this hope isn't ideal, if this, If this challenge that's before me is gonna be the stumbling block that causes me to walk away from everything, where am I actually gonna walk to? Who am I gonna turn to? Who has the answers that have been burning in my soul that I'm dealing with? Where do I go? Where do you go? And for Simon, for Simon Peter, "To whom would we go, Lord?" Instead He says, "You have the words that give eternal life." But he doubted. This is not an affirmation of complete full faith.

[35:14] He's gonna walk away from Jesus. He's gonna deny that he even knew Him. The doubt that Peter had consistently crops up throughout his story. It's a line that he gives to Jesus, but it's a line of faith. 'Cause he's not completely sure, because doubt is baked in. But when it creeps up, we've gotta ask ourselves the question, if not Jesus, if not Jesus, then whom? And when you have those doubts, you wrestle and contend with them, and you ask questions, and you dig in and you chat with us. You talk with your small group, you meet in small groups. This is the week where in your small group you actually speak out the things that you've not let other people into because you are nervous about actually vocalizing the things that you've been nervous about, maybe for decades.

[36:06] And that's okay. But when everything comes to a head, we have to wrestle with, you have to wrestle with, if you don't fix your eyes on Jesus, then whom do you fix your eyes on? And in the middle of the storm and in the middle of the doubt, and when you're not sure, it's okay to say, "Jesus, there's nobody else." And in the midst of my doubt, I'm believing and I'm hoping, and I've got faith, but it's so minuscule. And Jesus says, "That's enough." Because with the little bit of faith, with the little bit of hope that you have, He will continue to be faithful in each of our lives.

[36:51] He will meet you where you're at, and He will contend for your heart. Heavenly Father, we're grateful that in, in light of the things that we wrestle with and the circumstances, God, the circumstances in this room, the circumstances are so heavy. God, I know that there's people here who just cannot see beyond the fact that the circumstances are so difficult, and we beg You for miracles. And yet we know that they don't always come. And so we have this hope in You, in the resurrection, and yet it still hurts so much these days. And so, God, I pray for those that have doubts in the midst of circumstances.

[37:37] God, in these moments, could we keep our eyes fixed on You, even in the midst of it? But be honest with You, You want us to be honest with You, God, for those of us that searched the Scriptures and have one-liners and ideas and have listened to podcasts and have thoughts and have got it kind of figured out, and we've got a framework that seems to work for us, and it kind of invests in this idea that maybe it's not all what it's meant to be, and we've deconstructed or we've walked away from pieces that have been, you know, maybe misplaced. And God, in the midst of all of that, in the midst of whatever that is, would You, Jesus, be the one that we see? Would You be the one that our eyes see? Would we fix our eyes on You and bring to You and to the body of Christ the doubts, the things that we wrestle with.

[38:26] And heavenly Father, in the midst of all of this and all of the things that we're wrestling with, would You give us Your peace and hope that we could be the kinds of people that our world would see and not look to us because we're the most assured and confident and and you know, so locked into exactly knowing what's a hundred percent true and right, but that we'd be the kinds of people that Your Spirit is so in charge of, folks all around us would know that even with doubts and questions, that there's something going on because Jesus is real to us, and Jesus is real in our world today.

[39:12] So heavenly Father, let us not carry our doubts on our own, but bring them together. We pray.