When doubt comes knocking, Jesus answers! - Matthew 11:2-11

Last week, we left John the Baptist standing beneath the scorching sun, wild hair blowing in the breeze, camels hair and leather belt making a bold fashion statement and his voice crying out in the wilderness to anyone that will listen: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.” People were talking about him. People were coming from great distances to see him. People listened when he spoke. He was bold. He was confident. He was God’s prophet unleashed on mankind. Nothing could silence him.

But as we meet him today, the circumstances are quite different. Now John sits in a dimly lit cell of stone breathing in cool, stale air. The man who once roamed freely now sits chained in Herod’s dungeon. The preacher who watched people stream to him in droves now only sees the faces of a few of his most loyal disciples. The man who once enjoyed an eclectic diet, now eats whatever that Roman guard slides under a locked cell door.

Last week, John confronted the religious leaders as the fearless forerunner, bold, immovable thundering God’s truth. Today he sits in weighty solitude. Confined. Forgotten by many. Now, as his future hangs in the balance, doubts begin to worm their way into his sub-conscience. At various times and in various ways every Christian, like John, finds themselves wrestling with their own doubts in their life. Doubt is no stranger even to the strongest of believers because if doubts can weigh on a man like John, they can certainly weigh on us too. This morning in our sermon text, God shows us to handle our doubt. We see that when doubt comes knocking, Jesus answers with tenderness, evidence and assurance.

As it turns out for John, saying the hard truth about his political leader's unrepentant sin, unlawfully marrying his sister-in-law, carried serious repercussions. John was simply doing his job: what God told him to do. As he sat in prison for taking a stand against sin, that once bold confidence began to crack. Doubt began to seep into those gaps as his thoughts turned to God’s plan for him. In a moment of weakness John begins doubting the things he knew to be true and he sends his disciples to ask Jesus “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” He asks a serious question, are you the Messiah Jesus? 

That word, Messiah, is central to our theme for worship this morning. You likely remember that the term Messiah is a Hebrew term, one that means God’s anointed one. For centuries God’s prophets of the Old Testament prophesied that one day the Messiah would come, the Savior. Here John asks, are you really him? OUCH cousin John. The promised prophet sent to prepare the peoples to welcome that Messiah, now asks, but was I right about you afterall? 

Prison had been working hard on John. He heard about Jesus' works, healing the sick, raising the dead, preaching the good news to the poor, and yet here he was, sidelined, uncertain what tomorrow may bring. It’s unlikely that John knew that his time in prison and his time in this life for that matter would soon be cut short. Soon after, Herod orders his head served on a silver platter. Nonetheless, John was acutely aware of his predicament. Questions seeped into his mind: Have God’s plans for his long-promised prophet failed? Is my faithfulness worthless in the end? Is Jesus really the promised Messiah that I need?

I can sympathize with John's doubts as they come seeping into his mind in that prison cell because similar thoughts have sunk into my mind also. Doubts that come to us in some of life's most challenging moments. Moments when we find ourselves locked in a prison of doubt with seemingly no way out. First doubt knocks softly with impatience in God’s plan. When God doesn’t seem to act as quickly as we’d like. When we’re sidelined with sickness and healing doesn’t come. When loneliness lingers. When prayers seemingly go unanswered yet again. Doubt whispers back, ‘Has God forgotten you? Is he working, does he even care? And like John we say, is this your plan for me?

Or doubt born out of comparison and futility. Others seem to flourish. Their work is being recognized. They advance while we feel stuck. I see these good things coming to others, but never to me, their life seems better than mine. Doubt knocks louder still, is my faithfulness being wasted? Just like John, has my commitment to God amounted to nothing?

Or maybe it's a self-constructed prison of shame and despair. Not just the shame that says, I’m a sinner, but the kind that seeps deeper. To habitual sins repeated in patterns that we just can’t seem to shake for good. The sort of sin and shame that good Christians don’t even wanna talk about. The kind that the devil loves to beat over your conscience as doubt now pounds on the door saying, can Jesus really be my Savior?

When our sin overwhelms and trouble comes knocking on our door, doubts seep through the crack. They did for John and they do for us too. Jesus is not shocked by his doubts. He doesn’t start laying into John about how foolish he was, that he should have known better. He simply says to John's disciples “Go back and report to John what you hear and see.” No accusations, just tender hearted care because Jesus knows he’s dealing with a believer struggling with doubts in hard times. A believer, who if he was living with us today, would sit in the chair next to you this morning. A believer who would stand and sit and speak the words of the creed along with us. He’d be a fellow worshipper who approaches the altar to receive the sacrament right alongside us. He just happened to be a believer who lived two thousand years ago and who was also cousins with Jesus and the promised prophet meant to prepare the way for the Lord, but a believer nonetheless. Jesus speaks tenderly to believers like John, like us whose frail hearts are prone to doubt.

In a moment of weakness he doubted. Jesus knew that. John wanted evidence. Jesus knew that. So listen to what he says to John, and see if you catch it, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” Did you catch it? Do you see what Jesus did there? I imagine John sure did. What Jesus said is “Okay John, I see that you are struggling with doubts as to whether I am the promised Messiah or not. Ok. Well, what will the Messiah look like? In that day the deaf will hear… the blind will see… Isaiah 29:18, well Jesus is healing the deaf and blind. Your dead will live, Lord their bodies will rise Isaiah 26:19, well Jesus was raising the dead. The Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim freedom for the captives Isaiah 61:1, well Jesus preaches good news to the poor.” Bam, bam, bam. Jesus is saying, come on, look at the evidence, you remember these prophecies, I fit the picture. And then what does Jesus tack on? Nothing. Jesus doesn’t force John to believe, he doesn’t force anyone to believe, but he does the next best thing. He tells us all we need to know for the salvation of our soul. He told John that he was the Savior, that was enough to answer his doubt.

When you and I have doubts, where do we turn? Do you go to self-help books and informative podcasters who give you the top 5 secrets to life? Or, like John, do you bring your doubt right to Jesus? I pray it will be the latter. And does Jesus say to you? Stop doubting you sinner? No, he says the same thing to you that he said to John. Look at the evidence. God gives us his very word which tells us exactly who he is. He is the one who came to fulfill those Old Testament prophecies as Jesus points out to John. But he takes it one step further to paint with more clarity a picture that we as New Testament believers get to appreciate for fully than John ever did. We see Jesus walk to Calvary with the weight of the sins of the world for us. We see the Son of God say it is finished as sin is paid in full. We see the empty tomb on Easter Sunday that authenticates that Jesus truly is who he said he is. We see the early Christian church, though persecuted, yet confident in their Jesus. Because he is who he says he is, you and I can live freed from our doubts. Just as John’s doubts were met with evidence of Jesus’ identity, so our doubts today are met by evidence of who he is in his living Word. When life presses down hard, and cracks begin to show and doubts about your God start seeping in, run to him in faith and be reminded who he really is.

So where does that leave us? Outside the bounds of God’s love? Some less-than-believer? By no means. It places us right alongside every believer who has ever walked this earth. It puts us right in line with people like John the Baptist who in the next few verses Jesus goes on to call “the greatest of all people born of women.” John's faith was not defined by his moment of weakness, it’s defined by who he put his trust in. So long as that is Jesus, John’s status as a saved child of God was assured. No he wasn’t perfect. No he didn’t get it right every single time. Yes, he found himself in challenging situations. Yes he had his doubts at times, but in the end faith in Jesus means salvation is assured. How comforting is that!

After praising John to the crowds Jesus then says “yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” If that sounds like a backhanded diss at John, it isn’t. Truth is, those who believed and have preceded us by death into heaven are already blessed way beyond those of us who are still living in this world of sin. Even the least taste of heaven pales in comparison to anything found on this side of heaven. We who are saved by Jesus and yet still struggling on this side of heaven have complete assurance that this world is fleeting and we have a much better place to live eternally. Because of Jesus, our Messiah, we have a certain hope to look forward to.

So when doubts come knocking, and they will in this life, praise be to God that Jesus answers with tenderness, with evidence and with complete assurance. Amen.