Steven Furtick - The Benefit of the Doubt (03/20/2018)
In this powerful Christmas message from Matthew 1, Pastor Steven Furtick highlights Joseph's dead-end moment when Mary was found pregnant before marriage, yet God spoke through an angel, calling him to give Mary the benefit of the doubt and take her as his wife. The sermon reveals how heaven and humanity reached dead ends, but Jesus' birth turned every impasse into a doorway for new beginnings, fulfilling prophecy and bringing God with us—Emmanuel—reminding us that dead ends are perfect places for divine new starts when we trust God's voice over our logic.
The Dead End Before the Birth
In Matthew 1, the record goes: "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came аbout: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man, and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this," because sometimes, your first instinct is not God's will. "After he had considered this," after he did the math, and after he calculated his next move, God spoke.
It is often contrary to our logic when God speaks. It often violates what we see when God calls us to walk by faith. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. Everybody say that name. You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
I know you're confused. I know you're bewildered, and I know that you're hurt, but verse 22, all this took place to fulfill. I know you're having a hard time making sense of the situation right now, but all this took place to fulfill. It's not random. There's a reason. All this took place to fulfill.
I hear the apostle Paul all the way over from Romans 8. He wants to get in on this. All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. All this, the parts you like, the parts you don't, the parts you get, and the parts that keep you awake at night, the parts that feel good, and the parts that leave you with tears on your pillow. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife, but he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus.
I want to speak for just a few moments today on the benefit of the doubt.
Christmas Begins at a Dead End
Christmas is rightly celebrated as the story of New Beginnings, but the story begins at a dead end. By the time you get to Matthew chapter 1, heaven has been seemingly silent since the time of Malachi the prophet for several centuries.
I did not read you the whole of Matthew chapter 1. If I had started with verse 1, you might have been asleep by the time I got to the part I wanted to read, because it's just a genealogy of how Jesus came into the earth from a human perspective. Matthew gives us 14 generations between Abraham and David, 14 more between David and the Babylonian exile of the people of Israel, 14 more from the exile to the birth of Jesus Christ. That's all in Matthew chapter 1. It's a list of names, really, but it signifies how at this point in God's redemptive story, as told in the pages of Holy Scripture, heaven has hit a dead end.
God has sent the law to his people, but they broke it, literally. When Moses came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments, showing the people how to live, to be a people, by the time he could get the rules down to them, they were dancing naked around another god they made because they got tired of waiting on the one they couldn't see. So Moses, in his frustration, broke the tablets and had to go up and carve out some new ones.
Broken Law and Rejected Prophets
Not only was their hope of keeping the law broken, like it is every time we try to do God's will in our own strength, but the prophets God had sent to his people were each turned away, despised, rejected. Many of them died at the hands of the very people they came with the word to deliver.
So now they've broken the law, disobeyed the prophets. By the time you get to Matthew chapter 1, heaven has hit a dead end. As man after man after man after man comes into the earth, none of them being the Messiah who was able to rescue and redeem, it seems we're at an impasse, because the true character of God cannot break through the frailty of humanity to deliver this love message that has existed before time began.
The beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The full pre-incarnate Word of God was existent in Jesus Christ before he was ever made flesh on Christmas Day. But it has not yet found its way into the earth, not by the time we have read Matthew chapter 1.
So what we get is 42 generations of frustration, and suddenly Christ is born. Heaven has hit a dead end, and humanity feels the same way. No matter how they try to follow God, there seems to be something in their hearts prone to wander. No matter what commitment they make, they seem unable to keep it.
So now you have heaven at a dead end, because God is perfectly holy and cannot violate his standard to relate to unholy people. Humans who are unholy have no way to God, and all of a sudden here comes a ladder named Jesus, not from the earth to the sky, but from the heavens to the earth.
And as the throne of the rule and reign of a sovereign God is lowered into the everyday affairs of humanity, we see Joseph is also at a dead end.
Joseph's Personal Dead End
Maybe he really looked forward to having Mary as his wife, but he gets some bad news when it comes to his attention that she's claiming that she got pregnant by God. I want to say something about that real quick, because in church we just skip right over this stuff, but a lot of people come to church on Christmas that don't come any other time of the year, and they sit and listen politely to stuff like this.
But when we say that she had a baby, but it was all wise, no X, they get kind of confused about this, because, you know, this stuff doesn't just happen every day. And what we're shouting about, they're kind of skeptical about.
So let me talk about this for a minute, because it must have been hard for Joseph to take the angel at his word when he saw no way forward. I mean, he wants to marry her, he's looking for a way to go through with it, but the law requires him to put her away, so he's going to do it in the most dignified way possible. He's not going to humiliate her, he's going to do it in a righteous way, but he sees no road forward, no route past this indiscretion.
And so the Scripture says that he had in mind to put her away, but sometimes what you have in mind is not what God has in store. It's just that he can't see a way forward. He's at a dead end.
I was looking forward to Mary. Mary, you know, Mary is a wonderful person, we find out, very content, not a wife who's hard to please. She was going to be such a good wife. I already put a deposit down on the venue for the wedding, and it's nonrefundable, but I don't see any way to go through with this, because she's got a baby, and it's not mine, and she says it belongs to the Lord. I don't see a way forward.
Heaven is at a dead end. Humanity is at a dead end. Joseph is at a dead end. And I just wonder, are you? I wonder, is there anybody in this room watching online or on television who has found yourself at a dead end this day?
In a relationship, you can find yourself having done all you know to do for someone you love and thinking to yourself, well, if they don't love me back by now, you can find yourself at a dead end with your children. You can do everything you can do for the very person you would do anything for, but it is not enough, and you find yourself before God saying, I don't know what else to do.
You can find yourself at a dead end in your resources. I'm out of money. I put everything on every credit card. I stole a credit card. I lied to get another credit card. I put that balance on this balance, and I can't balance anything else anymore. I'm at an end. I don't know. I think this is it, because I really think I've run out of room to run. I'm at a dead end.
Religion can leave you at a dead end. When you have made so many commitments to change, but you never do…. When you have said so many times, I'm going to do better now. You know, I'm going to really kick that. You know, that's the last time I'm going to do that. That's really the last time. This time is the last time I won't do it no more. Then you do it again. Every time you do, you feel a little more hopeless that you're ever going to be capable of real change.
I wonder, are you at a dead end? And I wonder, did you know that dead ends are the perfect place for new beginnings in Jesus Christ?
Dead Ends Become Doorways
This is the message I came to preach this Christmas, not about a doll baby lying in a bassinet. I came to preach about new beginnings. The Lord has come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare his room. He is with us, and anything is possible. This is not the end.
It seems to be the announcement of heaven that this is not the end. Touch somebody and say, This is not the end. New beginnings often start when you find yourself at a dead end.
I admire Joseph. Maybe it's more appropriate to say you admire Mary. Maybe that's sexist for me to preach about Joseph. Joseph on Christmas, because Mary did all the hard work. You understand. I'm not trying to be that way. I really just think I wouldn't have had the faith to give Mary the benefit of the doubt on this one.
It says he had a dream, and he woke up, and he was like, Cool. See, I wouldn't be cool with just a dream. Unless the angel was Maury Povich with a paternity test. Like, No, I promise you can show this. Then I'm good. If we have some DNA on this divine baby in your belly, fine. But I'm not so sure, because I have crazy dreams. This might have been just a crazy dream.
But he did what the angel had commanded him. The angel said something that is simple on the surface, but there's great depth to it. I'd like you to consider it in verse 20. What is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Simplify. What's in her is from me.
Sometimes God wants you to know that what is packaged as disappointment is really destiny. Do you see it? What's in her is from me. Sometimes when people cause you pain and when life lets you down, it looks on the surface like God has left you. But what's in her, what's happening in your life, is from me. He goes with it.
The Benefit of the Doubt
I must have a really bad version of the Bible. This is a little older Bible that I preached from. It's a great Bible. It has Billy Graham's signature in it. This Bible. He signed this Bible. They told me he signed it. I wasn't there. I never met him, but it could have been Larry Bry with some good penmanship. Who knows? I give him the benefit of the doubt, though, that Billy Graham really signed the Bible.
In this Bible, I was struggling because I couldn't find… Anybody else got a Bible? I just want to cross-reference this, because my Bible must be messed up. In my Bible… Let's see your Bible. Your Bible might be better than mine. It's a smaller Bible. Let's point that out. Oh, this is the good one. This might be the King James Version or something like that. Yeah, this one will have it. Let's see.
I'm looking. Twenty-two. The virgin will receive and give birth to a son. In the judgment of God's name, amen, which means to recover, and Joseph will be raised from sleep. Nope. Your Bible is missing it, too. I was looking for the part of the story where the angel gave Joseph proof, and I couldn't find it in my Bible or yours. Anybody else got a Bible? Our Bibles are missing stuff. It's disappointing.
I know they have new translations. Surely it'll be in this Bible. What color do you call that, babe? Huh? What color is this Bible? Surely it'll be in your pink Bible. She's got tabs on her Bible. Surely it'll be…. Well, see, this one is problematic, too. It's pretty, but it's problematic.
Now I'm looking for the part where it tells me how Joseph felt. I can't find it. All it says is that God said to Joseph, if it's me, go forward. And he did it. I can't find the part where they wrote in the clouds, no, really? This is God's baby, you know, at their gender reveal party, because they also needed to have a divinity reveal party. I can't find the clouds. I can't find the sign.
It was just the voice of God saying to Joseph, Joseph, it's me, go through. And I feel like that might be the Lord for someone today. I know you don't have the proof. I know you don't have the feeling. And I know all signs point to stopping. But it's me. Go through.
He must have really trusted Mary. But he couldn't trust Mary. Now could he? This is an arranged marriage. They didn't date three years. He didn't get to choose her, pick her based on her profile, ChristianSingles.com, ChristianPalestinians.com. He didn't swipe for Mary. That's the way it worked back then. You just got her.
He doesn't know her like that. He must have really trusted God, enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.
What is the benefit of the doubt? I asked God how we should define that term, and he told me to ask Wikipedia. Wikipedia says that the benefit of the doubt is a favorable judgment in the absence of full evidence.
The benefit of the doubt. It means that when it doesn't add up, the variable is God for me. And so it means that when I don't have evidence to support my conclusion that God is good, that he is with me, and that he is for me. Let's say those three things. God is good. He is with me. He is for me.
I want you to say it again. I'm looking all the way to the back to the people with that little Christmas attitude. Say, God is good. He is with me. He is for me.
Now, I have reached that verdict not by the process of deduction and looking at my life to see if it lines up with that assertion. I reached that conclusion by revelation. Once I came to believe that God is good, he is with me and he is for me, I now live by that verdict and I collect the evidence to support the verdict that I have already come to.
This is not how you reach a conclusion in a court of law, but in the realm of faith, it works like this. Verdict first, evidence second.
Verdict First, Evidence Second
What does that mean? I don't look to my bank account or my doctor's report to see if God is a provider or a healer. I've already come to the conclusion that he is Jehovah Jireh and Jehovah Rafika. He is my provider and my healer. That's the verdict.
So now, no matter what the evidence says, I can find greater evidence in the death of Jesus Christ. See, when he hung for me, that settled it out of court. I don't need to take it before a judge or a jury. I already know he loves me this much. I believe it. I don't always see it, but I believe it. I doubt it sometimes, but I believe it.
You can't say both. You can't say both. You're not allowed to say both in church. You can't talk about doubt in church, because James chapter 1 says, Let him not doubt. Let him believe in his heart. He should have what he say. If he doubts, he's like a wave tossed by the wind. Let not that man think he will receive anything from the Lord.
I know that Bible verse, bro. I think it's confusing for people who think that faith is the absence of doubt. The Bible doesn't say that Joseph didn't doubt. It just said that he did what he had to do, even with the doubt in his heart. It means he didn't let the doubt stop him. Don't let it stop you.
Of course you'll have doubts. Just don't let them be dead ends. A lot of people stand at the dead end of a destiny that God is bringing them into, because they will not walk through the doubt to get to the promise.
I meet these people, and they say things to me because of my profession, I guess. They make assumptions about me because there's a rev in front of my name. They make assumptions about me that I don't have real doubts.
One gentleman that I was doing business with, he put it this way. He was like, I envy you because I would love to have faith. I always wanted to believe in God, but I just always am the kind of person that doubts a lot, and I envy you that you don't have those doubts.
Here's what I should have said back to him. It only took me four months to come up with this. Because he is assuming that faith is the absence of doubt. For me, faith has never been the absence of doubt. Faith is not the absence of doubt. It is the means to overcome it.
Do you hear what I'm saying? Because we get in church, and we just all go into this walking dead, willing suspension of disbelief, and we just believe things that have no impact on our everyday life, just like we're binge-watching Netflix. Like, I'm just going to watch this for a little while and hear this little comforting word, but then we go out into the world, and we doubt the stuff, but we can't say we doubt the stuff, because doubt is bad, because isn't doubt bad?
One time I even had a campus pastor who was giving an invitation like we will give in a moment for people who want to place their faith in Christ. When we do it at our church, we have people repeat a prayer. It's just a means of allowing them to express their heart to God so that they can have a moment that they look back on and say, I placed my trust in Christ.
To me, that prayer is a very sacred moment. It's not a time for people to get their person, get out and beat the parking, and it's not a time for someone who's preaching to start sharing their opinions. That is a time to present the gospel and get out of the way, because only God can save a person.
I believe this campus pastor meant well, but what he said I had to correct him on later. I'm not a mean guy, and I make mistakes up here, too, but to me he made a really big mistake when he was praying the prayer, because he was inviting the people to pray, and he said, If you want to give your heart to Christ today and know for sure that you have a relationship with him, pray this. Lord Jesus, I believe I'm a sinner in need of a Savior, and I believe without a doubt… That's the part he should have left out.
I believe without a doubt that Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Savior of the world, today I give you my life. All of it was good. All of it was appropriate, and there is no other way to be saved but to confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart God raised him from the dead. You shall be saved.
But that one parenthetical insert, without a doubt, I told him, Never again, when you stand in the pulpit at elevation, do I want you to put people in a position where you're telling them to pray something they can't honestly pray. As a matter of fact, don't put them in a position to pray something you can't honestly pray, because there is not one of you in the room, even with tabs in your pink Bible, that can honestly say, without a doubt, not a one of you.
If you can, hang on. You hadn't had teenagers yet. Somebody to my backside back me up on this. The triumph of my faith is not the absence of doubt. The triumph of my faith is the ability for the light to shine in the deepest, darkest recesses of my heart. I got doubts, but I trust him anyway.
So my faith can say, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death and the shadow of doubt and the shadow of dysfunction, I will fear no evil. It's not that I don't go through valleys. I don't die there.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, this is Christmas. Even though throw us in the fire, our God is able to deliver us, but even if he doesn't, we will not bow our knee to you, O King Nebuchadnezzar.
I know Lazarus is dead, but if Jesus is on the scene, every dead end is a destiny waiting to begin.
Even now, I have my doubts. I don't believe this because I don't doubt it. If you don't doubt it, you're not reading it, or you're reading it with no intent to live it. My doubt is the evidence of my growth. The closer I get, the more questions I have.
I struggle to believe it, that I'm forgiven, that he forgives me not only for what I did before I accepted him but for what I still do. Oh, y'all are going to look at me like that on Christmas. That's what you brought me, that face. Maybe he could forgive the past stuff, but what about the present stuff. What about that? Yeah, I have my doubts.
I have my faith, but I have my doubts. My man thought he couldn't come to Christ because he had doubts. He thought that belief was the absence of doubt. He didn't have the revelation that real belief is the willingness to stand on it even when you can't see it, feel it, or explain it.
I have my doubts. I read that if any man is in Christ, he's a new creation, and the old is gone, and the new has come, but that verse is still in progress in my life. There's still some old stuff in me. He comes out in traffic. Hello.
I have my doubts. My doubts. I have my doubts. I read that whom the Son sets free is free indeed, but sometimes I feel bound by stuff. I have my doubts.
Is that all right? Do you need to find another church now that you know that the dude with the mic has some doubts? I have my doubts. I have my doubts.
Abby is already doing the thing we all do at some point in our life if we try to be religious. She said the other day, where did God come from? I'm like, you're six. Can't he just have always been there at age six? Do we really have to start this now?
That was about the same time I did it. She said it so funny. It was like she had me on a witness stand or something. She was waiting for me to get home from work because she asked Holly, and Holly said, you're going to ask your dad about that. He'll be home in a couple of hours.
She said, Abby's got a question for you. Abby said, where did God come from and who made him? Don't just say he's always been there. I'm going, already? Yeah, already.
This is the first gift of mystery that heaven is giving to my daughter. It is the beginning of a lifetime of learning the art of faith, which Richard Rohr suggests, is Patience with mystery. Not the absence of it. Patience with it.
To take Mary home, even when you don't know where this is headed. So I did not give her a cookie-cutter answer, partially because she's smarter than me and would have seen right through it. Instead, I welcomed the mystery.
I said I used to lay awake in my bed, too, thinking about that when I was a little boy. I was probably seven or eight because boys are two years behind, but I had that same thing. I just couldn't ever make sense of it, and I still haven't. I have my doubts, but I believe it.
I believed it while I was watching my dad die, and I had to preach my stuff back to myself, and I didn't have the protective insulation of this to stand behind or this to hold. It's a real problem, because a lot of people are waiting for the doubt to disappear. Let's take the next step of faith.
If the absence of doubt was a prerequisite for being used by God, Mary could not have been the mother of Jesus. Over here, the angel is talking to Joseph, but before he came to Joseph, he spoke to Mary. He spoke to them separately, because you have to experience faith for yourself. You have to make your own decision as to who God is and what he means to you.
So while he was speaking to Joseph, who had to endure the embarrassment of walking through this next season, he was speaking to Mary.
Mary's "How" Moment
You're familiar with this story, but just put it on the screens real quick. This is Luke 1, where he said to Mary, Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. That's the verdict. Before I give you the particulars of the situation, I want to bring you back to the thing you can always know in every season of your life if you choose to believe it.
Your verdict, should you choose to accept it, God is with me. God is for me. You are highly favored. God is for you, and he is with you in this moment.
Now I have something I have to tell you. The angel starts off by reminding Mary of his presence, and it says that Mary was greatly troubled at his words. Now what's there to be troubled about? All he said was, Hello, God likes you. It seemed like she ought to have high-fived him, fist-pumped.
But she wondered what this greeting might be. Often the first impulse, when God really shows up in your life, is fear. And it is only in pushing through the fear that you find the love of God on the other side of your fear. What's this all about?
But the angel said to her, Don't be afraid. Mary, you have found favor with God. You have found favor with God. I have an assignment for you. Because you found favor with God, you will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. And he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.
Now watch Mary's response. Well, praise the Lord and glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, and goodwill to men on whom his favor rests. And your words to me are like drops of gold insurance in a heart. But no, Mary said the first thing out of her mouth was, How?
I know how pregnancy works. How am I pregnant? I promise, God. Me and Joseph have been keeping it clean. I promise, God. We have not been in the backseat of a Camelac. I promise, God. How?
Her first instinct is not, Yes! It's, How? How? That is always the response when God really knocks. How? How can I really be forgiven by someone who died on a cross before I was ever born? How can somebody else's death really affect my life? How?
That's a good starting place. How can you really use me? Look at me. I'm nobody. I'm out of Carly's life. I'm mil prefer this way. How can I believe that I still will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living? How? How? How? How?
See, the greatest gifts God ever gives are on the other side of your how, on the other side of your question, on the other side of your I don't get it, on the other side of I don't understand. On the other side of who? Me. On the other side of what? Now. On the other side of why? This.
That's where the gift is. And you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger. God wrapped his son in something that looked so common that you would walk by it if you weren't looking for it.
Because the greatest gifts that God gives are wrapped in doubt. And the promise is wrapped in doubt for a reason. Because if he gave you proof, you wouldn't need faith. So he hides it. He hides his promise in the darkness to protect you.
This will not make sense in an Instagram generation, but sometimes God needs to work on the big picture of your life in the darkroom to let it develop. Doubt is where faith develops. Doubt is where faith matures. Doubt is where faith gets hardened past Christian cliches that fit on a bumper sticker or a Pinterest.
Let it develop. Let Patience have its perfect work in you, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. It's the darkroom.
The Prophetic Perfect
In fact, Isaiah, who was quoted to Joseph, also said in Isaiah chapter 9, verse 1, Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom. I want to write a song one day called Nevertheless. It's one of my favorite Bible words. It means it looks one way, but it's really another. It means give it time, let it unfold. God is up to something.
It means that the verdict is already submitted. Just give the evidence time. You will see it. Nevertheless, no matter what you see right now, it means that the ruling on the field can be overturned at any time. It means that there is a review booth called Heaven.
Y'all didn't come to have church today. Y'all come to just check it off the list and stock us stuffing with some cute little stuff. Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past, he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future, he will honor Galilee, the Gentiles, by the way of the sea along the Jordan.
I need to insert this because Galilee means valley of shade. Now, watch what happens in the darkest valley. The prophet says, The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
I was confused at this point because I thought he was talking about something that would happen 700 years later. The prophet Isaiah prophesied 700 years before the birth of Christ, but now he is speaking about something that is yet to be as if it already happened.
This is called the prophetic perfect. You see it often in Scripture. It's when God, who stands outside of time, knows exactly what you're going through, how long you're going to go through it, and what he's going to do on the other side.
It's the God who spoke, let there be light, and molecules and particles rearranged themselves to spread out into the universe, to darken every corner of this globe.
My faith gives me the ability to stand in the darkest valley, believing that the light has already come, if I let it develop. Faith is developed in doubt. Faith always develops in doubt. Faith learns to depend on God because of doubt.
If you never doubted God, you would be him. Before long, you would start worshiping yourself and singing, How Great Thou Art in your full-length mirror. And God is not going to allow you to become so arrogant that you never have doubts.
If he removed the doubt, he would remove the need for him. For you to know that he is God and you are not. That's why you doubt. There are benefits to the doubt.
There's a benefit to having to wrestle with God and wrestle with where you are and wrestle with yourself. And wrestle like Jacob did. That's where you find the revelation of the goodness of God. Not in your self-confidence, but in your self-doubt.
Mary said, How will this be? I am a virgin. The angel said, The power of the Most High will overshadow you. But you must make the decision to believe God in the face of evidence that seems to contradict his promise.
To believe God that every dead end is a doorway if you decide to go through it. And there is someone here who is standing at a doorway today called doubt. And if you will walk through it and make the decision to trust God in this situation, you will find on the other side a greater glory revealed to you than you have ever known.
But if you stop here, if you stop with how and why and when and what, if you wait until you have all the evidence to trust God, you will never take Mary home. And you will never see the promise of God come to pass.
All of the greatest faith is on the other side of your deepest doubt.
The Invitation to Faith
I want to ask with no one leaving, please don't leave in this moment. This is that invitation moment that I spoke about earlier that is so sacred to us. And I want to ask at every campus that you would stand to your feet right now.
Because this is a moment of decision for many. For those who say what one man said to Jesus who needed the gift of healing, I want to believe. Help my unbelief. I want to believe. But I feel unworthy. I want to believe, but I have my doubts.
God has a grace that is greater than every doubt, and all he requires is the next step and the light that you do have.
I believe there are many here today who need to receive the gift of salvation, but you can't receive it up here. You can't receive it with these, and you can't receive it with your own effort. It is by grace you are saved through faith.
I know you have your doubts. When Peter walked toward Jesus on the water, he had faith, but it flipped so quick the next thing you know he was sinking. Jesus asked him a question. Why did you doubt? And when he asked him that question, he didn't push him back under the water to teach him a lesson. He reached out his hand to bring him back to the boat and to show him who he was all along.
So this message is for the doubters. We often sing at Christmas, oh, come all ye faithful. Today the invitation is, come all ye doubtful with questions and dysfunctions and conflicts to place your faith in the God who is the great I am.
Will you bow your head and close your eyes at every location? I want to pray a prayer right now for those who want to come into a relationship with Christ, receive forgiveness by faith because of his finished work on the cross, and live a new life in his name because of his resurrection from the dead, and make a decision of faith today to put your hope in him.
We're going to pray a prayer right now out loud. Our whole church family will pray it for the benefit of those who are coming to God for the first time or are coming back to God. And if this is the prayer of your heart, God will hear you from heaven and will save you from your sin.
Let's pray together right now. Now, repeat after me, Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. And today, I make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he died for me to forgive my sin. Listen, I believe he Rose again to give me life. I receive this new life. I will follow you from this day forward. I receive your grace. This is my new beginning.
Heads still bowed, eyes still closed. If you just prayed that prayer, shoot your hand up in the air on the count of three. One, two, three. No hesitation. All over this room and all of our campuses. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.
What a wonderful thing. Come on, I think we can celebrate better than that. What a wonderful thing. To witness souls being reborn. Come on, church. Can we celebrate the goodness of God?
I think we ought to sing with the angels a little while. If the angels in heaven rejoice when one sinner repents, let the people of God proclaim, Christ is born this day in your heart, in your life.