SPEAKER_00: So our text this morning is John 20, verses 24 through 29.
SPEAKER_00: What we're going to do this morning is we're going to kind of read, and what we like to do is uh read a few verses, talk a little bit, read a few verses, talk a little bit, and work our way through this.
SPEAKER_00: What we've seen in the book of John, and we're toward the end of John, so we're John 20, and what we've seen Jesus do some incredible things, some amazing things, some amazing miracles, and we've seen him teach some incredible lessons, some unbelievable lessons in the past few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at the passion story.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at Jesus on the cross, and we've uh last week we looked at his resurrection and him coming to Mary Magdalene and him coming to the disciples and him breathing life into them as we talked about last week as we come humbly to receive this breath of God, which is what creates life inside of us.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to jump into verse 24 here in John 20.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Thomas, also known as Didymus, or that means twin, one of the twelve was not with the disciples when Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But he said to them, Unless I, 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.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I know we've all missed church, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean we missed church, go to the lake, or we've missed church, we slept in, and you know, like the daylight savings, right?
SPEAKER_00: We set the alarm clock, we missed it, or we or you uh you went play golf, or somebody right now is missing church because they went to pick apples up in LJ, was this fall and we're in the mood, and everybody broke out their boots today and their vests today, and all that came out and they're pigging apples.
SPEAKER_00: We've all missed church at some point, or maybe you've missed a show.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, last week I was talking to a few people and they said, you know, what did you do this weekend?
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, went on the Garth Brooks show.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I missed the Garth Brooks show.
SPEAKER_00: How'd I miss the Garth Brooks show?
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to go to that show, but I forgot about the tickets, and then I just wasn't paying attention.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, how was it?
SPEAKER_00: I'm you know I'm talking about the Thunder Rolls, Colin Baton Rouge.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this was, I mean, those songs might have even made it to India.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll fill you in later.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this was like, I grew up on that.
SPEAKER_00: How did I miss it?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what happened?
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, he sang them all.
SPEAKER_00: Did he wear the mic, that mic, you know, the garth mic?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he wore the Garth mic.
SPEAKER_00: And how did I miss that, right?
SPEAKER_00: And Tom, I mean, out of all the things to miss, Thomas missed the meeting where Jesus came back from the dead and showed up to the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he missed a big meeting.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this wasn't just missing the church meeting and the guy preached a really good sermon or the band did this new thing.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was so great.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he missed Jesus showing back up.
SPEAKER_00: And his disciples, his boys say, the disciples, hey, he's alive.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas says, ah, I don't, I don't buy it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, not not unless I touch, unless I touch the hands, the wounds, and the hands, unless I touch the spot on his side.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't I don't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, before we get too judgmental toward doubting Thomas, maybe we can just have a little bit of honesty because we all know doubt in some way.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, doubt is just part of life because you doubt yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You doubt how you did in that conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You had that conversation with that person, and maybe it was just a friendly conversation on the sidewalk or in the hallway, or maybe it was a big conversation, and you had to kind of prepare for it, and you came out of that conversation, you doubt yourself and what you said, and did you word that right, or you you doubt your job and how well you're doing, or you doubt a person, like a person who loves you, but you doubt whether they really love you, but they do love you, and you know it's true, but you still doubt it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, doubt's just a fact of life.
SPEAKER_00: You can doubt your purpose in life, doubt your decisions.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the other day I was at lunch with somebody at Chick-fil-A, and we order and we get to the table, and I look at his meal, and he ordered a salad with grilled chicken.
SPEAKER_00: He's mixing the grilled chicken and put on the salad, look at my meal, and I have the fried chicken sandwich with the French fries, and all this doubt comes into me about what I ordered, and he's a much better person than me.
SPEAKER_00: Look what he's eating, look what I'm eating, and I leave the meal going, I'm really doubting my health and what how I eat.
SPEAKER_00: And right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just doubt.
SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of every it can be everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: We doubt all sorts of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're here, but and you really get Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: Because when it comes down to it, and some of that was playful, what I just said, but you you really doubt the existence of God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you doubt the legitimacy of the scriptures, you doubt whether Jesus historically really rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And the big question is, is what if what if the thing you thought is so unacceptable in church is actually normal to people.
SPEAKER_00: And there's actually room for it in church.
SPEAKER_00: I ran into this quote this week.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's kind of fragmented.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the lady who wrote it was apparently uh in a fragmented place.
SPEAKER_00: Such deep longing for God and repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, saving souls has no attraction, heaven means nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for me, please, that I keep smiling at him in spite of everything.
SPEAKER_00: If there be no God, there can be no soul.
SPEAKER_00: If there's no soul, then Jesus, you also are not true.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, who would write something like that?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe just think it, but who's gonna put it on paper?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so dark and so doubtful.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that you know who wrote that?
SPEAKER_00: That was the great faith-filled, we celebrate her, Mother Teresa.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's so easy for us to go, well, doubt and faith will never meet.
SPEAKER_00: They will never meet.
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy for us to think that way, but it's it's just not true for many of us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for some of us they don't.
SPEAKER_00: It's great.
SPEAKER_00: Man, like go you.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00: You can teach me some things, but for so many of us, doubt creeps in, doubt's apart.
SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of us, doubt is reactive.
SPEAKER_00: It's like this sort of like reactive doubt.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's almost like a band-aid because it behaves as something to cover a wound.
SPEAKER_00: So you you grew up in a place where you were strong-armed.
SPEAKER_00: Christian faith was all about rules.
SPEAKER_00: And you just felt the oppression of you trying to get better and better and better, and you not being enough and enough and enough, and the idea of a grace-filled God who would love you and Christ being sufficient for you.
SPEAKER_00: That idea was something that never was a part of the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_00: And so you were so strong-armed and so ruled over, you just reacted from all of that, and all this doubt was created toward God, but really it's kind of reactive.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you had doubts growing up.
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe you're in high school, you're in college, and you just had some doubts.
SPEAKER_00: You had some doubts about the scriptures, had some doubts, certain doubts about God, and you read something, you heard something in class, and you started to voice these.
SPEAKER_00: You voiced it to your parents, or you voiced it to somebody at church, and what happened was you were shut down.
SPEAKER_00: There's no room for this line of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: There's no room for this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And so you just reacted even more.
SPEAKER_00: And Christian faith, to you at that point, didn't have as much legitimacy as secularism or universalism.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a reactive doubt.
SPEAKER_00: It's a band-aid covering a wound, or you were hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Like really hurt, like abused or sabotaged or betrayed inside of church by church leaders or a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: And that sting that was in you created anger and disappointment, and and it and it created doubt toward God.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe, just maybe, maybe, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your doubt toward God is just anger.
SPEAKER_00: But not really doubt.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of us are doubtless, just purely intellectual.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of us, others of us, is sort of like me, doubt just sort of, every once in a while sort of creeps in and you catch it, and you go, what am I thinking?
SPEAKER_00: And you restudy and research and look and study, and God reconfirms inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: But the question is, how do we respond to doubt when it shows up?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we hate, we hate doubt because it's uncertainty.
SPEAKER_00: We hate uncertainty.
SPEAKER_00: So usually what we do is we just turn to something we can control.
SPEAKER_00: We just busy ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just get busier.
SPEAKER_00: All right, I have some doubt, so let's just get busier.
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is you get busier, but on in on the inside, you get more afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And so all of this kind of sort of goes to point number one of two points this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Point number one is the reality of our doubt.
SPEAKER_00: That's point number one.
SPEAKER_00: The reality of our doubt.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas missed the meeting.
SPEAKER_00: His boys come and say, Hey, we've seen the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Thomas, though he's seen a bunch of miracles of what Jesus can do, Thomas doubts.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 26, a week goes by.
SPEAKER_00: A week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.
SPEAKER_00: Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here.
SPEAKER_00: See my hands.
SPEAKER_00: Reach out your hand and put it into my side.
SPEAKER_00: Stop doubting and believe.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you love this?
SPEAKER_00: He comes straight to Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: And when he shows up, he comes straight to the doubter, and he doesn't show up and criticize him and belittle him.
SPEAKER_00: He shows up and he wants to engage him.
SPEAKER_00: But what this means is it means that God is interested in you as a doubter.
SPEAKER_00: God is interested in you as a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: And what it means is God's grace does not run dry in the desert of doubt.
SPEAKER_00: This leads into point number two, which is that God's grace is greater than our doubt.
SPEAKER_00: I've been reading the story over and over and over again this week and thinking about this, and finally about halfway through the week, just sort of just getting the fact that Thomas was still with the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't kick him out.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't say, Thomas, you don't believe like us, you don't believe us, you don't even believe Jesus rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: You're out.
SPEAKER_00: Just go head on.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas is still with them.
SPEAKER_00: And I've just been wondering, like, what does this mean for a church?
SPEAKER_00: The fact that these disciples did not kick Thomas out as soon as he had doubt.
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I know what it means for a moralistic performance-oriented church because it means you're not enough, and it means you're not showing up for the appearance, and so unless you get your act together quickly, you will be out.
SPEAKER_00: There's no room for your humanity and no room for your doubt.
SPEAKER_00: But what does it mean for a church who is honest about depravity and Jesus will be preached, and Jesus' sufficiency will be preached, and Jesus is present in depravity?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think what it means is I think it means your doubt is welcomed even while Jesus says stop doubting.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus says stop doubting and believe, and yet at the same time, he's coming toward Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: You won't be cast out.
SPEAKER_00: So I've also been wondering what does this mean for all those little kids down the hall that are growing up?
SPEAKER_00: Some of them aren't your kids, but you'll probably interact with them at some point.
SPEAKER_00: And our students that are in here.
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean for them as they grow up in the Christian faith?
SPEAKER_00: Is there room for them to voice their doubts?
SPEAKER_00: To have legitimate questions without us giving them trite answers, without us shutting them down.
SPEAKER_00: And my hope as I was thinking about this week is just that we could become a church almost like the disciples were, that were that's secure enough in what we know to be true, that we can give space for somebody's doubt, and that we can trust and God's timing and ability to engage with them.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 28, Jesus went straight straight to Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: You can touch my hands, you can touch my side.
SPEAKER_00: And then Thomas says, and we don't know whether Thomas actually walked over and touched or not.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Some people say yes, some people say no, but we know the response.
SPEAKER_00: And Thomas said this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, My Lord and my God.
SPEAKER_00: And what Thomas is saying, he's saying, You're God.
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not God and you are God and you are my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: My belief and my faith for life and significance and righteousness, redemption and justification is in you.
SPEAKER_00: I am not my own Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He was overwhelmed with the reality that someone else can rightly lord over his life.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're here, and just this idea of surrender, accepting an authority over your life, a savior other than yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It's just this idea you can't quite get there.
SPEAKER_00: And I would just ask, how is life going with you being your own Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Lording over your own imperfections, your own mistakes, your own shame, and your own guilt and your own ability to be righteous and justified in this world.
SPEAKER_00: How is that going?
SPEAKER_00: And here He is, here Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And he's coming toward you and all those doubts, he's coming toward you, and he's saying, touch my hands.
SPEAKER_00: Like the wounds that absorbed all of your guilt and all of your shame and all your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Come and see this is real.
SPEAKER_00: And that he gives us his righteousness, an incredible exchange.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 29, then Jesus told them, speaking to this group, because you have seen me, you have believed.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Hey, you guys, you guys got a good.
SPEAKER_00: Like these apostles, and they needed this moment.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to start the churches, and this is their testimony.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to write these books, and so they needed this.
SPEAKER_00: They needed to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They said, No, we saw him, we're going to write it down.
SPEAKER_00: So everybody else, from now on throughout history, can know this is true.
SPEAKER_00: They needed this.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, Hey, blessed are you.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus said, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, there's going to be a whole lot more that don't get this moment.
SPEAKER_00: They don't get to see this.
SPEAKER_00: And this is verses 30 and 31, if you read on later.
SPEAKER_00: John is basically saying this.
SPEAKER_00: John's saying, hey, we wrote all this down for all those other people, all those other generations, all those other churches.
SPEAKER_00: We wrote all this down so they can read it and they can know it to be true.
SPEAKER_00: And what is true is that Jesus is Lord and is enough.
SPEAKER_00: And that this book that we read, that it's enough to put in us belief and to combat our doubt.
SPEAKER_00: There's this man in Mark chapter 9 who approached Jesus with all of his doubt, and there's this large crowd, and the teachers are arguing about the law.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews teach all arguing about the law, what you need to do to be approved by God, and there Jesus is, and Jesus is our approval before God.
SPEAKER_00: So that's an interesting moment for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then this man shows up and he has a son who's sick.
SPEAKER_00: And the son has an evil spirit inside of himself.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't believe in that right now, you can talk to Richard later on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure he can tell you some stories where he lives about this kind of thing going on all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And so this man brings his son.
SPEAKER_00: You imagine this man?
SPEAKER_00: His son is possessed by evil spirit, and he had taken his son to the disciples, and the disciples couldn't help.
SPEAKER_00: And you imagine this man's doubt?
SPEAKER_00: The amount of hurt to watch your son have this going on inside of him?
SPEAKER_00: And the spirit inside of the son sees Jesus, and the spirit gets it more than all the population around.
SPEAKER_00: And the spirit throws the boy down, and he is convulsing on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And the father's just distraught.
SPEAKER_00: And the father says, Jesus, if you can help, if you can help us, please help us.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus responds and says, if you can.
SPEAKER_00: Like, do you know who you're talking to here?
SPEAKER_00: Like you're not talking to the disciples, you're talking to the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: You're talking to actual God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, everything is possible for those who believe.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 24, we get this incredible verse, which is so assuring to me and all my lack of belief.
SPEAKER_00: And this father says, I do believe, help me overcome my own belief.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we think belief and doubt never meet.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a guy saying, No, I do believe, but help my own belief.
SPEAKER_00: So I believe, but I don't believe.
SPEAKER_00: I believe, but I don't believe.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I'm not sure you really hold the power to kill my son, but I do sort of believe it, but I don't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: And I need you, but I.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is like active doubt.
SPEAKER_00: But there's enough faith there to ask for help.
SPEAKER_00: You don't ask for help unless you have some faith to ask for help.
SPEAKER_00: So there's some active doubt that faith is engaging, grace is over.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we're not afraid of doubt as believers.
SPEAKER_00: It's because when we have doubt, we recognize that we're honest about it, and we go back into the scriptures and back into the word, and we let grace reign over it, and faith engage it, and God restrengthen belief.
SPEAKER_00: I was having a lunch this week with a friend of mine who's a he's a younger pastor, uh, and he's a pastor in another part of the city, and we were talking about he got a new position, and we were talking about his new position, what he was gonna be doing, and how you want to handle it, and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And toward the end of the conversation, he just said, Hey, like two years ago, uh you sent out an email about starting your church.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's you know, you said you wanted to, you know, we're gonna start a church about grace without conditions, and maybe that scares you.
SPEAKER_00: Um we're not saying grace without fruit, we're saying grace without conditions.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you you said something about grace without conditions, and it can free you from creating your own righteousness and your your own significance.
SPEAKER_00: And he rambled a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, what's your what's your question?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, I don't I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I have the hardest time uh receiving grace.
SPEAKER_00: So I get home from lunch and I wanted to go back and actually read that email to see what I wrote.
SPEAKER_00: I here's what I wrote.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote, our vision is to share a message that has revolutionized our lives, a message of grace without conditions.
SPEAKER_00: This message known in Jesus frees people from striving to create their own righteousness and gives us rest from the endless ways we self-justify with performance or pleasure or even religion.
SPEAKER_00: So my friends across the table, and he's tearing up.
SPEAKER_00: And you can just tell he's exhausted.
SPEAKER_00: What is the issue here?
SPEAKER_00: What is really the issue here?
SPEAKER_00: You know what the issue is?
SPEAKER_00: It's doubt.
SPEAKER_00: It's doubt that Christ on the cross is really sufficient for his value and his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's waking up to add a little bit to it today and a little bit to it tomorrow, and it's not working.
SPEAKER_00: And he's getting more and more exhausted.
SPEAKER_00: Well, really, the cross is enough.
SPEAKER_00: He can rest in it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I went to retrieve those two sentences in my old emails, I crossed back over another email.
SPEAKER_00: And it was sent back in the spring, and it was about our friend Stuart Sims, who took his life back in the spring.
SPEAKER_00: And Stuart, many of you knew him, and he was a lover of the gospel, and he took his own life, and I still have all these doubts, like when I drive by his house, or I put on my Patagonia vest, because he always wore a Patagonia vest.
SPEAKER_00: I have all these doubts that come up in me about not just about Stuart, but about God's ability to comfort somebody, one of his own children.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have doubts, I can't even quite get into words still about that.
SPEAKER_00: And there's there in this is this Mark 9, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like in this kind of thing, is I I believe.
SPEAKER_00: Help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And I take great comfort this morning that God's grace is greater than my doubt.
SPEAKER_00: And that he is interested in me as a doubter and as a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: He's interested in me.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're here and you still have doubts about the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you're still lording over your own life.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps this morning you would recognize inside of you you actually believe Christ to be Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We serve communion each week, and within communion, we give you some space, some time.
SPEAKER_00: And for you, if you've never shifted faith from your own self, being your own savior, to escape your own uh shame and guilt and sin, to place faith in what God did for you, Christ on the cross, took that to secure your belovedness before God.
SPEAKER_00: We welcome you in that time to just take a moment to bow in prayer and to repent of Lording over your own life and say, I receive you as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're here and you say, I I'm I'm a doubter, still a doubter, got a lot of doubts, and you say, I'm not ready for that yet.
SPEAKER_00: And would you be, would you be willing to just kind of eke out this little prayer to say, God, I'm a doubter.
SPEAKER_00: Would you reveal yourself to me?
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're like me and you're a believer and doubt just creeps up, kind of here and there, it creeps up, and and we just need to pray, God, would you be active in my faith and in my doubt?
SPEAKER_00: And that we can thank him, that his grace is greater than these doubts that creep up.
SPEAKER_00: This week I was reading an article by my friend David Zoll, who he writes at this blog called Mockingbird, which is fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and he wrote this the good news, we need good news after talking about doubt for a while.
SPEAKER_00: The good news is God is not waiting for us to be certain about him because he is certain about us.
SPEAKER_00: And we rest in his certainty about us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why he gave us Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So we can know.
SPEAKER_00: We can know that he loves us and he redeems us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: And we do confess and have a moment of honesty, especially before we come before your table.
SPEAKER_00: We are a doubtful people.
SPEAKER_00: We wake up each morning with doubt.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to remember and to preach the gospel to ourselves each day, each evening, the hours in between.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you come toward the doubter, that you are interested in the sinner, that your grace is greater than our doubt.
SPEAKER_00: In the end, our doubt is sin, is unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's this that we hold before you.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you take that upon the cross, and that you are sufficient for us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we remember as we come to your table to receive your certainty toward us, your righteousness that you give to us in your grace over us in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.