Good morning. If you would open
your Bibles to the book of John, John chapter 20. John chapter 20. We'll start reading in verse 24. John
20, verse 24. But Thomas, one of the twelve,
called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other
disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But
he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of
the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails,
and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after
eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with
them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the
midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then said he to Thomas,
Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither
thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless,
but believing. And Thomas answered and said
unto him, My Lord and my God, Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed, blessed are they
that have not seen and yet have believed. We all have heard this
story of Thomas, of doubting Thomas. But there's a great application
in it that I want to pull out for us in two parts. The first,
I want to look at this story and just quickly give the application
of it. And then I want to get to the
part that's the title of the message, reach out. To where
the Lord tells Thomas to reach hither thy finger and behold
thy hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side
and be not faithless but believing. In verse 24, we start out here
with describing Thomas, one of the 12, who was not with the
disciples when the Lord came the week before. He came and
appeared to them and they were all excited and explained it.
He had appeared and convinced all the disciples that he had
indeed risen from the dead and given them the Holy Spirit to
empower them for the ministry to the world. But Thomas, one
of the 12, he's one of them, wasn't with them. And there's
no way of knowing where Thomas was or what he was doing or why
he wasn't there, but there is also a lesson to be learned from
that, that he wasn't there when the Lord came. He missed the
joy of seeing his risen Lord. He missed hearing our Lord's
words of peace. He missed the peace and assurance
itself as evidenced by his words in the next verse when he said,
I will not believe. Paul exhorts believers to forsake
not the assembling of ourselves together. Such neglect leads
to spiritual leanness. It leads to us finding ourselves
into snares and temptations, and we miss the blessing. In
verse 25 it says, The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have
seen the Lord. But Thomas said, Except I shall
see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger
in that, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
The disciples found Thomas after this event. They were very excited. They had great joy, and they
had great assurance of their faith, and they told Thomas that
they had seen the Lord. Not only had the testimony of
the women and the angels that had seen him, but they saw in
themselves with their own eyes. And yet Thomas still replied,
except I shall see his hands, the print in his hands and the
hole in his side, I won't believe. Thomas was there, he was present
at the raising of Lazarus. He saw Lazarus brought back from
the dead, and he heard Christ himself say that the Lord would
rise from the dead. And now, Thomas had the testimony
of his ten friends, probably his ten closest friends have
all said to him, Christ has risen! But he still didn't believe.
How great is the sin of unbelief and how stubborn is the human
heart? How stubborn are we? Paul calls
our hearts an evil heart, which does not believe on the Lord.
Thank God that He overrules our belief, our unbelief, and is
faithful to us when we are not faithful to Him. And why do we
feel the need to make such grandiose statements such as Thomas did
here? I've heard this statement many times, and growing up, I
remember thinking, just like we always do, we love giving
ourselves so much more credit than these people we see in the
scriptures. We see someone do this, or we
see Peter deny the Lord, and the first thought in my head
is always like, I've never said something like that. You know,
I don't do anything like that. And I remember a story as an
adult, it was years ago, thankful I can say it wasn't that recent,
but it was years ago where someone was talking about religion with
me and was saying things that weren't true. And I was trying
to... rebuttal to things and trying
to do the best I could to explain what I believed. And I was very
frustrated with the person because they were saying things that
were just outlandish. They were crazy. Like who could
possibly believe these kind of things? And the point of my story
here is that through all of that, I was so frustrated that at one
point towards the end, the person was talking about tithing. And
I remember saying the phrase, and I still look back and think,
how did I actually say that without catching myself? But I said to
myself, at a time when I didn't have very much money, and I remember
saying out loud, and this is totally not true, that, well,
my dad told me that I needed to make sure I could do what
I needed to do in my life before I did that. I mean, I literally
said out loud to a person trying to correct them that they didn't
know anything about the gospel, that I take care of myself and
pay for what I need before I really think about giving money to the
church. Why do we make these kind of
statements? In that moment, I didn't even
catch myself until later on, I thought, how in the world am
I gonna go back to this person and correct myself? Because how
foolish did I sound? But yet everything I had said
before that, all of a sudden took no merit, right? If somebody
said that statement that I just said to that person, would you
believe anything else they said? Well, in this moment, Thomas
did this. Look at verse 26. And after eight days again his
disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the
doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, Peace be
unto you. The disciples were together on
the first day of the week, the day of Christ's resurrection,
and the Lord had appeared to them the first time. They now
are together again on the same day, probably in the same place,
hoping that He would come to them again. This time, Thomas
was with them. And we should give Thomas credit
for this, that he was there this time, hoping the Lord would come.
They didn't know He would. And the Lord again stood in their
midst, and He said unto them all, Peace be unto you. Now look
at verse 27. Then the Lord said unto Thomas,
Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither
thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless,
but believing. Our Lord knew, as He knows all
things, the conversation which had taken place with Thomas earlier.
He knew the very words which Thomas had spoken concerning
the prints of the nails and the wound in his side. And with compassion
toward Thomas' weakness and his infirmities, in a kind and tender
way the Lord addressed Thomas, saying, Reach hither, touch my
scars with your own hands, and be not faithless but believing.
This is a great example and a wonderful comfort to a believer who has
said things and done things like Thomas did here and I said in
that story. That despite what we say and
despite us just foolishly falling and being faithless and not believing,
the Lord comes again and comforts us and reaches out to us. It
says that faith glorifies and pleases God. Faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ justifies the soul. Faith saves the sinner. Faith
brings the blessing of God upon us. And unbelief is the root
of evil, it dishonors God, and it makes the Word of no effect,
and it damns the soul. Look at verse 28. And Thomas
answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God." We are not
told here that Thomas actually carried out the intentions. We don't know if Thomas actually
reached out and touched the Lord on his hands or his side. But
what we know is that Thomas, being astonished at the Lord's
grace in this moment, and very ashamed of his unbelief. And
in total faith and confidence, Thomas exclaimed, my Lord and
my God. My Lord, he's saying, to whom
I yield myself in total submission, you're my Lord. And my God, to
whom I worship and I believe. And we're told that this is the
first time the name God is given to the Lord Jesus Christ by a
man. By his resurrection, he is declared to be the son of
God with power. Thomas, who doubted so strongly,
was the first to acknowledge Christ to be God over all, blessed
forever. Look at verse 29. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen me thou hast believed, blessed are they
that have not seen and yet have believed. There are many who
saw the Lord Jesus Christ and the miracles He did, who did
not believe Him and never followed Him. Thomas was blessed by God's
grace to truly and sincerely believe Christ as a result of
seeing the risen Lord. And our Lord acknowledged Thomas'
faith, but with a gentle rebuke, He declared that they are more
blessed who believe Him through though they have not seen Him
in the flesh. They believe his word, his gospel, and his promises. The less need faith has of evidences
that appeal to the senses, the stronger it is." Now this leads
me to the point of the Lord telling Thomas to reach out, to reach
out and touch him. When I read the scriptures, I
find a great way to emulate someone, a great way to find the way I
should act is to emulate or do the same things that someone
in the Scripture did that the Lord blesses. When a person acts
in a certain way or does something, and the Lord says, thy faith
hath made thee whole, or you leave blessed, all those things,
I want to do what they do. So when I read this, and I see
that Thomas, it says, Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou
hast seen me, thou hast believed. He said, Thomas, you believed.
And he said, you're blessed. I want to emulate Thomas, and
it says in verse 27, I can't do that. The Lord is not here.
He's not in front of me. I can't reach out and touch the
hole in his hand or the side, the wound in his side. But what's important is we don't
even know if Thomas did that. I actually feel that what Thomas
probably did was he totally didn't care those words and what the
Lord said about touching his hand because he saw him. He believed
because the Lord appeared to him. So the word reach, when
he says, reach out thy finger, there's a lot of applications
to that. And if we do what the Lord says and we reach out to
Him, we also will show that we believe, we'll show our faith.
So I want to spend the next few minutes going over a few examples
of ways that we can reach out to the Lord, the way that we
can believe, that we can have faith. And as an example of this,
let me give an illustration of all the different ways that we
reach out. We do a lot of different things. We have a lot of different
behaviors that we do when we want to reach out to someone.
So for example, on a work day over at the church, I am not
very handy, and I don't know how to do hardly anything without
a lot of guidance. So when we were over there working
on the HVAC unit, Tony was the person who knew everything. So
when I had a question, I needed to reach out to Tony. So the
first thing I always did is I looked for him. Where's Tony? I gotta
find him. If I saw him, something I could
do is go over and tap him on the shoulder. I could touch him.
I could get his attention. Another option is I could ask
him a question. I'd say, Tony, how do I do this?
Another thing I could do is I could make a statement. If you have
time, I need your help. I could make a request to him.
I need your help, Tony. I could beg him to help me in
a moment of it's getting serious and I need you right now. I could
say, Tony, please, please come help me. Or I could send a messenger. I could say, hey, will you go
get Tony for me? I need him. Now these are all
different ways that we can reach out to someone. And I'm going
to use those exact same things and give illustrations from the
scripture on ways that we can reach out and ways that other
people have reached out. So first, turn with me to Isaiah
chapter 48, 45. Isaiah 45. I've kind of skimmed over this
important part of reaching out. This is the commandment of the
Lord. We must do this. We must reach out to Him. Our
salvation comes from the Lord Jesus Christ, and He makes His
children to reach out to Him, not only because we need Him,
but we want to reach out to Him. We need Him for our hope, for
our assurance, for our faith, for our belief, for everything.
And now the first thing and the first way that we reach out to
our Lord is we look. We look to Him. Look in Isaiah
45, chapter 18. For thus saith the Lord that
created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth, and made
it. He hath established it. He created it not in vain. He
formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, and there is none
else. I have not spoken in secret in
a dark place of the earth. I said not unto the seed of Jacob,
seek ye me in vain. I, the Lord, speak righteousness.
I declare things that are right. Assemble yourselves, and come.
Draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations. They
have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image,
and pray unto a God that cannot save. Tell ye, and bring them
near. Yea, let them take counsel together
who hath declared this from ancient time, who hath told it from that
time. Have not I the Lord? And there
is no God else beside me, a just God and a Savior. There is none
beside me. And look at verse 22. Look unto
me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God and
there is none else. We have the story of the serpents
in the wilderness of there was only one remedy, just look, just
look to the Lord Jesus Christ. It can't get any more simpler
and it can't get more obvious that anyone, I mean anyone can
be saved than it simply just says, look unto me and be ye
saved, all the ends of the earth. That includes everyone, forever,
is all we have to do is look unto the Lord and be ye saved. We must look to Him. Now, obviously,
we can't see Him in His person like Thomas could. But there
are so many ways to look. We have this book. We have words
that we can look at that tell us about Him. We have so many
stories. We have so many things that we
do that we look to the Lord. But even more than that, it's
an idea. a mindset that anything that
happens, we look to the Lord. That's where we go. Whether we
need advice and we read the scripture to have it, whether we are gonna
spend time with someone and have a good time, do it with people
who are gonna say things and talk about the Lord Jesus Christ.
We need to look to him in everything that we do. When we reach out,
we must first look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, turn with
me to Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16. The next way that we reach out
is we ask a question. We ask a question to the Lord.
Acts 16, look at verse 22. And the multitude rose up together
against them, and the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded
to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes
upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to
keep them safely, who, having received such a charge, thrust
them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight Paul and Silas
prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard
them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the
foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the
doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed. And the keeper
of the prison, awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison
doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself,
supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried
with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all
here. Then he called for a light and
sprang in and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and
Silas, and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to
be saved? This question is one that we
all have to ask. What must I do to be saved? We ask that question every time
we read the Word. We need to ask that question
every single time we hear someone preach the Gospel. We need to
ask that question to anybody who we think knows enough to
tell us what the Scripture says and what we must do to be saved. And when we ask that question,
this is what happens. Look in verse 31. And they said,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy
house. So the disciples told them is
all you have to do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved. It's great when someone tells
you how it works, but it's even better when you see the result.
Look at verse 32. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord
into all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour
of the night, washed their stripes, and was baptized he and all his
straight way. And when he had brought them
into his house, he set meat before them and rejoiced, believing
in God with all his house." Someone who asks the question, who reaches
out to the Lord and says, what must I do to be saved? The end
result is he believed in God and all his house. Okay, turn
with me to Luke 8. Now sometimes A regular question
isn't quite enough. Sometimes we might need to beg. Sometimes it's a little more
urgent. Look at Luke 8, verse 41. And behold, there came a
man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And
he fell down at Jesus' feet and besought him that he would come
into his house. For he had one only daughter
and about 12 years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went,
the people thronged him. Sometimes we must go to the Lord
and we must beg. We really always should be begging.
But we must go to Him and let's see what He asks in verse 49. While He yet spake, there cometh
one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter
is dead, trouble not the master. But when Jesus heard it, he answered
him, saying, Fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole. The man begged that the Lord
would save his daughter. They said, It's too late. And
the Lord said to him, Fear not, believe only. You just have to
believe, and she'll be made whole. Verse 51, And when he came into
the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter and James
and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden, and
all wept and bewailed her. But he said, Weep not, she is
not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn,
knowing that she was dead. And he put them all out, and
took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arrive. And her
spirit came again, and she arose straightway. and He commanded
to give her meat. And her parents were astonished,
but He charged them that they should tell no man what was done."
Such a wonderful example and illustration of what the Lord
does for the sinner. We're dead, we have no hope,
we're lost, but He comes and others mock, others laugh, others
say that He can't do anything, He doesn't have the ability.
But simply believing and the young girl was saved. Okay, the
next one, look over to Luke 8, same chapter, look in verse 43. And a woman having an issue of
blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians,
neither could be healed of any, came behind him and touched the
border of his garment, and immediately her issue of blood stanched.
The fourth thing here that I'm saying, we look, we ask questions,
we beg, and the fourth is we touch, we grab, we reach out. Now, I did just say earlier we
can't do that, right? I just said that part of the
problem with seeing what Thomas did is we can't reach out and
touch his hand, we can't do that. But through his word and through
his spirit, the Lord is very easy to touch, and he is very
easy to hold onto. It's figurative, but there's
no greater comfort in this world than the Spirit of the Lord and
having His Spirit in you and being able to hold on to it.
What we see in this book, it says in John 1.1 that the Word
is God. This is what we have to hold
on to, this book, and boy must we hold on to it. We have to
hold it, we have to grab it, we have to possess it, and not
just this physical book. The book provides us with everything
we need, everything we see and we learn about the gospel, but
What we know and what the Lord has taught us, that's what we
hold on to Him. We desperately, we don't sacrifice what we believe. We don't give up the things that
we love in the Lord Jesus Christ. We hold on to them. We must reach
out, we must hold on, and we must grab the Lord. And when
we do that, look at verse 45. Jesus said, who touched me? The
Lord knows. The Lord knows our thoughts,
our minds, everything. And He knows when someone touches
Him, when someone reaches out to Him. When all denied, Peter
and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude thronged
thee and pressed thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? The disciples
said, There's no way we could figure this out. We don't know
who touched you. The Lord knows every single time one of his
children comes to him, whether it's a look, a question, a beg,
a touch, anything. our Lord is aware and He knows.
Verse 46, And Jesus said, Someone hath touched me, for I perceive
that virtue is gone out of me. That's what we need to take from
this. When she reached out and touched the Lord in the same
way that if we reach out to Him, Virtue will come to us from Him. We will get a great blessing
from touching the Lord. And then when the woman saw that
she was not hid, she came trembling, falling down before Him. She
declared unto Him before all the people for what cause she
had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. And he said
unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath made
thee whole, go in peace. Again, someone reaches out to
the Lord, and the result is, Daughter, be of good comfort,
thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace. Turn back a page
to Luke 7. Sometimes we don't feel worthy
of asking a question. We don't feel like our begging
will do any good. Sometimes we feel like we can't
reach out. We don't have that. We just can't. So what do we do? Sometimes we
need to send a messenger. Look at Luke 7 verse 1. Now when he had ended all his
sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum.
And a certain centurion, a certain centurion's servant, who was
dear unto him, was sick and ready to die. And when he heard of
Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that
he would come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus,
they besought him instantly, saying that he was worthy of
whom he should do this. For he loveth our nation, and
he hath built us a synagogue. this centurion didn't feel worthy
of approaching the Lord to get help. So he sent someone that
he thought was better prepared or better able to represent him,
that maybe that would help. Keep going there in verse 6,
"...then Jesus went with him, and when he was now not far from
the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him,
Lord, trouble not thyself, for I am not worthy that thou shouldst
enter under my roof. Wherefore, neither thought I
myself worthy to come unto thee, but say in a word, and my servant
shall be healed." It's important to know here. that when this
man's sending a messenger, he wasn't sending a messenger because
he didn't have time to ask the question. He didn't have time
to go. It wasn't because he felt like, you know, I don't know
if this will work, so I'll just send a few people out to different
people and maybe something will happen. No, he knew that the
Lord could do it, but he sent someone because he didn't think
he was worthy to even ask the question. Look at verse nine,
or verse eight. For I am a man set under authority,
having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, go, and he goes.
And to another, come, and he cometh. And to my servant, do
this, and he doeth it. And when Jesus heard these things,
he marveled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the
people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so
great faith, no, not in Israel. And they that were sent, returning
to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick. This shows us that there's nothing
wrong with asking someone else to approach the Lord on your
behalf. I'm very positive that I am not worthy to ask the Lord
for so many of the things that I ask. And it's important that
we have people that will pray for us, that will help us, that
will, you know, the Lord, is our intermediary. That's what
we have to have for salvation. We're unable for anything. We
can't attain a righteousness, but the Lord did it for us. So
standing up here yesterday, I was talking to Chris and him knowing
that I was preaching this morning, he said, is there anything I
can do to help you? And I gave him the answer that
I've given to that question all the time, and it was, no, I appreciate
it, but thanks. And the moment I finished it,
I thought to myself, I finally realized that it's okay to say
this, and that's actually what I should say. But I said to him,
just pray for me, man. I want, in the same way that
our pastor wants, and we need, we need people to approach the
Lord on our behalf. An easy illustration of that
is that I feel very confident, and I know you do too, that my
children, whether it be an age thing, it be a wisdom thing,
it be a desire, they don't go to the Lord. They don't ask the
Lord to save them. And if they do, that'd be wonderful.
We need to be the messenger for them. We need to ask for them. In this illustration, this centurion
never saw the Lord. He never said a word directly
to the Lord. Yet in the end, not only did
he get what he wanted, but the Lord said, I have not found so
great faith, no, not in Israel. We must ask others to approach
the Lord for us. And I'll speak for our pastor
here. I always thought growing up and even recently, I thought
that it was a courtesy and it was for informational purposes.
When our pastor comes up here on a Wednesday night and says,
Sunday morning, so-and-so is gonna be preaching for us. And
I always thought he said that to me so I could get prepared
for it, I guess. So I would know. But the reason he's saying that
and the reason it's important is that gives all of us four
days to pray for that person. And we need it. I promise you,
we need it. And I'm saying that for myself, but I promise I know
our pastor wants the same thing. Okay, just two more. Turn over
to Luke 5. Reaching out to the Lord so often
to me feels like when we pray. I think that's the most often
time I do it and the thing that I look at the most when I say
I need to reach out to the Lord, I think of when I pray or when
someone prays and I'm listening. But oftentimes, when I pray,
I do some of these things over and over again. I ask questions
and I beg for things. Sometimes they're earthly things,
sometimes they're spiritual things, but that's what I do for the
most part. Another way that we can reach out to the Lord is
by making statements. And let me give you the example
for this. Look in Luke 5 and look at verse 12. And it came to pass, when he
was in a certain city, the Lord, behold, a man full of leprosy,
who seeing Jesus, fell on his face, and besought him, saying,
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. That's not a question. That's a statement. And how wonderful
it is that we can make a statement to our Lord, giving Him all the
glory, giving Him all the praise, and what's His response to that?
Verse 13, the Lord put forth His hand and touched him, saying,
I will be thou clean. And immediately, the leprosy
departed from him. All this time I'm talking about
the Lord telling us to reach out to Him. We reach out to the
Lord because we must have Him reach out and touch us like He
did this man. That's our only hope. That's
all we want. That's all we need is for the
Lord to reach out and touch us. And so when we do pray, when
we do approach the Lord, It's a wonderful thing to give Him
glory, and to make statements about how wonderful He is, to
praise Him, and to say things such as, Lord, how wonderful
Your grace is to us. How wonderful it is that salvation
is completely in You. To say things like that, because
the Lord will get all the glory, whether we give it to Him or
not, but we must give Him all the glory. All right, and finally,
look over at Luke 23. Luke chapter 23. Look at verse 39. The last thing
we can do is we can make a request. Luke 23 verse 39, ìAnd one of
the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him on the cross, saying,
ìIf Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us.îî But the other answering
rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art
in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done
nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord,
remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And as with
all the other different ways that we reached out, Jesus said
unto him, verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in
paradise. I've given seven different ways
that we reach out and I'm sure there are plenty more. One of
the greatest things I realized when I was finishing this message
was that I listed seven things and I realized that through each
one of these, there was not an example of them having to do
more than one of these. Each time in these illustrations,
in these stories, these people just did one of the things. So
we know that if when we reach out to the Lord, it doesn't have
to be complicated. We can look to Him, we can ask Him questions,
we can beg Him, we can reach out to touch Him, we can send
a messenger on our behalf, we can make a statement, or we can
ask for a request. And the result is always the
same. Look again at verse 43. And Jesus said unto him, Verily
I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Okay.