Alright, we good, Ruby? Good
morning. Turn with me please to John's
Gospel, chapter 20. John chapter 20. In Christian life, we have, all
of us, have many opportunities to tell stories about people
that we knew who were in the faith. who through some means
of life or some transition of circumstances or something, that
they are no longer considering themselves to be believers. We've
heard how people approach these things. Well, those people were
believers, but they've lost their salvation, which we know the
Bible doesn't teach. We've seen where the scripture
teaches that those who go out from us were never of us, we
understand that, in the sense of assembling and being intimate
with the body of Christ. We know that Jesus teaches in
the synoptics the parable of the sower and the seed. We know
that there are times when people come and they're very excited
about scripture, and they're very excited about the gospel,
and then just a few months or years later, maybe shorter in
time, they sort of fizzle out. We see people who feel even called
to the ministry and with much passion and zeal, and then yet
all of a sudden, after a little bit of stress or a little bit
of time or a little bit of dislocation with the saints, they come to
a place that they're just apathetic and they don't care. And it's
easy for us in our culture to make judgments, to say, well,
that person is not a believer because look at him. Look at
him. Yet we must surrender to the
simple teaching of scripture concerning these things. We do
not get to make judgments on whether someone is in the faith
because they are in church or not. We don't get to make judgments
as to whether someone's in the faith, whether they've been disciplined
out of the congregation or not. Yet we do have the privilege,
and I'll say this as a way of showing you the grace of God,
that when someone is excommunicated from the fellowship, it does
give us the privilege and the liberty to move on and then focus
on the sheep who are desiring to be in unity, rather than constantly
running after those who don't. Does that make sense? Because
someone like me can never get away from caring, just like you. but our active love for others
can be put aside when they have been excommunicated. But at no
time are we to say then, well, that person was never a believer.
We're to treat them as an unbeliever, but we are to pray that God will
restore them to the fellowship of the saints and that when they
come back, all is forgiven and all is rejoicing. We are healed
and we are at one again. And you might think, well, why
bring this up here in the latter part of John's gospel with the
risen Christ before his ascension? He's meeting with his disciples
again, and a lot of people would say of Thomas what I've just
said of many. Well, Thomas was unconverted,
he was unregenerate, he was not a believer. Really? How do you know that? You don't
know that. That's where we've got to be careful, beloved, to
think that we are God, to know the hearts of others. Yet we
can judge the words of others. We can make sure that we can
judge the profession of others, but not in judgmentalism, but
in care and in love and in approach of taking care of shepherding
and teaching people who are in error. Encouraging those who
are on the fringe, as we see in the New Testament letters.
To be patient with those who doubt. That through our ministry
and through our prayers we may save them from the fire. What
is that? The fire of judgment? No, the fire of trial. The fire
of consequence. The fire of life. Because it's
burning already. How much worse is it when our
faith wanes? How much worse is it when everything
we think we are and have in the world is consumed in a blaze,
and then the only footing that we have, that small little tiny
balancing act, snaps in two, which is our faith in the Lord
Jesus, and then our brothers and sisters tell us what? They
were just lost. Let them burn. That's not love. That's not love. Yet when we put our hands down
into the fire to help pull them up and they slap it, that's not
our fault either. We are not responsible for when
people reject the mercies of the love of God's people. But
we are responsible when we close our heart to them in that sense.
Here is what you need. Come, let me take you to this
place. Let me pull you to where I am,
as John would deal with in his first epistle, which is going
to be our next Sunday morning exposition. Let me show you what
it's like to be in light. Let me reach my hand out and
give you a place of standing with the brothers and the sisters,
and what a lot of people do. Well, we don't want that person
here. Difficult people. Well, beloved, all of us are
difficult people to somebody. All of us are unlovable for somebody. All of us are hard to get along
with for somebody. But for all of us as siblings
in the Lord Jesus, the gospel of free and sovereign grace is
our standing place. We are in the same hand, and
that hand is God. And not just the ambiguous God
of all creation that everybody can attest to, we're in the hand
of Jesus Christ, God the Son, to whom we have been given. Thomas is no different. Jesus
appears to the disciples on the Lord's day of His resurrection,
on the first day of the week, and then, as we see here, starting
in verse 24, let's read together. Now Thomas, one of the 12, called
the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples
told Thomas, we have seen the Lord. But Thomas said to them,
unless I see his hands and the mark of the nails, and unless
I put my finger in the mark of the nails, and I put my hand
in his side, I will never believe. Eight days later, On the next
Sabbath, his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them.
And although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them
and said, peace be with you. Here, see my hands and put out
your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but
believe. And Thomas answered him. My Lord
and my God. And Jesus said to him, Have you
believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have
not seen and yet have believed. Now Jesus did many other signs
in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this
book, but these that are written. They are written so that you
may believe that Jesus is Messiah and who is the Son of God and
that by believing you will have life in His name. Right there
is the reason John wrote his Gospel letter. There is why he
wrote it. He is under the leadership and
the guidance of the Holy Spirit And so God Himself wrote these
words that with the Gospel letter of John's evangelism, you can
believe that Jesus is Messiah and you can have life in His
name by hearing and seeing these things. Now, this ties directly
in to exactly what Jesus promised in the Last Supper. Just like
what we talked about last week, And then just like what we talked
about with Mary and Peter and John at the tomb, when Jesus
meets with them, he calls, he gives some visual evidence to
John and John believes that he's been raised. The same evidence
given to Peter, Peter doesn't see. Mary sees angels, sees the
clothes. She doesn't believe he's been
risen. She asked the angels where his corpse is. Then turns around
to see Jesus who appears before her and thinks he's the gardener
and says, what have you done with the Lord's body? And then Jesus calls her name.
And by the will of God, at the hearing of her name, she sees. that it's Jesus. And she embraces
Him. She hugs Him. She holds to His
body, to His resurrected, glorified body. And He says, don't latch
on to Me, for this is not what it's about. You're not to sit
with Me and hold on to Me, for I'm going to the Father. Your hope cannot be in My presence
with you. Your hope must be in My purpose
for you. And then he appears in the locked
room against the fears of the disciples, of the ten. Because
you know the word twelve is scary, it is now dead. Thomas is not
coming, he's through. He's never really been one of
strong faith. What does he say over earlier
in the gospel when they're going to Judea? And they're going to
do, and of course Peter's like, you're not going to have to die.
And Thomas goes, let's just all go die. That's the faith of Thomas. Let's just die. Oh well. Sort of like Eeyore off of that
story of Winnie the Pooh. It's always gloom. And so Thomas
in his personality is always gloomy. He's melancholy to the
core. He sees things. He can have excitement,
but that excitement is always in this mindset. This too shall
pass. I was taught that as a child.
this too shall pass, as it related to negative things in my life.
But somebody like Thomas will see that, oh, this is too good
to be true, it's soon to be over. And God uses all types of personalities. To the melancholy, the super
positive, you know, optimist can get annoying and vice versa,
but we need each other. And the beautiful thing about
the illustrations here that we see in this historical document
We see Peter and John and Mary and now Thomas, we see different
personalities, we see different types of people with different
gifts, but they're all Christ's. And He comes to them as they
are, without their permission, against all odds, against all
of their wills, and He brings them to salvation and brings
them to the hope of His resurrection and brings them to the observation
of His promises have happened. And what Jesus says here is for
you to hear. He said it to Thomas and the
other ten disciples, but he said it for you. As we saw last week,
if you look when he says in verse 21, peace be with you as the
Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And then he said
this and he breathed out and he said to them, receive the
Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.
And if you withhold forgiveness, it is withheld. This is a commission of Jesus.
This is John's version of Matthew 28, 19 through 21. When we see the great commission
in the synoptics, especially in Matthew's gospel, this is
how John chooses to express it in the upper room when Jesus
says almost the exact same thing. I'm sending you, as Jesus says
in the synoptics, now it's not the same occasion, we don't have
to argue that, it's just that John doesn't write that, he doesn't
write about the baptism of Jesus, but he alludes to the witness
of the Spirit and of the Father at the Jordan River. So when we come to this, we see
that it's God the Holy Spirit whom Jesus has promised when
Jesus ascends to his permanent position as rule and rule in
heaven. Finished Messiah, finished High
Priest, finished Savior. He has finished the work. This
is the point that he came. God the Spirit is now actively
working in the same way that he was actively working for the
Father's work and will. And God the Spirit is not now
coming into the world ontologically and in his presence. He's coming
into the world in his activity. Specifically, he's working with
the church, with the elect, with the saints, that they may continue
to do the same thing Jesus did. Not in power, in the sense of
displaying the divine nature of Jesus through works. We don't
need to do that. Why? Because we have the word
of God. We can read them. We don't have to reinvent the
wheel. We don't have to have evangelistic strategies. We don't
have to use the law as the hammer out the pavement in order to
get people to see they need a savior. We continue to do what Jesus
did and we proclaim the word of God as it is taught so that
simply God saves his people out of that proclamation. And we're
not even required to be actively trained and developed in some
massive way where we've got to become experts. If we can read
or memorize what we hear in some good congruent way, then we can
recite the truth of Jesus Christ and in that recitation, God will
save His elect. And we know that because the
Spirit of God, as He wishes, works with us and is actively
working with us so that when we do this simple thing, God,
as He wishes, brings to faith His people. When He wishes, John
3. You don't have to be the teacher
of Israel in order to understand the gospel. You don't have to
have several degrees and terminal degrees and theological degrees
to understand the gospel. You just have to have the Spirit
of God. And the Spirit of God teaches
you in one way, in one way only, and that's the proclamation of
the Word of God. And Jesus has said, you'll get
it. And just as I have come to forgive the sins, of my people
through my death, when you proclaim by the power of the Spirit what
I've done, their sins are forgiven. And those who do not receive
my testimony, their sins are not forgiven. That's as simple
as it is right there. And now a week later, in the
same room, understand that the fear of these disciples has not
waned, has it? They're still scared to death
of the Jewish authorities. It says there, it's still locked. They go to Thomas after Jesus'
first appearance and they tell him. John's like, Thomas, I saw
the folded up clothes in the grave. Jesus is alive. Mary talked to him in the garden.
Jesus is alive. And for all those who didn't
believe, he popped into the room. He just appeared. We're standing
there like, hey, what's happening? We're scared. Hey, you see the guard
out there? What are we going to do tomorrow? I wonder if this is really Jesus.
I think these guys are lying. No, I'm not lying. Peace be with
you. They're not lying. I mean, there's Jesus. He pops into the
middle of their assembly, their small little gathering, and He
declares Himself their peace. And then He declares to them
their mission. And that mission has not changed,
the message has not changed, the format in which it is distributed
has not changed, though the channels have gotten technological. See,
social media is a channel. It's not an object. It's not
an occasion. It's not a community. It's a
channel. It's through which, just like
writing a letter, I think letters are more effective, even if they
are digital. But it's a channel. But the message
hasn't changed. The process and the activity
of God the spirit and his immutable being has not changed. God does
not change with the transformation of culture. So Jesus, how he operated and
how the evangel was proclaimed in the first century is the exact
same promise he's given to us today. You keep doing the same
thing and I'll keep doing the same thing. And that is conditional. God
does not save people without the occasion of hearing the gospel.
He does not regenerate without hearing the gospel. He does not
grant repentance, which to give someone to believe and saving
faith in this message, without hearing the message. You can't
say, you know what, God loves you. Or what God? I mean, there's
got to be an explicit teaching. That's why the Bible is it. And I love to use John 4 as an
evangelistic tool. I love it because it denies almost
80 percent of everything that most people in America today
say is required in order to be evangelistic. It denies that
stuff. What's required is that God the Holy Spirit is moving
along with his word in the proclamation of the finished work of Jesus
Christ and that even without full apprehension of all the
details of the theology behind the work of God they are granted
faith to believe then they grow to understand it. Grow in their
knowledge of grace. Beloved, we're not left to ourselves.
We have not been abandoned. We are not alone, no matter how
hard it feels sometimes. And this season of life has been
one of the most difficult for me, from an emotional point of
view, as it relates to my pastoring. Because I don't know what's happening.
I don't know what's going on. I don't know, and I find myself,
you know what, my personality now, what it does when I'm fearful,
I get angry. I'm angry. That's what happens. Some people cry. Some people
wallow. Some people get sad. Some people,
whatever. I'm angry. I hate this virus. I hate this world. I hate this
government. I hate the dirt. I hate the sun. I hate the rain.
I hate the clouds. I mean, you know, I become an
Eeyore, but I'm mad on top of it. So I'm kicking. Isn't he
a mule? Yeah, stubborn. So the Lord,
in his word, continues to soften my heart so that I don't sin
in my anger, so that I don't get disqualified from my role
to teach the word of God, so that I may be encouraged with
somebody like Thomas, who heard the witness. Now see, this seems
contradictory. What I'm going to say right now
and then what we're going to see in a minute when Jesus talks to Thomas is
going to seem like a contradiction, but it's not. Because how someone
responds to the gospel is not always the same. And in the day of Jesus, Jesus
showed different approaches. I don't know, that's not even
the right word. He showed different occasions,
circumstantially, through which people came to know the truth.
But then he settles it very clearly on how they're gonna know the
truth from this point forward. So how did Thomas come to know
the truth? He wouldn't believe the testimony of the 10. The nine didn't believe
the testimony of John and Mary. They had to see, they saw Jesus
commission them. Now they go to Thomas and they
say, we have seen the Lord. We've seen him. And Thomas says, Let me paraphrase
this, I will never believe, and I'm gonna make it a little even
stronger, sarcastically, even if I stick my finger in his nail
hands and my hand in the side where the spear hit his body,
because he was almost daring them to bring this Lord into
their presence so that he could stick his fingers in his wounds,
in his hand, in his wound, to prove to them it wasn't the Lord.
That's sort of the way it plays out in my head. I think this
is a lack of any type of belief that Jesus is alive. He's not
alive. Eight days later. What happens? What is Thomas doing? Does the
record in any of the scripture give us a record of what Thomas
is doing? Has Thomas gone home and began to contemplate the
possibility of the Lord being alive? No, Thomas has stubbornly,
like in his heart, gone, this isn't real. This is not true. I'm not going to believe it.
And I want these guys to bring this man into this. He's probably
at this upper room right now with his hands crossed going,
Where's Jesus? Oh, is he going to knock on the
door? Y'all going to get us all killed. He probably said, you
know what? We're all about to die together. This common, you know,
and this is just creative narrative. That's exactly
his heart. But no matter how his heart was,
he belonged to Christ. And Christ belonged to him. And
they were all still fearful. Get that jaw aligned. They were
all fearful of the Jews. They were scared for their lives.
And yet here now in this situation, Thomas is there just to show
that he's not alive. That's what I believe. But yet
eight days later, the 11 were there. And the doors were locked. They were still scared for their
lives. I mean, how often is it that we think our fear, have
you ever been told this? Your fear is a lack of faith. You know that's a true thing? But what does that lack of faith
do? What does it do? It causes turmoil in your heart
and mind. It causes more fear. Faith is
not the absence of fear. Faith is trusting in that which
you cannot see. Thomas could not see Jesus in
the midst of that which you can see that you know will consume
you if it's not dealt with. It's a misapplication. It's a
motivational speaker, pop psychological thing to tell people not to fear.
It's actually a little bit silly. It's not a spiritual thing. Jesus
says, fear not, for I am with you. My peace is with you. My joy is yours. And that is
true. That is actually true this very
moment, no matter what you're feeling. And you can't see it. One of my favorite passages in
all of the New Testament, in the deepest part of my depressive
season, is the first chapter of 1 Peter, where Peter says,
though you do not see him, you love him. Though you have not
seen him, you love him, and you're filled with a joy that is inexpressible. See, that's what hope, that's
what spirit-given faith in the midst of despair looks like.
It's an inexpressible joy. We're resting in one part of
our minds, in the hand of God, and we know it. But when we open
our eyes, we're scared to death. And I don't think that true maturity
is when that fear goes away. I think true maturity is when
that fear goes up, that faith remains steadfast. And the only
promise of God in that context is when we stay together in the
scripture because the encouragement of God's Word by the Spirit is
where we get it. We have to have connection with
God's people. The reason Thomas was not hanging
out with these people anymore is because they continually talked
about the hope. Well, maybe the Lord's coming
back. Who's this Paraclete coming? Where's he coming from? I bet
he's from Nazareth too. I mean, can you hear Peter? It's
probably his twin brother been hiding in the wilderness. I mean,
you know, there's all sorts of things that we could put in Peter's
mouth. He didn't want to be around that.
He didn't want to be reminded of what he'd lost. He wanted
to get on with his life and move out into the world and get back
to normal. He wanted to try to slip back
into society and maybe gain a little bit of what he lost. Just recoup
his losses. But no matter what Thomas wanted,
he belonged to Christ. No matter how fearful they were,
their joy was in Christ. No matter how much despair burrowed
into the soul of these men, the joy was theirs. And the doors were locked, and
Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.
Same thing. Peace, I am, now I'm with you. My peace is your peace. My joy
is your joy. My love is your love. Now Thomas didn't say a
thing. We don't have any way of knowing
what he said. We don't have any way of knowing
exactly what took place or if John said, see, look, what we
told you, look, look, look, or Peter or anybody. I think people
were awestruck in the sense that here's Jesus. He's there all
of a sudden and they are at peace. They're at peace. And Jesus in
all of this turns to Thomas. and says what he says. What does
he say? Put your finger here. See my hands? Put your hand here. See my side? What did Thomas do? Well, let's
not talk about that for a second. Jesus wasn't there when the disciples
went to Thomas and told him, and Thomas said what he said.
Jesus was not there when Thomas arrived with his nonchalant attitude. All right, where's this Lord
that's risen from the grave? I've got my hands all washed,
I'm ready. Jesus was not there, but Jesus was truly there. He answered Thomas in Thomas'
own objection. Now, that's not a doctrinal thing. We're not saying, see, we answer.
No. This is what Jesus did. We're not to do what Jesus did.
We're not to say what Jesus said. We're to teach what Jesus did
and to teach what Jesus said. There's a difference. I can't
treat you the way Jesus treated the Pharisees and speak to you
the way Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, but I can teach you what Jesus
said to the Pharisees. And if the shoe fits, put it
on. Because I'm not God. And I don't
know the truth of you. And I am not able to know every
detail of every thought that you've ever had so that I can
have all the information necessary to understand you the way that
you need to be understood. But Jesus understands you. Now, beloved, and for those of
you who watch this who are not part of the body of Christ, I'm
not talking about those who are not in Christ. I'm not teaching
some universal care and universal love and universal interest.
from a salvific point of view where God is just hoping upon
hoping. He wants everybody to understand
He understands them. No, God understands His own.
God knows His own. Jesus Christ, yes, does He know
all things. He's omniscient. He's God. But in this position, Thomas
was caught off guard. Because the disciples didn't
tell Jesus what Thomas had said. Jesus is God and he knew Thomas
and he knew what Thomas had said. He knew what Thomas was going
to say before he said, let there be light. And just like he told Peter that
he would deny him and Peter's like, not on my life would I
ever do that, Lord. He also knew that Thomas would
deny him. But the promises of Jesus stand.
If Jesus died in your place, He will arrive. And He will show
you the truth. And He will give you the light
of His glory. He will reveal to you Himself.
He will show you the way. And so Jesus says here, the evidence
that you seek is before you. What will it be for you, Thomas? Do not disbelieve, but believe. Now how would we deal with that? What does the human flesh do
when it's confronted with something that they want to save face on?
See, Thomas wasn't concerning saving face. He's caught. This is why I like John 4 so
much, an evangelistic way. Here's a Samaritan woman from
the city of Sychar. who is hated by her own people
because she's not a very good woman. She's seeking after the
fulfillment of certain things in life that even society frowns
upon, having multiple men. So her own people have sort of
ostracized her, she's embarrassed to be in public, so she's coming
out of that old well, and then of course because she's a Samaritan,
the Jewish people hate her and call her a dog. But you know
where he came from when he went that way and he stopped at the
well of Jacob outside of Sychar? You know where he had just left?
He had just left the temple. He had just left the temple running
off the money changers. And these rabbis come out and
say, how dare you? By what authority do you tip
over these tables and do you disgrace the temple of God? And
he said, don't you not know? The scripture has said he will
have zeal for his father's house. You tear this temple down, I'll
rebuild it in three days. He promised it and he did it.
He's showing Thomas right now he did it. And he goes and the
Samaritan woman, what does he do? He violates
all the cultural norms of piety. and perfection, and security. And He loves her with an everlasting
love. He loves this woman despite who
she is. Because she belongs to Him. And
He causes her to see that which she cannot see in her own flesh. And the same is true for Thomas.
The same is true for Nicodemus. And the same is true for you.
The same is true for you. Thomas doesn't answer back like
the woman in John 4 does. Well, I see you're a prophet.
Because what does he say? She's like, I don't understand
what you talk about living water. Go tell your husband to come
here. I don't have a husband. You speak the truth when you
say you have no husband, for you have five. And the man you live
with now is not your husband. I mean, that's an embarrassment.
Somebody knows your business, right? This is before Facebook. And there's still new business.
That's the business of the flesh. We want to be in everybody's
business. I perceive that you're a prophet. Now that you're a prophet and
you've stepped all over my toes, what does she do? She appeals
to theological discussions. She goes to the discussion of,
is it true worship to worship at Mount Gerizim? where the copy
of Solomon's temple lives, and where we worship like you worship
in Jerusalem, which is true worship? Jesus says neither. True worship
are those who worship in spirit and in truth. And as a matter
of fact, those are the only worshipers that my father is looking for. And at the end of the conversation,
all of a sudden her countenance changed. You know what that's
called? Repentance! It's called repentance. Because
her countenance changed. Her mind was transformed. She
was arguing, am I doing the right worship? Am I religious enough?
Well, I know I've got these things going on, but you don't understand
the void of my life. I've got nobody to help me take care of
these kids, and because I'm a Samaritan, these nice Jewish boys, they're
not a prospect. I don't know what to do, so I'm
doing the best I can. I'm getting older, my own sisters
don't want anything to do with me. I'm having a hard time. Great! What does the Church of America
say? Well, you better get your butt right before you go to hell. Anybody that tells you you need
to get right in order to escape the judgment of God is lying
to you. You will not escape the judgment of God no matter how
right you get. You will escape the judgment of God when Jesus
Christ and His sovereignty and His will sets outside a well
with you and offers you living water that you cannot understand
and you cannot taste and you cannot take hold of. And then
in the midst of all the theological fodder that you've ever known
from birth to the day you die, you try to expose it all and
you parse through it in such a rapid way that you can find
no foothold to stand on. And then all of a sudden, in
the midst of nowhere, you change. You believe all of a sudden that
your Messiah, the Lord Jesus, is your only hope. And she exclaims
that. I guess Messiah is my only hope. Because in her inquiry, she was
looking for evidence. In her inquiry, she was looking
for apologetics. In her inquiry, she was looking
to try to find a way out of her sin, of her image, of the hatred
of those around us. I don't want to be a Samaritan.
I want to worship rightly. I want to be approved. I want
to be blessed. That's what it means to be blessed,
to be approved by God. I want to be blessed. Why did
I bring that up? Because Thomas is just like her.
He walked with Jesus, he ministered with Jesus, but he's not changed
at all. And he's not changed here. I
bet Thomas dealt with this, oh my goodness, the sky is falling
for the rest of his life. But by the Word of the Lord,
and by the encouragement of God's people through the Spirit of
God, he held fast to his hope. Christianity is not about an
easy life on an easy street with a white fence. and two dogs and
a barbecue grill in the back. The Christian life is about suffering. It's about losing everything
that you think matters. It's about thinking, it's about
realizing that everybody who loves you, who's not in Christ,
doesn't love you. It's showing us living as a Christian
in the world shows us we don't belong here. We belong together
and praise God one day we will not be here. We will be together
with him. Bring it. The greatest worship
service that ever will be known and it will never end. We don't
have to run the air. We don't have to sweep the floor.
We don't have to go home. Because we're home. Peace be
with you. Grace to you. Thomas doesn't
even get the privilege of debating. Let me see those scars again.
He doesn't even put his hands in there. He doesn't do it. He
sees. By the will of Christ, he sees. And he said, my Lord, my God. Now, the way that's written, I have heard people say, he's
just exclaiming, oh my Lord, look, Jesus! No. Oh my God, he's
alive! No, no, he's not a southern bale
living in redneck woods. As a matter of fact, he talking
to Jesus says, the Lord of me and the God of me You are the
Lord of me and you are the God of me. That's what it should
say. To be more accurate, so that we don't take our little
blasphemous, blasphemous colloquialisms into the reading. He says to
Jesus, 28. See, Thomas says to him. Thomas answered Jesus when Jesus
says, stop and believe me. It was right then by that command,
just like Jesus tells the man who cannot walk to stand up,
take up your mat, and go. And the man's like... Hadn't
walked for 38 years. It's not about healing, for there
were thousands there and Jesus vanishes because there were many
invalids there. It's about proving the command
of Christ to bring to life His sheep who can hear His voice
when He calls them and commands them to stand and walk in Him.
And he commanded Thomas to believe. And when we hear that story,
as it's written there, Jesus Christ can command you to believe.
He's not commanding you to believe and then you're deciding not
to, which is how most unbelievers look at it. And He's not commanding
you to believe and all of a sudden you make the wise choice to go,
you know what, I think I will. I'm sorry, Mr. Tiffins, you have
a malignant tumor in your brain and you have one day to live.
No, I don't think I'm going to do that. Sorry. Don't think I'm
going to do that. I refuse to make that choice.
All right. See you tomorrow. I mean, that's
silly. Christ saved him in that sense
of causing him to believe. Saved him from what? Unbelief.
saved him from despair, helped him to see fully by the Spirit
that Christ was his God. Christ was his Lord. And then
Jesus in verse 29, this is important. John has composed such few words
here that it's easy to overlook it. But because it's such few
words, we need to pay close attention to it. Jesus says in that breath,
After he hears, you are the Lord of me and the God of me, have
you believed because you've seen me? And the answer is yes. Now, does Jesus take kindly to
those looking for signs? No. Matter of fact, I don't think,
it might be in John 6 or somewhere, where Jesus says that people
seek out signs for salvation. It's not going to do them any
good. Signs and wonders don't save people. I save people. Signs
and wonders testify to who I am. And who I am and the knowledge
of who I am is what saves. And the only way you have that
knowledge is if you are mine. And I grant it to you. You must be born from above in
order to see and enter into the kingdom of heaven. Like Moses
in the wilderness holds up the serpent. If you look at the serpent,
you live. and believes He, that's the operative
word. What are we believing? In the
promise of God for life. Through what? Through the means
that He has promised. You mean all I gotta do is look
at that snake? And that God has promised me that if I look at
that snake, I'm gonna live? Yes. Look at the snake, die. Why? Because they were trusting
in their look. Trusting in their gaze. If I
can just look at his wounds, then I'll know he's alive, I'll
believe. That ain't how Thomas believed. It was beyond that. To look at
the snake and to live in the wilderness was to believe that
God promised it. And so to look at the snake with
saving faith is to believe God, not the snake and not your look.
To look at Christ and to see his wounds is to believe that
he's God, that he's been raised from the dead, that he paid for
your sins! Not that he's just alive. Thomas
didn't have to spend time dealing with the physical attributes
of Christ's glorified body to prove that he was Jesus. God
granted him the sight to see that he was Messiah. God granted
it to him. And he makes the distinction, and this is where I told you
they're going to sort of seem conflicting. He makes the distinction
there. Have you believed because you've
seen me? And the answer is yes. But he's seen him not just in
the flesh, but he's seen him by the Spirit. Then Jesus said,
those who are approved by God are those who have not seen,
yet have believed. Blessed are those who have not
seen, yet have believed. We have not seen, yet we have
believed. And now we can believe in that
which we have not seen because we hear the testimony of that
which they have seen concerning the eternal life which was manifest
to us. Now we proclaim to you that you
may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with
the Father and with the Son. 1 John 1. So I'm getting there. It works. It's one gospel. So that's the message. By the
power of the Spirit, who is God, with you, operating in you, through
the message of the story that I have left you, and the teaching
that I have taught you, through the words of the apostles which
are written down for you, you will continue to do all the divine
work of God through the Spirit, through these natural means. And no one will ever see any
manifestation of my power again. through any way except through
the hearing of the testimony of the apostles and that by that
hearing you will forgive sins and that if they do not hear
you will withhold forgiveness. Just as my story is what does
that. My work, my history, my cross,
my body, my blood, my purpose. So from this point forward Thomas You have seen, but everyone else
whom I call to myself has not seen and will not see. They will
see through your story. That's why a testimony of evangelistic
power is not a testimony of my life, but it's a testimony of
Christ's life. And I grew up in the heartbeat
of evangelical patriotism where in the 70s and 80s where, I mean,
there were billions, and I'm being funny on purpose, there
were billions of evangelists roaming the country. And there was always a story.
About a little boy named Johnny. There must have been three billion
Johnnies, you know? Or this one kid just traveled
everywhere. And he was always either about
to drown, about to fall off a train, or about to get run over by a
truck. It was always, you know. And the father had to make a
decision. And he killed his son for the passengers. Which decision
shall you make? I mean, you see? And yeah, I'm
mocking it. It's a false gospel. I'm not meaning to mock anyone,
but that's deplorable and demonic. And I grew up under that. And no matter how saved you were
when you got through with that, you thought like, well, I've
got some choices to make. The Galatian heresy. I've got
to add to the gospel. See, sheep can be misled. the God of me and the Lord of
me. You're not going to see, beloved. except through the testimony
of Christ. So the better testimony. Now,
do we not have testimonies of praise? Testimonies of thanksgiving?
This is what the Lord has done for me. This is what the Lord
has done in me. This is what the Lord has done through me. Yes, that's
life. Those testimonies continue to go. What is God doing in you
and for you and with you right now? There is a work that takes
place every moment in us. And we can share those things,
but to see others come to faith, it is not an opportunity for
us to tell our testimony. except that our testimony is
that Christ saved me, granted me the faith to see that His
salvation was finished, and that He sovereignly gave me all that
I need to believe. And I'm still learning how that
works. Because if you think there needs
to be a deep level of intellectual discernment in order to believe
the gospel, you have mistaken yourself. And I know that's not
good grammar, but you've messed up. When Jesus
actually says, your faith must be like that of a child. I don't
care how smart your kids are. Put them to bed tonight, give
them a big kiss, and read them a story, or pray with them, or
whatever you do, and then walk out of the room, turn on the
light, and say, don't look under the bed, just walk out. They'll cry all
night long. That's all it takes for the shadow
of fear in a child that wasn't in the bed. There could be a
present under there for in the morning. It's going to be a surprise,
but they're going to think what? Something bad's under there. And there's nothing you can do
to tell them otherwise. Something in my room? No, there's
not. Yeah, there is. You turn on the lights. It's in there, you just
can't see it. I mean, you can't tell them otherwise. Friends,
that is the point that Jesus makes. You've got to have a childlike
faith to believe against all odds, to believe against all
that which you see, to believe against all what is reasonable
and rational and logical in your mind that Christ has saved you
sovereignly through His work and granted you faith to believe
it. And that's what's at stake here.
Because he did a lot of other stuff that's not been written
down in the Bible. John even says in his Apocalypse
that if all the things that Jesus said and did were written down
that there are not enough pages and not enough room, not enough
square footage or cubic footage in the world to contain the writing. But we're trying, aren't we? It's amazing to me that Christian
publishing is still publishing as much as it does. That's another
day. Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples,
which are not written in this book. But what is written in
this book is written so that you may believe that Jesus is
Messiah. That's what the word Christ means.
It's an English transliteration of the Greek word Christos, which
is the Greek word for Messiah. which is the English translation
of the great of the Hebrew word Mashiach. The son of God and
by believing you may have life in his name. Now the implications
there are deep. Oh, yeah, I know that. I know
that he's the Messiah. I know that he's the son of God.
Cool, I'm good. This is where James helps massage his Jewish
brothers into a place of understanding the simple grace of God. and
then the implications of living together in love and harmony
and unity because of the grace of God. James is not evangelistic,
nor is John in his epistle. But here, he's evangelistic.
And he's saying that through the stories of this gospel letter,
through the illustration, and what's he mean? The whole thing.
The whole thing. See, when I say I use John 4,
oh, brothers and sisters, John 4 is just one part of the whole
letter. There's no such thing as John
4 in John's mind. He writes by the power of Christ,
of His own personality, but everything is infallible and perfect, and
he writes concerning the witness of God, concerning His Son, And
that when God desires, He brings us to faith, and He strengthens
our faith, and He establishes us in Him through the hearing
of these truths that are written within. And I believe that it's enough. I believe that the Gospel of
John is enough to evangelize the world. You notice how long
it takes to read the Gospel? 90 minutes. Now I can read it in
my eyes a lot quicker than that. But if you read it out loud,
without being slow, but if you read it at a moderate pace, it's
90 minutes. If you listen to it on an app,
it's 90 minutes. 90 minutes is about how much
time you need to spend sitting down with someone to teach them
the gospel. 90 minutes is a good investment.
You ever went to visit somebody and you stayed for three? Didn't
get out the car. Yeah, I just want to see how
you're doing. Glad you're alive. See you later. It's not really
a visit. I remember when my great-grandparents
were all living, and you'd stop in, and it'd be 2.53 in the afternoon,
but they're going to turn the kitchen on. And you've got to
be somewhere at five. But at ten minutes till five,
you're still there and you're eating a full meal. I mean, it's,
you know, you got supper in an hour and a half, but you're still
eating. And you stand up and say, I've got to go. Well, you
ain't been here long. You haven't even been, you don't
even love me. Yeah, I mean, Levi can tell you.
Yeah, I do. But I don't have all day. And
no matter how long, I've been there all day before, and you'd
be there all weekend, be there five days. You stay with them
when you come visit. And you go to leave, and they're
like, I can't believe you didn't stay longer. You got a long drive
to California, we gotta go. I mean, all these kids, we gotta
go. Well, you know, next time you
come, why don't you just stay for two months? So when we care, Think of evangelism
as a way of, what does Jesus say? Teaching them as I have
taught you. Jesus spent three and a half,
four years with his disciples. Spend time. There is no one,
two, three, pop, you're saved, evangelistic type stuff. That's
garbage, that's junk, y'all. And I know that when I say stuff
like that, all these beloved friends of mine, they go, you're
talking about me. I'm not talking about anybody in general. I have
been around the block. I started as an open air preacher.
I've done evangelism in this own community. I preached out
on the streets, the laundromats, the only place you can get a
crowd. And I thought that if I just
had three minutes, I could get them all set. That doesn't work
that way. God does what He's going to do,
when He's going to do it. And He will only do it through
the teaching of the Bible. Period. So if you want to disciple
someone, that is evangelizing them. If they're not a sheep,
they will come to know the truth if they are elect. And they will
be a sheep. We can't run after people who
are running from us and expect if we yell, loud enough, Jesus
is Lord, that they're going to come to faith. It doesn't work
that way. We are pursued by the Lord Jesus, so we must let Him
pursue those who are His also through the means of teaching
the Scripture. And I'd say that most of the
teaching of Scripture in an evangelistic way should be done Out there. Out there. Brief conversations. You might think, I don't have
90 minutes every time. You got five? Start with John. Let's go through John's gospel
together. That is the way it's done. Let's just, why don't you
read John 1 real quick. Let's read it real quick. Let
me pray for you. And then next time I see you, we might go to
John 2. Let me read first 10, 14, 18, first 18 verses of John
1. Let's just read that. Go home
and read it yourself and next time we get together or text
me or call me or whatever. So when it's all said and done
you probably got a 90 minute gospel presentation. And then
you start seeing the fruit of it either one way or the other.
The fruit of it either they start to believe or the fruit of it
that they just get bored with it and they fizzle on out. That's
not on you. You see? But we've got this instant,
my way, right away, you know, not go to Hardee's, but we want
McDonald's, we want to get the food before we pay. And here's
your food. We want to be able to drive up
and they hand us the food we want before we even tell them.
We can't expect God to do the same thing. Could you imagine
that week how they aggravated Thomas? Thomas, you've got to
believe us. We're telling you the truth. I think that's why
he became so emphatic about, I'm going to stick my hands in
this man's wounds. I'm going to show you. I don't
believe this. I don't believe this. You're
aggravating me. Stop aggravating me. And what
they needed to do was just get him in the room and let Jesus
appear. That's how we teach the gospel. Get them in the room
and let Jesus appear. Well, how is Jesus going to appear?
Through signs and wonders? No. Through His Word right now. He's appearing to you right now.
He's in our presence right now. We're two or more gathered in
His name. He is with us. He is with us. And He is with
us truly in presence. Fully through His Word. He is
the Living Word of God. And by God the Spirit who operates
through us and with us always, we are intimately involved in
the presence of Jesus. personally. Beloved, there is
encouragement there. I don't know how to make it encouraging
to you. I don't know how to make it powerful
for you. I don't know how to massage it in a certain way that
is palatable. All I know to do is to teach it and that the Lord
Jesus Christ, by His will, will determine a moment when you will
have that peace. Even as a believer, beloved,
You have moments where you feel like that God has left the building. And the scripture says, He's
with us. The scripture says, He shall
never forsake us. The scripture says, I will give
you peace when I'm with you. He's with you. Father, we are thankful. We are
so thankful that you love us. Lord, I could just keep going
and just continue to preach this letter and start over in a couple
of months and just do it again and over and over and over. Father,
may we not get through with this gospel because you have not gotten
through with us. You have started the work. Help
us to be at peace, Lord, not just in our souls because of
our justification and the work that you've done to save us and
redeem us through Jesus Christ, but Father, help us to be at
peace in our evangelism. Help us to be at peace when we
share with others and when we have to offer rebuke for false
teaching, when we have to correct wrong things, help us to just
be at peace and to be humble. Lord, humble servants is what
we want to be. Help us to live together in a
sinless way, putting away and abstaining from the things of
the flesh that so tear up our assurance and destroy our intimacy.
and defame Your name, Lord. Help us to walk in a manner that
does not cause division in the body of Christ. Help us to, when
we see those things, to receive correction in a way that is Spirit-given
and Spirit-filled, so that we would turn away from those things
that cause division, that cause rifts, that cause us to have
a lack of faith, so that we might rest together and enjoy life
to the fullest that's found only in Jesus Christ. Father, help
us to have a desire to pray for one another and to meet each
other's needs. Lord, put us into the presence of Your Spirit in
such a way by Your Word that when we do pray, we are rejoicing
in our prayers, not laboring in a helpless state, but we are
thanking You for all the good and the bad that comes our way,
for they are all a gift purposed for our good and for Your namesake. and help us to never forget that
we are secure in Jesus Christ. And that even though we lock
the doors and we fail to believe and we don't want to see the
truth and that we're not lost and you'll never cast us out.
But the son will show himself to be faithful even when we're
faithless. Lord, we love you and we pray these things in the
name of Jesus Christ. Amen.