How Do We Fight Doubt?

Doubt is a battle every believer has to face; it is a constant hurdle. But we have assurance in salvation, his abiding presence, his mercy, and his grace. Doubt robs believers of the joy that awaits them in Jesus.  So how do we fight doubt? 

In this episode, Brody talks about what doubt is rooted in and how we can conquer it. 

• Hebrews 6 
• Romans 7:17
• Jude 
• 1 John 2 

Read the transcript here!

Dealing with doubt, it’s a battle that every believer’s got to face, a battle that every believer’s got to fight, and today I wanna talk about dealing with doubt. I wanna talk about doubt in the life of the believer, and I’m gonna link this up to what we talked about in a previous episode where we were looking at the reality of who Satan is, where Satan comes from, and we mentioned that old biblical truth that as Christians, we face three enemies; the flesh, the world, the devil. The flesh, the world, the devil. We talked about who the devil is, where he comes from, the fact that he wants to rob us of joy, that he wants to disrupt our walk with Jesus, that he wants to disrupt our productivity.

Today, I wanna talk about what I think may be the most important aspect of understanding how the flesh works; the flesh as the enemy to the child of God. We gotta contend with it. We’ve gotta fight against it. But I wanna specifically look at the flesh as the root and the seed and the cause of doubt. If you struggle with doubt, if you’ve ever struggled with doubt, if you’ve doubted your salvation, if you’ve doubted the Lord, if you’ve doubted your spouse, if you’ve doubted the church, if you’ve doubted the word of God, if you’ve doubted your world view, your belief system, your reality, today’s episode, my prayer is gonna be real helpful for you. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening.

A couple of shout-outs and things that I wanna point out before we get rolling here. First, I want to give a shout out to Isa. Isa is an intern/institute student at Snowbird Outfitters. She works in the media and marketing department, specifically media, and this week, she is editing the episode. She’s standing in, filling in for Mady, who, a lot of you hear me talk to Mady or talk about Mady a lot. Mady’s on her honeymoon. Congratulations. We congratulated Mady last week, Mady and Colt. Mady is now married to Colt Christmas, and they are both faithfully serving here at SWO. And excited for them as they begin this new chapter, the big chapter of life. Not a chapter, there’s gonna be a bunch of chapters. In marriage, there always are. But excited for this new season of being newlyweds and celebrate with them.But thank you, Isa, for jumping in. Isa’s crushing it. She’s doing such a good job in the media office. Our media team is phenomenal. We’ve got such an incredible group of folks up there. Austin Scott, newly added to that team this year. He’s killing it. Jon Rouleau, who is new this past year, is killing it. Austin had already been at Snowbird for a long time, but he’d been working in a different department. And then Harry McSween, who’s been with us for a long time, I mean, for a long time. Just brings veteran stability to that team. It’s an awesome team under the leadership of Hank Parker Jr, who you guys have met on the podcast before. Awesome team. Isa’s interning up there with those guys and gals. She’s in the institute assigned to that office, and she’s killing it. Thanks, Isa, for editing today’s episode. Really grateful for you.

And also last night, hung out with is at a high school basketball game. My daughter, Lailee, who is a junior at Murphy High School, Isa came to her game last night. There’s a bunch of Snowbird people there. It was a good time. Lailee knocked down 26, put up 26. It was a fun night. It’s always fun when you win and your kid plays well. Lailee is on a tear right now. I think she’s averaging 23 points over the last eight games. So that’s been fun. I love going to high school sports. It’s a fun season of life. When you got kids playing, a lot of you know this, but when you got a kid playing high school anything, it’s just fun. So here’s the progression of sports. I’m not gonna go down a rabbit hole here, but we did get into… We had an episode on parenting a recently, and I’m gonna follow that up with another one soon.

Here’s a teaser to that episode. You go from… And it’s not a teaser to the episode. Some comments and some commentary from observation on parenting, not my parenting, but observation of other parents. Parents are crazy when their kids are playing PeeWee, Rec League, Little League. They’re nuts. They sit up there and scream and yell and holler, and then they make such a big deal out of it. So Saturday, we were at… Well, I was watching a basketball game. Gosh, it was like, I think those girls were fifth and sixth grade. They might have been fourth grade. I don’t know if they were young, so we’ll say average fifth grade girls. And the parents were going nuts. I think the final score of the game was like 23 to 22, and FYI, that’s a high scoring game for these girls. And their parents were going crazy, you’d have thought we were watching WMBA or the Olympics or something like that. The parents were going nuts.

And I just sat back and thought, “Okay, you guys got to let this go ’cause half these girls are not gonna be playing past rec ball. They’re not even gonna be on the middle school team.” And then you get a middle school, and it’s a little more intensified. In high school, a lot of what’s happened is there’s been a weeding out, and so now you’ve got kids that are more serious about it. They’re not just doing it socially or just for fun or parental pressure. Still can get pretty intense with the parents, but I think that there’s a realization. I don’t know, it’s not as bad. But I could rant for days about, don’t be that parent. You got a fifth grader or a 6 year old that’s playing soccer moms soccer, just chill out, man. Here’s the deal, here’s what I want you to know. It’s the funnest season of life, getting to raise your kids and go watch them play sports and watch them participate, and watch them do well sometimes, and sometimes they don’t do well.

It’s all part of the process. Just soak it up. Enjoy it. Take it from what it is. Have fun. Don’t hold it too tightly. Don’t freak out. Don’t spin out. Don’t stress. Just to make the most of it. It’s a good time. So I’m gonna follow up a parenting episode soon. We might touch a little bit on that, like practically, how do you parent your kids through sports? That’s gonna be one of the things we talk about. No, that’s not the main thrust of the episode or anything like that, but we are gonna talk about it. I wanna read a quote from, I pulled a quote from an email I got from a friend of mine named Nash. He’s a student pastor. He’s bi-vocational, comes to Snowbird. “On another note, you did a podcast episode some time back,” this is at the end of his email, “Where you discussed premium bible options that you suggested. I’ve not been able to pin down which episode that was. So I figured I would go straight to the source.

Recommended Bible Translations

I love the ESV translation of the Bible. That’s what I use most of the time, but have others that I turn to from time to time. I have an awesome ESV study Bible that serves me well at home, but it’s very large and bulky to carry daily. Any suggestions on a great premium ESV Bible? Thanks, brother.” And then that’s from my buddy, Nash. I wanted to just answer his question, but we did… It’s been a long time since we talked about this, so I thought, just make that up, something that we address here on the episode, on this episode. So I’ve got in front of me four premium Bibles. And so you might think, “Why do you have so many premium Bibles?” Well, it’s a long, long story, but I’m pulling them out. I know there’s no video. You can’t see this. The first one I have is the ESV Treveris Bible. This is put out by… Treveris is put out by Evangelical Bible, is the vendor for premium Bibles that I use and they put out several of their own like store brand house Bibles.

The Treveris is a single column. So I like the Treveris because it’s great for reading. I love to use this one for reading. So a single column Bible is really good for reading. Single column meaning it’s just like reading… It’s kinda laid out like in a normal book for me. Most Bibles have left column, right column on one page. So you open the bottle up, you’re looking at… You open it up, you’re looking at two pages, the page on the left, page on the right. A double column Bible has, basically on those two pages, four columns. So if you go from the left, you’re gonna read down the left column, then you come back up and read down the right column, then you go to the next page. A single column has all one… It’s just like from left to right, one sentence runs all the way across the page, and then the verse notations on the far left. And then even with single column Bibles, there’s a couple different ways that those can be formatted.

A preaching Bible, like an expositor’s Bible will have, on the left side of the page, the verses, and each verse number starts that verse. The one that I have, the Schuyler Treveris, it just has everything in paragraph form, and then the verses are out to the left, but, I don’t know how to explain this without showing you, but the verse number, like I’m looking at 2nd Samuel 24, is where I’m opened to, and it starts on the left side of the page in the middle of a sentence. So when I turn the page, it says, “Know the number of the people. But Joab said to the king, ‘May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as there are, while the eyes of my Lord the king still see it; but why does my Lord the King delight in this thing?’ But the King’s word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the Army.”

So I just read two verses, but you’ve gotta kinda figure out where those verses start and stop. So it can be a little bit confusing, but what I love about it is for reading, you don’t get bogged down in the verse breaks, but if you need to reference some… It’s hard to explain. I don’t know if this makes sense. But if you go on evangelicalbible.com and look at the Treveris Bible, what I like about it is, I like to read it and then I kinda get lost in, I’m not paying attention to the verse breaks. But if I need to go back to a reference, there is a verse number on the left side of the page that’ll get me there, if that makes sense. So the Treveris Bible. I love that. And then the other Schuyler Bible is what they call the Quentel, the Schuyler Quentel. Mine is in this really cool imperial blue goat skin, and so that’s a great premium Bible. It’s more of a traditional Bible layout with double column.

These premium Bibles, what makes a Bible premium is they’re hand bound. These ones that I have are goat skin. I prefer goat skin. All three of my premium Bibles are… Actually I have four. I bought a new one this year, are goat skin. So I have the Treveris and the Quentel, those are both made by Schuyler. I love the construction of the Schuyler Bibles. And they’re big enough that you can read them, carry them. They’re not like pocket Bibles. They’re not like teeny little Bibles, but they’re also not a big, thick, huge, clunky bulky, you can’t carry it around study Bible. Next up is the Allan Bible, A-L-L-A-N. The Allan Bible, this is the reader’s reference edition in black goat skin. The Allan Bible was… The Allan and Cambridge are the two companies that have the original premium Bibles. This one, this is My New American Standard. So those first two I mentioned, the Treveris and the Quentel, are in ESV.

My RL Allan Bible is My New American Standard Bible, and it’s also a goat skin and it is a sweet color, man. It’s a black goat skin Bible, but then the gilding, which is the color of the page edges is like blue silver. It’s got a real cool shine to it, really cool looking. It’s handsome. It’s a handsome Bible. And then it’s got… All these have multiple ribbon markers. So my Treveris has red ribbon markers, my Quentel, that is a blue Bible has blue ribbon markers. This R.L Allan has a bluish silver tint to the page edges, and then the ribbons are silver and it’s just sharp. It’s a handsome Bible. This feature, having multiple ribbons is really helpful for teaching, preaching, referencing, even if you’re not a teacher, a preacher, to be able to hold your place with three or four ribbons and have multiple places marked, that’s really cool. So that’s the R.L Allan.

They’re the oldest bible manufacturer in the world if I understand correctly. It’s a Scottish company. And again, this one is Scottish highland goat skin. So you’ve got the R.L Allan, the Quentel made by Schuyler, the Treveris made by Schuyler, and then my favorite current Bible that I use the most is made by Cambridge, and it’s called the Topaz, also goat skinned. The Topaz, my only complaint is it only comes with two ribbons and the others come with three or four. Man, the Allan has four ribbon markers. I think it’s the Allan. One of them has four markers. I love that. The Topaz, I think has, let’s see, it just has two. But I like the feel of the Topaz the best. I don’t know, there’s just something about the leather, the way that it’s put together, I love the Topaz. All of mine are larger font. Most of these are 10 point font.

I think the one, the Allan Bible is a little smaller, like a nine. But they’re larger font. They’re good handling bibles. I have big hands. I like the way these handle. All of these, well, at least the Quentel and the Topaz, you can get the Cambridge Bible or the Schuyler Bible in a personal size. It’s a much smaller version. So you might look at that. The other premium Bible maker, and I don’t have this one in front of me, Crossway has a premium line, and I have the Crossway Heirloom. No, I have the Crossway Omega. The Omega and the Heirloom are the premium Crossway Bibles. So, to rehash that, for my buddy Nash and for anybody else that’s interested, Schuyler is one premium Bible maker. Allan, A-L-L-A-N, R.L Allan is another premium Bible maker. Cambridge has a line of premium Bibles. The Topaz is the model that I use and recommend. And then Crossway has a line of premium Bibles. I’m sure there are others. These are the ones that I use.

Now, premium Bibles are expensive. They’re like $200, is what you’re gonna have to expect to pay for one of these goat skin Bibles. But, man, they last forever, and they are the kind. What I’ll do is I’ll use one for about five years, and then put it aside to be handed down, ’cause I don’t wanna hand it down to one of my kids after it so beaten up that it’s just barely held together. So I lost all of my stuff in a fire back in 2018, and I had a bible for each kid that I had read through marked up, and then had accompanying journals, and I lost all that in the fire. So I started over, and so I have more than most people have. I have five premium Bibles, but I bought three of those with insurance money, I think, if I remember right, anyway, and then I bought another one of these bibles last year, and then I just bought one this year. A couple hundred bucks, you like, “Man, I can buy a good leather bound bible for $50, $60.”

Yeah, but these things are built to last and hand down, and when you handle one of these, you’ll be blown away. You will be absolutely blown away. The hard thing is you can’t handle them in a store unless you’re in Richmond, Virginia, which is where this Evangelical bible is at. But evangelicalbible.com, go check it out. There you go. That was a long rant about premium Bibles, but I’ve had a lot, a lot, a lot of requests to do this, so thanks for bearing with me. I just spent over 10 minutes talking about premium Bibles, but I think I spent that long. Anyway, it took a while. So there’s that, premium Bibles. My recommendation is Schuyler, R.L Allan, Cambridge or Crossway. My current favorite to the Cambridge Topaz, but I read a lot out of the Schuyler, Treveris, and then I preach a lot out of the Quentel, the Schuyler Quentel. I preach out a bit more than the Topaz, the Cambridge Topaz, because I don’t have it marked out nearly as much. There you go, there you go, my buddy, Nash, and anybody else that’s interested in these things. I recommend spending the money. Set it aside and get yourself a premium Bible.

Fighting Doubt in the Life of a Believer

Alright, let’s get into today’s topic, what I wanna talk about, kind of as a follow-up to our conversation and discussion about Satan. I wanna read something to you that I wrote a couple of mornings ago, just thinking about struggle that people tend to have with the doubt in their salvation, and thinking about the effects that doubt tends to have on people. In my life and in the life of people I’ve had the opportunity to minister to, I have observed that doubt is a constant hurdle. At times it’s much more than simply a hurdle. At times it robs people of mission focus, their confidence in the Lord, their ability to share Christ, their love for others, and the list could go on and on. The only way to contend with doubt is to press into the truth and promises of God and Scripture. The Lord is not willing that you should perish, and he has made that clear. He’s not willing. He is in fact determined to save me. I really feel like doubt is rooted in fear or even in a recognition of my own failure. My sin disrupts my own life. This is important. My sin disrupts my own life and takes away my joy and my confidence.

1. You can experience doubt because of your own shortcomings, to fight that you need to keep your eyes on Jesus, press into Christ, and be focused in your pursuit of the Lord.

I really believe the number one cause of doubt in my life personally, is my own shortcoming and failure. I don’t do what I ought to do. So what I was getting at there in my writing that morning was, for me, I can draw a direct correlation with struggling with doubt. Doubt about finances, doubt about the future, doubt about relationships. On a bigger scale, doubt about my salvation, doubt about the Lord’s provision, doubt about God’s plan for my life, doubt about the things that really matter in terms of who God is in my relationship to him. I can usually correlate those struggles with… Not always, not always. But it’s rooted in my own failure, to combat that I need to keep my eyes on Jesus, to press into Christ, to grow, to be focused in my pursuit of the Lord. A lot of times that’s where I can draw the line. I believe that doubt robs so many believers of the joy that awaits them in Jesus, I believe that genuine doubt that plagues me can be countered with biblical truth. The problem for me is that I give doubt momentum, I give it unmerited credence by yielding to my flesh.

I feel like I’m rambling a little bit here, but what I’m trying to say is that when I give into my flesh, it creates instability, it creates doubt. When I yield to temptation, my confidence wanes, and struggles. When I indulge in the lusts and the demands of the flesh, I destabilize the great confidence the believer has in the Lord and his ability to not only save but to protect me spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, sexually, and in every way. That’s what he’s able to do. Jude says that he is able to keep me from stumbling. So why do I stumble? Because I walk in obedience to the flesh. And when I do this, I struggle with assurance. I think it’s important, it’s just recognizing that in my own struggle with doubt, when I’m dealing with doubt, and again, not always, but when I’m dealing with doubt, a lot of times I can take responsibility for that because I’ve drifted. When we did, and have done on multiple occasions, episodes where we talk about doubt, we talk about drifting away from the faith, they’re drifting away from the Lord, the drift of Hebrews Chapter 2 when writer of Hebrews says, “Take heed so that you don’t drift. Be careful that there’s not in you an unbelieving heart that causes you to turn away, walk away, fall away.

And so drifting always leads to doubting. If I drift… Here’s the thing. If I drift away from the Lord, I take my eyes off Jesus, I take my hands off of the plow, I pull up the anchor and I begin to drift, it will always lead to doubt. It will always lead to doubt. Doubt is a reality that believers have to struggle with and contend with, but that we don’t have to give in to, we don’t have to yield to. And so, I wanna share some practical thoughts on doubt that if you’re somebody that deals with doubt and it can take on… This can take on different forms. Doubt can look more like anxiety, it could be something that creates anxiety, it could be something that creates depression or a depressive state. But I wanna start by saying, I think doubt is a struggle that believers have, it’s not so much a struggle that unbelievers have. Unbelievers are gonna have false assurance, they’re gonna believe that they’re good, they don’t need anything else, they don’t need dependency or dependence on the Lord, they don’t need to grow and mature spiritually, they’re gonna be confident in their own abilities or, “I’m good, I don’t need anything in the way of faith.”

2. know that doubt is a believer’s battle.

I think doubt is something that believers struggle with. Now, I’ll go back to what we talked about in a previous episode. We talked about Satan, we talked about the way the enemy attacks. I believe the enemy wants for believers to struggle with doubt because it has a repercussive effect on their effectiveness as Christians, on their joy, on their peace, joy, peace effectiveness. The enemy wants to take those things away from us. I think that the enemy wants to give a false assurance to people who really need the Lord, and wants them to feel like they don’t have need. At the core of the Gospel, we have to recognize our need of a savior, our need of Jesus. Listen to what… I’m preparing for a message that I’m gonna be preaching in March on Hebrews Chapter 6, verses 9 through 12. Listen to this. Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. So he says, We feel sure, we feel sure of better things. So there’s a way that you can feel sure of the things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust, so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance.

There it is again. Full assurance of hope until the end so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. So as a believer, it’s one of the greatest things that we have. One of the greatest realities for the believer is that we have assurance. So he says… Writer of Hebrews says, “You can have assurance, you can be sure.” What do we have assurance of? We have assurance of faith, we have assurance of salvation, God’s grace to us. We can be sure of that. We have assurance of sanctification, that God is doing this work in us. The Bible says in Philippians, he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete that work. So we have assurance in God’s ability, not only to save us, but to carry us through to the end, and to bring us through into eternal life. We have assurance of hope, we have assurance of eternal life, we have assurance of son-ship through adoption. These are things that God has given us that we can be sure of. So the writer of Hebrews would say, “Here’s some things that you can have assurance of; assurance of salvation and all that that entails. Assurance of salvation. And then he says, All that belongs to salvation. So what belongs to salvation, as a believer, if God saves me, there’s a lot that goes with that.

His presence, His abiding presence, His confidence for me, His grace for me, His mercy, to enjoy and endure every day. The assurance that He’s gonna bring me through to the end, these are things that give stability to a believer. Stable people are people who have assurance, people that live with assurance of who they are; their identity, their confidence is in Christ. And one of the biggest things that we have assurance of, that he mentions in Hebrews 6, is we have assurance of hope. Hope to endure, hope until the end. So hope and assurance are such important things for the believer. Are such, such important things for the believer. And what I have found out and found to be true is that, man, when I’m struggling with doubt, it’s typically… Doubt is the other side of assurance. If I’m not living with assurance, I’m living with doubt. So how do I get to the source of what’s causing it? How do I get to the source of where doubt grows? Well, I think that… Again, I think that doubt robs believers of joy, and that joy is something that Jesus would give us, that we can be… We can have…

The Bible says we can have joy that’s inexpressible and full of glory. So doubt robs us of joy. I believe that genuine doubt that plagues me can be countered with biblical truth. The problem for me is that I give doubt momentum. I give it credence that’s unmerited. I wanna make sure that we go back to that line and what I read. It’s unmerited credence. Don’t give doubt something it doesn’t deserve, it hasn’t earned. And doubt is rooted in the flesh, so the enemy of the believer is the flesh. Now, Paul helps me to understand this. Listen to what he says in Romans 7:15 and 17.

“For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. So now it’s no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.” -Romans 7:15-17

3. The majority of the time, doubting is related to sin in your own personal life. 

So Paul would say that rooted in the believer is an indwelling sin. S-I-N, sin. Sin is that which is contrary to obedience to the Lord, sin is that which is rooted in pride, sin is that which is rooted in disobedience, and sin is something that dwells in me at least in this life. And as long as I’m living in this fleshly human body, I’m gonna have to contend with sin that is dwelling there. And the idea of sin is that it dwells.

That word dwells means it dwells in the sense that it’s nomadic in my life. Sin moves around in my life. Think about this. Sin is not… Think of it… In one sense, you could think of it as something that’s rooted, but you can uproot certain sin in your life and have victory over it. Certain attitudes, you can root them up and put them to death. Certain addictions, you can root them out and put them to death through a relationship with Jesus and worship and obedience. But the idea that sin dwells in my life is the idea that it’s not rooted, but that it’s sort of like mobile. It’s kind of floating around. And think about this, how something will seem to creep up on you that you’ve never struggled with before, or that you haven’t struggled with in a long time, and all of a sudden you’re dealing with and you’re like, “Where did that come from?” Well, it’s nomadic, it floats around looking for opportunity. Paul will also say in Romans 7, that sin seizes opportunity provided by the flesh. This is why he will also say, “Don’t make any opportunity for your flesh, don’t give any obligation. You’re not under obligation to your flesh, so don’t make opportunity to your flesh.

So it’s like the picture Paul’s painting is that sin is sort of lingering in the shadows, dwelling in this nomadic way, it kind of moves from corner to corner of my life. And then when I’m in a position where I’m vulnerable, I give opportunity to my flesh, then it seizes that opportunity. The sin that dwells in me is the root of my personal problem when it comes down to it. A hold to the lust of the flesh. It’s not an outside source or an outside problem. As much as I hate the devil and we unpacked the reality of who he is, as much as the world in conjunction with the devil provides me with opportunity and provides him with the opportunity to tempt me, it is sin that dwells within me that needs to be addressed on a daily basis. The sin is the seed or the root of doubt. So I wanna make the point today that doubt, not every time, but the majority of the time, is rooted in my own personal drift, my own personal sin, my own personal pride.

It’s me not walking in humble submission and obedience to the Lord. And then what happens is that doubt takes away assurance. I begin to lose the assurance of hope, the assurance peace, the assurance of salvation, the assurance of son-ship, the assurance of endurance in my life that I’m gonna endure to the end, that the Lord’s gonna stay with me. And Paul gives more clarity on this at the end of Romans 7, he says, “I find it a law that when I wanna do right, evil lies close at hand. I delight in the law of God in my inner being.” So he says inner being, which is also where he said, “Sin dwells in me.” So the innermost part of who I am, there’s a desire to do right, and I delight in the law of God, but I also see another law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. So he says, “In my inner being, I desire to be obedient to the Lord, but in my innermost members, my physical body, then there’s this desire to do what is wrong.” Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then in my life and myself, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh, I serve the law of sin.

So the idea that Paul’s painting, the picture that Paul’s painting is that I struggle. I struggle with and wrestle with doubt that is rooted in sin, and that accept my mind and my desires to be obedient to the Lord as a Christian, but my desire and my flesh is still sometimes sinful, and that sin dwells in me. So basically, the picture he’s painting here is the picture of this ongoing internal civil war. Have you ever felt this where it’s like, Man, I struggle with the desire to do right and the desired and temptation to do wrong, and sometimes I win that struggle and sometimes I give in to temptation.

5. CONTEND, CONTEND, CONTEND!

So where do I go from here? Will I recognize that sin dwells and lingers in me and has to constantly and continually be rooted out? And if I don’t root it out, one of the effects of that sin, I believe, is doubt. It creates doubt in the life of the believer. I wanna close our time with this, with the tactical approach to this. Tactical meaning, how do I combat this? And I wanna turn to the book of Jude. Jude is a teeny little letter in the New Testament written to the church. And I love that Jude opens his letter by saying, “Jude, a servant or slave of Jesus Christ and a brother of James.” Jude was… He’s a biological half-brother of Jesus, but he refers to himself as the slave of Jesus. And so his… Jude’s approach to the Christian life is rooted in humility, he humbles himself before the Lord. Peter and James both write that we humble ourselves under the hand of God. He exalts us, he raises us up. To those who… Jude says, “To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. My identity is that I’m called, loved, and kept. And then he says in verse 3, “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

So Jude says, “You gotta contend for the faith, you gotta fight for the faith, you gotta contend against false teachers.” He goes on and he talks about… For certain people who have crept in unnoticed too long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God and the sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. He’s like, “We’ve gotta contend against false teachers, we’ve gotta contend against progressive ideology, we’ve gotta contend against apostates, but we also have to contend for personal holiness, for stronger faith and for the faith of others. In verse 22, he says, “Have mercy on those who doubt, save others by snatching them out of the fire.” So Jude would connect the idea of walking in humility, recognizing that I’m loved, I’m kept, I’m guarded by Jesus, but I’ve gotta contend for this faith, I’ve gotta contend against false teaching, false ideas, I’ve gotta contend against the flesh, I’ve gotta contend for personal holiness, I’ve gotta contend… So every day of my life, I have to be reminded that I’m contending against an enemy that indwells me, namely sin and pride, and I’m contending against an enemy that is on the outside, attacking me in the form of Satan and the opportunities that the world provides, and for temptation.

Contend, contend, contend. And I contend knowing what Jude says in the last two verses of his letter, which is called the doxology of Jude, the worship proclamation of Jude. He says, “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling. Now, to him who is able to keep you from stumbling. To him means worship. So based on the fact that Jesus has saved me and called me, and that he loves me and that he’s gonna keep me. Based on that call to contend for the faith, based on that. And I can worship him. Who am I worshipping? Him who is able to keep me from stumbling. Jesus is the one that’s gonna keep me from falling into doubt head first and not being able to recover. Doubt is an enemy that I gotta contend against. It’s like a yapping dog biting at my ankles, contending against me every day. Doubt is real, man. Doubt is something that will rob you of your joy, rob you of your assurance. If you are sure of who you are in Christ if you… Think about the confident people you know, even if they’re not Christians.

The confident people you know are confident because they know their mission, they know what they’re called… They know what they… I don’t wanna use the word called necessarily, ’cause some people… There are people who reject the gospel but seem very confident. People that are confident are confident because they know their mission, they know their purpose, they’ve latched onto something bigger than themselves.

Well, for believers, we’ve surrendered to Jesus and the Gospel is the ultimate mission, and my assurance is rooted in who Christ is and who He declares me to be, but I’ve gotta contend against doubt, I’ve gotta contend against pride by humbling myself before the Lord. By surrendering myself to Jesus. My salvation is a salvation that is one of assurance, it’s like he’s given me assurance, he’s given me… Another place the bible uses the word surety. He’s given me assurance and so I’m contending for something that is promised in and through Christ, like what Jesus has done for me, is He saved me, and He assures me of salvation and all that belongs to salvation, sonship, adoption, love the promises of God, endurance to the end. My identity, according to Jude, is that I’m called by God, I’m loved by God, I’m protected by Jesus. Called and loved and protected. It’s like that’s who I am. And so the application to me is to fight against personal pride and conceit, and to seek to walk in humility and accountability, submit to Jesus, and know my identity is that I’m called of God.

When you’re dealing with doubt, remember what Paul says in Romans 7:17, sin dwells in me. Sin dwells in me, there’s a sin that dwells inside of me, it’s no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me, so if I hate certain things, why do I do them? Well, because sin is dwelling inside of me, and in that moment, I yield to that sin, and I don’t live in victory, and I’m telling you that if we have a pattern of yielding to that, what… You fill in the blank, your own personal pattern of yielding to your addiction, yielding to pornography or to some substance addiction or to material addiction or idolatry, when you yield to the thing that God’s called you to take victory over, it creates doubt. Like you begin to doubt, man, am I really a child of God? Am I… Is God real? And that’s all connected to the drift where I begin to move away from Christ. So a reminder for us as believers is our confidence and our assurance is the assurance of salvation, that assurance is rooted in Christ and Jude tells us to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and Jude man, and that doxology. He worships Jesus with praise that is exclusive.

He’s the one who is able to… The only true God, be glory and majesty. It’s the highest of worship, it’s the highest of praise. Honor and worship and dominion and glory to Him be these things. It’s exclusive to Jesus, He’s worthy of our praise. Because He saved us. If you worship Jesus every day, if you praise Jesus every day, if you live in obedience and surrender, exalt Him for who He is. Oh, magnify the Lord and let us exalt His name forever. If we do that every day, we’ll conquer doubt, y’all. You’re gonna win the battle against doubt. My man, if you go through the Monday emotions of, Well, I got up today and I was tired, I didn’t… Man I slept in and I didn’t spend time with the Lord. Life is busy and its hectic. Listen, it’s easy to get off track. And if you get off track, sin is dwelling in you. Satan is observing, like the enemies of the cross are observing God’s people, the world is providing opportunity for the flesh, and when the sin that’s dwelling in you rears up and takes the opportunity provided by the world and Satan’s minions are looming and lurking and presenting us with opportunities, pretty soon, I’m not walking in submission and worship and humility.

Jude says, Man, I’m a slave of Jesus, and I’m gonna worship Him to Him who was able to keep me from stumbling and to present me blameless before the Lord. My endurance is rooted in and rests in the work that Jesus is doing in me and my assurance is in Christ, not in… Doubt is doubt. Because of what I know of myself, in other words, let me think how to word this last thought, my doubt is rooted in my self-awareness that I’m a failure, I have shortcomings and failures, but if I fix my eyes on Jesus, He never fails, and I won’t doubt Him. I won’t doubt Him, even when difficult things happen, I won’t doubt Him, but if I worship Him, my strength and confidence in Him will grow, put Him to the test. Put Him to the test in one’s sins, and let… And see if he’s not who He says He is, see if he doesn’t come true and through and give confidence and strengthen you, worship Him, He is able to deliver you through to the end, He’s worthy. That’s where you conquer doubt.

Dig into God’s word Dig into His promises, worship Him. Root out the sin, put it in front of you, ignore, don’t give opportunity to the flesh through the offerings of the world, and attach yourself and fasten yourself to Jesus. Let me close with a thought from John, this is in 1 John, 2 John Chapter 2. Turn over here to it. 1 John Chapter 2, concerning the love of the world, ’cause this drills into that third enemy, you got Satan, you got the flesh, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh.

That’s what we’re talking about today. Rooted in the flesh, the sin that dwells in me, the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but from the world, and the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. So the word from John is, Don’t abide in the world as if the world would provide you with what you need, the lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes, the desires of the eyes are deceptive and deceiving and will leave you empty and will create doubt.

But if we fix our eyes on Jesus and we worship Him, He’ll stabilize us, He’ll strengthen us, and we will not be of those who went out from us because they were not really of us. We’ll stay true to the Lord and to His Word. Thank you all for listening. I’m really grateful that you tune in and come here, a lot of you, I know are consistent listeners, and I know we have some folks that kind of swing by and check in and check an episode out from time to time, and we appreciate you too, and I just… I want you to live in victory and confidence, and I wanna live in victory and confidence, and I think recognizing the root source of doubt that it’s because I’m not yet perfected, there’s coming a day when Jesus is gonna glorify me, there’s coming a day, think about this where I’ll never deal with doubt again, I’ll never deal with sin again, I’ll never deal with temptation again, I will forever be glorified, it’s gonna be awesome to spend eternity with the Lord and to have this incredible experience of life, void of any pain or suffering or hardship, just the joy that comes with abundant life in the kingdom in heaven with the Lord and with each other. It’s gonna be an amazing experience.

I hope your week is an amazing experience, and I hope that you win the battle against doubt this week, don’t yield to doubt, don’t give in to the sin that dwells within you, but conquer it, beat it, whip it. It’s there for the victory in Christ through Christ. It’s awesome because it is the very next chapter… We looked at Romans 7, the very next chapter, Romans 8 is where Paul says, We overwhelmingly conquer through Jesus. First verse of Romans 8, There’s therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We’re set free from condemnation and judgment, so let’s live like it. Let’s live victorious this week.

Thank y’all. Go get yourself a premium Bible. You spend $200 on a lot of things. Get you a premium copy of God’s word, it’s not gonna make you more holy, trust me, but man, it is pretty sweet, it’s a pretty cool reading experience, I’m holding my Cambridge Topaz right now, and it is awesome, so I hope you enjoyed that a little bit at the beginning and I hope it’s helpful maybe if you’ve given consideration, I know for some of you that’s out of reach, but I’m just thinking… I was just thinking about going back to that and our conclusion to the episode here, going back to where we started with the premium bible discussion, you know, when I buy tools, I try to buy the best that I can possibly buy… When I buy a vehicle I try to buy the best thing I can buy best in terms of what can I afford that’s gonna give me the best service, I don’t wanna be a cheap skate, I’m not gonna go buy something for luxury, no. I’m not gonna go… I’m not gonna rack up $1000 a month car payment to drive around in luxury for the next five years till the thing completely depreciates.

But I wanna buy the best thing I can buy to get my family around safely and to be reliable and to not have high maintenance cost. So it’s just practical. I think there’s a practical argument for spending a little more money, I think if you buy a premium Bible, you spend 200 bucks on a Bible it will last you five years, $40 a year, three and a half dollars a month. Where if you buy a cheap Bible, for me personally, it will not last me five years and it will not hold up and then it’ll be just completely destroyed and not able to be passed along to anybody, so anyway… And I already talked about it, I don’t need to talk about it again, but this is my thought time. Let me know what you think, email us, share this… Share this podcast with people, let’s get more people listening. We are now, by God’s grace in the top 10% of podcasts on the internet. Isn’t that crazy? Top 10%. Pretty cool. Top 10%. We have a solid listening audience and a group of followers and we appreciate you. Let’s keep it going. Thank y’all, have an awesome week. See you next week.