Building Theology | Pastor Caden DeWeerdt

Well, good morning at City First Church. Who's excited to be in the house of the Lord today? Will you join me in continuing that applause and greeting all of our locations, Cape Coral, Janesville, God Behind Bars, and City First Anywhere. It is so good to be in church with you guys. And now before we dive into today's message, I just want to kind of briefly state the obvious fact that I'm not usually who you'd expect to see preaching on a Sunday. And as this is my first time being entrusted to preach from the stage solo on a Sunday, I want to be obedient to what scripture tells us in Romans to give honor where honor is due. And I want to take a moment and I want to honor our senior pastors. Now, this always puts me in a weird spot. Are they my parents or are they my pastors? And if I'm being honest with you guys, church, it's a pretty easy answer. They're both. They are the best parents to me and they're also the best pastors and leaders to me. And in a world where a large majority of pastors' kids have walked away from the church because they feel as if their parents have sacrificed their relationship with them on the altar of ministry, I'm a living testament that our senior pastors are some of the most authentic,

Jesus-loving, faithful people I know. So church, can you give it up one more time for our senior pastors, show our appreciation. I'm excited to share with you all today what I believe God has laid on my heart to communicate. And it's actually been years in the making. If you guys know anything about me, I've been working on something extremely passionate on social media. You guys maybe have seen the project, but it's been a project called Building Theology. And if you know me, one of the things I care very much about is theology. But some of you guys, when you hear that word, you think it only applies to like pastors and academics and all that kind of stuff. But no, that is not what that word means. I wanna give you guys a textbook definition of theology this morning. Theology is what we choose to think about God based on what we know about God. And whether you realize it or not, you are a theologian because you have thoughts about God, even if your thoughts aren't always the correct thoughts. And we all have incorrect thoughts about God sometimes. And A.W. Tozer sums this up perfectly when he said this, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. And our theology matters. And to help us understand this truth,

I wanna share with you guys a story that I actually share in our City First Academy. A few years ago, I was studying for my master's degree. One of my professors by the name of Dr. A.J. Swoboda shared a story with our class. And before becoming a professor, Dr. Swoboda served as a college pastor out in the state of Oregon where he led a young adult ministry at his church. And during this time there, during his time there, the church's staff and elders discovered a serious problem with the building where they gathered. They learned that the building had been leaking toxins into the groundwater. Asbestos had also been discovered and the air quality had become dangerously poor. And even worse, many of these issues were concentrated in the area where the children's ministry gathered each week, which is crazy. The church council knew they had to act and after evaluating the damage, they made the difficult decision to tear down the building and replace it entirely. And what made the situation even more shocking was that the building was only 15 years old. It should not have been having all of these issues for how new of a building it was. And Dr. Swoboda one day stood outside and watched as a massive wrecking ball

took down his church. And as the walls came down, he could see just how poorly the building had been constructed. It had been put together quickly using cheap materials and shortcuts that were never meant to last. And the longer he watched, the more frustrated he became. He became righteously angry that they built this building so bad. And finally, he leaned over to a senior pastor after all this frustration was penting up and he asked him, why did they build this building so badly? Why did they do it? And the senior pastor looked at him as though he had been waiting for someone to ask him that question. He then explained that when the church council approved the building 15 years earlier, they made their decisions to build it how they did based on one deeply held belief. They were convinced that Jesus was gonna come back within the next year. What? But here's the truth that I want us to understand in this story. What we believe matters.

What you believe will determine how you build and what you build. And we cannot reduce theology to just beliefs or ideas. Theology, our beliefs affect our world. It affects our bodies, our relationships and the next generation. And when I heard that story, I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me that we are not just called to study theology in a textbook, but we are called to build theology. We are called to build our lives, build friendships, build futures that are God-honoring and Christ-centered. And our faith should not just become a weekly homework assignment for us to go to the church and take notes. We are called to construct a faith that's worth believing in. So City First, this morning, I have a question for you guys. What kind of faith do you wanna build? What kind of faith do you wanna build? Do you wanna build something that's only for a season or just checks the box for church attendance? Or do you wanna build a faith that lasts? A faith that sets up the next generation and a faith that impacts this world and truly makes a difference for Christ. And this idea of building our lives around right beliefs and sound theology

is something that I'm so passionate about that I wrote a book about it. And it's actually coming out this Wednesday, but because y'all are my family, I shipped some early copies. Oh, you guys can give it up for that, thank you. I shipped some early copies to our locations and it's gonna be available to you guys today at our locations. And something that I'm really passionate about as well is that a percentage of the proceeds that are sold here at our physical locations is gonna go back into the ministries here at City First Church, because I would not be here if it wasn't for this house. And God doesn't just call us to build our theology, He calls us to build His church. But that's a whole other sermon, okay? I don't have time for that. And in the book, I share a building metaphor to help us understand what it means to build our theology in our understanding of God. And it starts with what I call bricks of belief. This brick represents just one thing that you believe to be true about God, yourself, or the world God created. And one belief may not seem significant by itself. It's just one thought, one sentence, and one idea, but beliefs never stay by themselves. Beliefs connect to other beliefs.

And eventually, these bricks form walls, walls become rooms, and these rooms eventually create something I call a house of belief. In your whole life, you've been building a house, one belief at a time. You inherited bricks of belief from the people or the systems that raised you. You've been taught what your purpose is in this life, either by your family, or your friends, or your pastors, or your culture. You were taught things in school, you were taught things maybe in church, you were taught things by the world around you. You were shown what success is supposed to look like. You learned what makes a person valuable. You were taught whether to cheer for the Bears or the Packers, and the right answer is as clear as day. Go Bears, okay? Let us pray for our fellow Packers fans who have incorrect theology. Just kidding. But in all seriousness, your life has been marked by building. You've been building belief since you came to this world. But then one day you encountered Jesus, the architect of your faith. And Jesus didn't just visit your house of belief, he took up residence in it. And it says in Ephesians chapter three,

verses 16 through 17, I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. When you made Jesus the leader and forgiver of your life, your faith in him made him dwell within you. And when someone invites Jesus into the house of belief that he has been standing at the door and knocking at for maybe years upon decades, Jesus gets to work. He gets to work in our lives. And I grew up watching the show, some of you guys may know it, called Extreme Makeover Home Edition, okay? I don't know if this makes me like have unk status with the youth that I know what the story is, but if you don't know the premise of the show, it's where a lucky family gets a home renovation for absolutely free. They go to Disney or on vacation somewhere, and they come back to a bus standing in front of their house and the host tells them to yell those words and say it with me if you know it, move that bus. They do, okay, you guys know your Extreme Makeover Home Edition. They do, they move the bus and their home is entirely renovated. But here's what so many of us as Christ followers

know to be true, that Jesus does not send. us away after he comes into our lives on a two week paid trip to Disney, and then invite us back home, tell us to yell, move that bus. And then we move into a completely refurbished house of belief that he changes everything in a second. And maybe we wish he did, but that's not what happens. And yes, some things are immediate, like the grace and the forgiveness that he gives you for your sins, that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes into our lives. Those things are immediate and the Holy Spirit moves powerfully. But some things take time. But City First know this, that for the rest of our lives, we are called to build with God. The renovations to our house of belief will never cease. The masterpiece of our faith will not know completion on this side of eternity. And if Jesus wanted us to complete our theological house on this earth, he would have said, here, come, here's the 12 step plan to being a Christian. But he didn't say that. He said, come, follow me. Because following Jesus is a lifelong journey. And brick by brick, faith takes a lifetime to build. But I've discovered that there is one thing

that often decides whether we keep building with Jesus or we demolish what we've built. I've witnessed relationships with Jesus be strengthened because of this one thing, or relationships with Jesus be ended because of it. And how we approach this topic has the power to bring us closer to God or further away from him. And for the rest of our time together, I want us to speak. I want to speak to how we as Christ followers are called to navigate this thing, doubt, doubt. When building our faith, there come times when our faith is tested, naturally. Know that when you signed up to follow Jesus, your faith is gonna be tested at times. And I've discovered that what almost always accompanies a test of faith are questions and doubt. And in our analogy of building a house of belief, I've discovered that doubt can play one of two roles in the building process. First one is this, that doubt can be an inspector. Doubt can be an inspector. When doubt is an inspector, questions about your faith can actually help you discern what beliefs are correct and they need to be kept or which ones are wrong and need to be replaced. And in modern culture, this process has been coined deconstruction. But I want to clarify for us this morning what deconstruction actually is,

what healthy deconstruction is. Healthy deconstruction is simply questioning something you've built in order to find peace, answers or truth. And the ultimate goal of this process should be to get closer to Jesus, not further away from him because there are some beliefs that you had in your past, each of us have had in our past or that you may even have right now that aren't correct. And God wants us to remove those bricks and replace them with correct theology. Maybe you were raised to believe that God's love needed to be earned. Maybe you were told growing up that God is angry at you when you mess up or you sin. Maybe you were taught that God can only use people without a past like yours. And these are all examples of wrong beliefs that are not rooted in scripture. And we aren't called to keep them, we are called to deconstruct them and reconstruct them with God's word as our standard. And this is what healthy doubt looks like. You guys can give it up for that. This is what healthy doubt looks like. It inspects certain beliefs, asks questions and builds a stronger faith in Jesus. But there is a second role that doubt can play that actually doesn't result in a stronger faith, it results in a weaker one.

Doubt can also be an architect. It can be an architect. And when doubt is an architect, it begins redesigning the entire house, not just inspecting it. Instead of asking, is this belief true? Doubt tells you nothing can be trusted. Everything you were raised to believe in is a lie. Instead of helping us replace one brick of belief at a time, doubt convinces us that the whole house needs to be destroyed, needs to be leveled. And this is why the term deconstruction across the Christian landscape has gotten a bad rap. It's gotten a bad rap because there are individuals who are using it as an excuse to walk away from the parts of their faith that make them uncomfortable. And for those individuals, doubt moves from helping them build their faith to taking control and removing any belief that doesn't align with what they think is best for their lives. Not what God's word says. what they want their lives to look like. And instead of being deconstruction, it's glamorized destruction. Instead of it being an exercise that you and I are called to partake in as Christ followers to build our faith, it becomes an excuse to walk away from the construction site and never visit it again.

And the reason why I'm so passionate about this is that this is a part of my story. It's a part of my testimony that I was sold a bill of goods by culture that said you can build your life and have all the answers and getting everything your heart desires and it will leave you feeling fulfilled, but it left me feeling empty. And I know that's the story of many people at our locations who are Christians because doubt makes a great inspector, but a horrible architect. Because you know what the architect of our faith is supposed to be? Not getting all the right answers, not comfort or having everything we want, not pleasure, not security or any idol we want to give control of our theological house to, the architect of our faith should be Jesus Christ. He is the cornerstone. He is the foundation. And he has given you the blueprint for what our lives should look like. So city first, question for you, which architect have you commissioned to build your life? The counterfeit architect called doubt and getting all the right answers to your questions or the divine architect, Jesus. Because when you give authority to doubt

to start rearranging your beliefs instead of Jesus, your faith will begin to crumble. So how do we make sure that this doesn't happen for us as Christ followers? How do we approach doubt correctly in a biblical way without giving it more power than it should have in our lives while still asking healthy questions that bring us closer to Jesus? Being a Christ follower means you will have questions. I'm not saying that if anyone's in here has questions, you need to leave. That's not what the Bible says. And that's not what Jesus expects from us. We would all get up and walk out of this building because we all have questions. I want us to take a look at a person in the Bible who spent a lot of time with Jesus and gets still struggled with doubt. And his name is Thomas. And there's a story that takes place in the Bible in the gospel of John that takes place right after Jesus's resurrection where news about Jesus coming back to life has started circulating amongst his followers but only Mary Magdalene has seen him. No one else has seen him. So it's all hearsay. And Jesus then appears suddenly out of nowhere in a room to his disciples

and they're all filled with awe and with wonder at their risen savior. But here's the problem. Thomas isn't with them. Thomas is gone. And we don't know why. He's not there when Jesus appears. And in John chapter 20, verses 24 through 25, it says this, now Thomas, also known as Didymus, one of the 12 was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord. But he said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. Now this is one of my all time favorite stories in scripture. And for the rest of our time together, I actually wanna dive into and point out a few truths hidden in this story and how it can teach us how to navigate our own doubts and the doubts of those around us. Because you may be in here and you're feeling pretty good about the doubts that you have. You're not asking any crazy questions. You're like, I'm comfortable with where I'm at.

But we all know someone who's navigating tough questions. And so we're also called, if we're not struggling with doubt, to help others walk through doubt as well. And if you have questions or struggle with doubt, you should be a fan of Thomas. Because he's not lost in the hype of what the other disciples are experiencing. The other disciples are like, we saw Jesus, he's risen. And Thomas isn't going along with the hype. He's not checking his brain at the door. And we're not called to check our brains at the door when we walk in a church building or when we engage with the Bible, or we think this is how we should live our lives as Christ followers. Jesus doesn't call us to check our brains at the door. He made our minds. He gave us the ability to think critically. And the first thing in this story that I want us to understand is that Thomas has a nickname. He has a nickname, if you guys caught it. It's Didymus, which is Greek for twin. Twin. If you didn't know, Thomas was a twin. He either had a twin brother or a twin sister. And regularly he was probably nicknamed the twin, what Didymus means. Now, this seems like a small detail. You're like, what does this have to do

with the story? But I want us to understand this. Do you know what his nickname isn't? Doubting Thomas. It's not Doubting Thomas. Somewhere in the late 1800s in Christian circles, we started calling Thomas Doubting Thomas. It's not his name. Nowhere in scripture is he called Doubting Thomas. And the irony is that we as Christ followers have taken someone's struggle and attached it to their identity in scripture. And we're doing it today in our circles now. We say, hey, beware of that person. They have questions. Beware of this one. They doubt. We might as well make the next scarlet letter a question mark. Believing that people who ask questions should be avoided at all costs. But I want us to understand this about Thomas. Put yourself in Thomas's shoes. He followed Jesus for three years. He witnessed the feeding of the 5,000. He watched a man be freed from demon possession. Countless healings, countless miracles, countless experiences of Jesus's resurrection power, his wonder-working power. Thomas is a witness to it all, and yet he still struggles with doubt. He still struggles with it. Thomas followed Jesus in closer proximity than you and I ever will, yet still struggled with doubt. Don't kid yourself, church. Doubt is not a struggle for weak Christians. Doubt affects us all at some point in our lives. And for many of us, it comes when we experience what Thomas does in this story. He misses out. He misses out. He's not there when Jesus appears. And I wonder, City First, if a tactic of the enemy when it comes to doubt is to attack us when we feel like we're missing out. That person, they received healing, but I didn't. That person found their spouse, but I haven't. That couple, they were blessed with a pregnancy, but we're having issues. We're having trouble. That person's prayer got answered, but mine hasn't yet. And then we can start to be tempted to sound like Thomas. He says, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. And what he's really saying and what we can sound like when we make doubt the architect of our lives is if I can only believe in Jesus, if X, Y, and Z. We create a list that has to be fulfilled before we agree to follow Jesus and believe again, to return to him. But the good news is this, that doubt is not the end of the story, church. Your doubt is not where your story has to end because it's not where Thomas's story ends. It says in John chapter 20, verses 26 through 29, a week later, his disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. He just appears. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here. See my hands, reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. I want to pause here.

The only person that has the authority and the permission to look at a fellow Christ follower and say, stop doubting and believe is Jesus. It's Jesus. We're not called as Christ followers to say, stop doubting, just believe. We're called to be present with them in their doubt. Thomas said to him, my Lord and my God, he returns to Jesus. He's a prodigal son of doubt. Then Jesus told him, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. And if you guys don't understand or leave this message with any other thing, one of the most important things in this story is where we find Thomas in the middle of his doubt. Where is he? He's with the disciples, those who still believe. And when we struggle with doubt, the enemy almost always will tempt us to isolate ourselves or to surround ourselves with people who are only also doubting, who don't believe. And we are not called to deconstruct our faith outside of the people of the faith, which is the church. The disciples show up for Thomas when he's most vulnerable. You guys can give it up for that. We're called as Christ followers not to abandon the doubters. And if you are struggling with doubt, you're not called to abandon the church. You can still deconstruct your faith and parts of your faith, beliefs, within the four walls of the church, within the church. In our call, if you're in here as a Christ follower, if you're like, I don't really struggle with doubt, this is the verse for you. Jude 1, verses 22, be merciful to those who doubt. Be merciful to them. Don't be angry at them. Don't get frustrated at them, that there may be not in the place in your faith or they haven't gotten the specific answers that they need in order to follow Jesus. We are not called to walk. We are called to walk with people through their doubt.

Not stand a hundred feet away from people who are doubting and yell at them to get where you are and to just believe. And then in this story, Jesus shows up immediately. He's like, hey guys, jump scare, but it's Jesus. So he can do that. And it says a week later, may I add, that Jesus shows up. And sometimes we want doubt to pass us quickly, but it is often a wrestle and a struggle that we have to go through, that sometimes Jesus leaves us in our doubt longer than we want to be. Jesus shows us though, in this story, how he views your doubt. He isn't freaking out. He doesn't show up and he's not like, Thomas, believe, like you have to, okay? Or else your faith is gonna crumble. He's also not mad at Thomas for doubting and having questions. He says these words, peace be with you. Peace be with you. And peace is not just a feeling in this story, it's a person. Jesus is peace. He is the Prince of peace. And while Jesus does not promise all the answers to our doubts, you bet your bottom dollar he promises his presence, that he promises himself, that the Prince of peace is there in our doubt.

He's present in our doubt. Jesus does not despise your doubt, City First. He meets you in the middle of it. So what would our lives look like, City First, if you realize that your doubts did not disqualify you from God's presence? Rather, he welcomes your doubt. What would your life look like if you gave yourself permission to worship Jesus, even if you have questions? To attend Life Group and attend church, even if you're struggling with doubt, because he doesn't view it as something that limits you from being in his presence. Jesus sees your doubts as an opportunity to know him and experience him in a deeper way, to search for him and to find him. Have you ever watched a movie or a TV show where the main character breaks the fourth wall? The person looks directly into the camera and speaks directly to the audience and sometimes catches you off guard if you're not ready for it. And in this last verse of the story, Jesus breaks the fourth wall. And you know who he's talking to? You. He says, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. No one in that room that's hearing Jesus's words

had not seen. They all had seen Jesus. So Jesus isn't talking to Thomas. He isn't talking to the disciples. He's talking here to us in 2026. And City First, I don't know where you started to feel shame for the doubts or the questions that you have. I don't know who told you that you cannot hold your doubt in one hand and faith in the other and offer both up as worship to your savior. I don't know where the enemy convinced you that your doubts disqualify you from God's presence, but in Jesus's name, that ends today. Because there is no shame in his presence. There is no guilt in his presence. And he welcomes your doubt. Because Jesus's response to Thomas's doubt and your doubts in this story is not judgment. It's not anger. It's not outrage. It's not even correction. Jesus's response to Thomas's doubt in this story is a blessing. Jesus blesses you in your doubt. He blesses you in your questioning. He blesses you in the seasons that you don't know if you have it all worked out. And my prayer today is that if you walked in here with doubts and with questions. that you would realize that there is a blessing

available to you that only Jesus can give, and he promises it to you in this story. And if you walked in here today not struggling with doubts and questions in this current season, then my prayer is that you would, just like Jesus and the disciples, be present in those doubts that other people have around you, and echo Jesus's blessing over them. When our house of belief feels like a wreck, littered with rubble, Jesus kneels beside us, and he helps us rebuild our faith. He's not just our cornerstone church. He's our co-laborer. He builds with us, and he promises to never leave us or forsake us. So let that be an encouragement to you, that your doubts, that your questions, they may scare you, they may freak you out. They do not scare your Savior. They do not scare him, that he is bigger than them. And he doesn't wanna just leave you alone to figure out your doubts by yourself. He wants to meet you in your doubts. He wants to show you and minister to you out of his scars that say, he could have resurrected without his scars, church, but he still has his scars even now

at the right hand of God, showing us and speaking to us that he resonates with us in the ways that we have been scarred, by others, by the church, by people, by family, whatever it is, and that's left you with questions, but he promises his presence in those questions. Let me pray over you. God, I pray that your heart would be fully realized this morning. Heavenly Father, we come before you. God, I pray for the person who has big questions this morning, questions that may even scare them, that make them feel like their house of belief is going through an earthquake right now. God, I pray that your heart for their doubt and your heart for them realize and understand that you don't judge them for their doubt, you don't shame them for their questions, God, but that you meet them in the middle of it all. God, thank you that you never leave us or forsake us. Thank you that you don't just promise answers to us, but you promise your presence in a peace that surpasses all understanding. In Jesus' name, and with every head bowed and with every eye closed, maybe you're hearing today's message and you're thinking, man, I have not invited

the divine architect of my faith into my life. I haven't invited him yet, and I wanna make Jesus the leader and forgiver of my life so he can start rearranging things in my life so that I can have access to that peace, that I can have access to a deep belief that doesn't check your brain at the door. And if that's you, with no one else looking around, if you're saying, I wanna make that decision this morning to make Jesus the leader and forgiver of your life, just slip up your hand as a way of saying, Jesus, I doubt, I have questions, but I know you're the answer. Hands going up all around this room, you can put your hands down. Just repeat this prayer after me, and we're gonna have everyone repeat this prayer as an echo to say we're with you in your questioning. We're with you as you navigate following Jesus for the rest of your life. Repeat this prayer after me. Say, dear Jesus, thank you for dying for me. Thank you for how you meet me in my questions. Thank you that you promise your presence to follow me all the days of my life. I wanna live for you, be the leader and forgiver and architect of my life. In Jesus' name, and everyone said, amen. Amen, church. Can you give up for everyone who prayed that prayer?

What an amazing message. And I just wanna challenge you this week to put into practice what we learned, and then also to share this message with those that are in your life. We do wanna take a moment and say that if you did pray that prayer to make Jesus the leader and forgiver of your life, we wanna let you know that we are celebrating with you. That is the best decision that you will ever make, and we would love to, as your church family, come alongside you in this journey of following Jesus. and help you with a few next steps. First, tell someone about the decision that you made. We are not meant to walk this life alone. Secondly, we have a free resource just for you called New Beginning. It's a simple 14-day devotional as you start growing in your relationship with Jesus. When you sign up for this resource, you're also gonna receive a link to a few videos from our pastors, Jeremy and Jen, and these videos are gonna guide you through how to pray, how to read the Bible, how to build relationships that are Christ-centered. And as you start this journey, we just wanna make sure you know that you can reach out to us at any point with any questions, or if there's something we can do to help you grow in your faith,

just simply jump on the website, send us an email, or you can even DM us on social media. Yeah, then after you walk through that New Beginning resource, a next great step to take is to join Growth Track, which starts the first Sunday of the month. This is a great way to discover your God-given purpose and design. You can attend in person or online, and if you'd like more information or wanna sign up, you can visit the app or scan the QR code on your screen. You know, and finally, if you need prayer for anything, jump on the app and you can enter a prayer request at any moment, and we have a team of people that are praying over every single request that comes in, praying consistently. You know, one of the best things that you can do, though, is to come back to church and to bring somebody with you. So we just wanna take a moment and say thank you again for gathering today. We hope you have a great week. That's right, guys, we love you, and we're praying for you, and we'll catch you guys next week.