Doubt and the Resurrection

Well, good morning. It's good to be with you here this morning. Like Tommy said, I do campus ministry down the road in College Park, and I love getting to work with college students.

And while I've been doing that, being here at Advent has been a great church home for me to be here.

So I'm delighted to be here and to teach from the Word this morning.

So we're now in the season of Easter, and this season is a time where we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

And we consider what it means that Jesus is alive, that He has rose from the dead, that He's defeated sin and death.

And we consider what that means not only for our hope for life after death and our hope in a renewed world,

but we also consider what that means for us in our lives today.

And the reality that the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is available to us in our lives right now through the Holy Spirit by faith.

And so it's interesting that in a season where we are thinking about resurrection and hope and life in a renewed world,

that we come to a passage on doubt.

This passage is after the resurrection, and you have the disciples who have seen Jesus alive and many others.

But there's one disciple who has yet to see Him alive.

It's the disciple Thomas.

And when he hears the report of the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead, he initially doesn't believe it.

He refuses to believe what his close friends have told him.

And in one sense, this story is surprising.

That one of the people who knew Jesus the best, who saw Him teach, who saw Him perform miracles,

would end up being one of the people who would doubt Him the most, who would doubt His resurrection the most.

So on one hand, this story is surprising, but I think for me at least, this story is also a breath of fresh air.

Because I think that many of us can resonate with Thomas.

I'm kind of a natural skeptic at heart.

And whether we would say that we have been a Christian for a long time,

or whether we would say we're trying to figure out if we believe in God at all,

I think we can all resonate with Thomas to some degree,

because we all experience doubt in some form or another.

So I think some of us wrestle with maybe more intellectual and philosophical doubt.

Maybe we doubt whether God is real, whether we can know He's real,

whether the Word is true, whether it's a reliable historical account,

whether Christianity is rational.

And so, you know, maybe we might consider ourselves a person of reason or science,

and so we have trouble with Christianity intellectually.

But for maybe some more of us, maybe our doubt is more kind of existential and emotional,

that we would say we believe God's real, we believe Christianity is true,

but oftentimes God feels absent from us.

And we wonder if He really loves us, if He really cares for us,

if He's really involved in the mundane, ordinary circumstances of our life.

Maybe some of you are in a season of particular difficulty or suffering,

and it's seasons like that that often cause us to doubt the goodness and the love of God.

There's a range of doubts that we can experience in this life,

and I've experienced a range of doubts from intellectual to emotional to existential.

And the question is, what do we do with them?

What do we do with our doubts?

What do we do when, for a variety of reasons, doubt enters our lives?

This passage, I think, is a good case study to help us learn and understand

whether we have been a Christian for a long time or whether we would say we're not a Christian.

It's a good case study to figure out what is it that we do with our doubt.

I want to look at, I think this passage teaches us three things about what to do with our doubt.

I think it teaches us that we have to uncover our doubt, that we have to examine the evidence,

and that we have to fuel our faith.

We have to uncover our doubt, we have to examine the evidence, we have to fuel our faith.

So first, we have to uncover our doubt.

So, the Gospel writer John tells us that eight days after the resurrection,

all other disciples have seen Jesus except Thomas.

And, like we read in the passage earlier, that even though they tell him that they've seen him raised from the dead,

he doesn't believe them.

Verse 25 says,

And even though he lived 2,000 years ago, I think Thomas is actually kind of a modern person.

He has modern sensibilities.

He approaches truth.

He approaches knowledge.

And Christianity, in the same way a lot of modern people in our culture do,

that a lot of people say, you know, in order for me to believe something,

particularly believe in something like God, there has to be real, solid, empirical evidence for it.

And so, if I don't see empirical evidence for something, I'm not going to believe it.

I'm not going to trust it.

And so, when it comes to Christianity, a lot of people doubt the Christian faith because of this kind of thinking.

Maybe you would say that's a lot like you,

that you have doubts about whether God or really, you know, the resurrection in particular,

is true.

You say, I'm a person of science.

I'm a person of reason.

I don't believe anything.

I can't prove empirically.

But what happens when we uncover that doubt?

What happens when we look underneath that doubt?

I think if we actually uncover that doubt, if we look underneath it,

what we'll actually find is belief.

So, for example, if you would say that, you know,

science is the only way that we can know things in the world.

You know, what's interesting about that statement is that

it's actually not a scientific statement.

It's a philosophical one.

It's not about the observable natural world that we can test and prove through science.

It's actually a statement of epistemology.

It's a statement of how we know what we know.

And so, one of the problems with that statement is

it can't live up to its own standard.

You'd say the only way we can know stuff is through science,

but yet you can't prove that statement scientifically.

And so, if that's something that you hold, the question is,

why do you believe that?

How do you know?

How would you prove it?

How would you show it?

How would you show that science is the only way that you can know truth in the world?

See, underneath your doubt, if you uncover your doubt,

what you would find is belief.

What you find is faith.

And so, what is faith?

You know, I think oftentimes in our culture,

this word faith gets thrown around,

and what we mean when we say it is

it's belief without evidence.

It's belief in something even if you don't have evidence for it.

But that's not at all what faith is.

That's not at all how the Bible talks about faith.

How the Bible talks about faith is trust,

is committed trust.

It's committed trust to, you know, the evidence that we see,

to the knowledge that we have available to us.

But really, we don't have, we can't know everything.

We can't have all the evidence because we're finite.

We're limited as human beings and what we can know about the world.

And so, that's why faith always coexists with doubt.

Underneath our doubt is belief.

It's faith.

All of our doubts, no matter what they are,

are all based on faith.

The first time that I really kind of started to doubt my faith

was in college.

And it was just a particularly difficult season of my life.

I was dating a girl that I was in love with

and I thought that I was going to marry.

And we were dating for quite a while.

And at the end of our relationship,

she broke up with me.

And I was devastated.

And it was really painful.

And it was one of the most painful times in my life.

It's one of the most painful things to have someone that you love reject you.

And so, what I was going through was so painful at the time

that I began to doubt.

And I thought,

how could God be loving and good

and allow me to go through this?

And I began to question God's goodness

and his love and his character.

But what, as I thought through,

as I thought through my doubts,

what I began to discover

was that my doubt was based on a belief.

And that belief went something like this,

that if I live a good life,

if I follow Jesus,

if I obey him,

things should go well for me.

Everything should work out.

And now, I might not have been able to tell you that explicitly,

but in my heart,

that's what I believed.

Live a good life,

and God will reward you.

And so, when the storms of life came,

I started to doubt.

But that doubt was based on a belief.

But the belief wasn't strong.

It was fragile.

It was a fragile belief.

It had no capacity to endure hardship.

There was no capacity to endure suffering.

Whatever your doubts are,

they're based on faith.

Because really, our doubts are alternate beliefs.

That's what they are.

And so, what we have to do

is we have to uncover our doubts.

We have to figure out,

is the faith that our doubts are based on,

is it strong enough?

Is it rational enough?

Does it make sense?

Does it make sense of the world?

Does it make sense of God?

And of the Bible and what he says?

See, for Thomas,

he had a really strong faith

in his empirical knowledge,

but that faith wasn't strong enough.

When he was confronted with stronger evidence,

he had to change his core assumptions.

He had to change his core beliefs.

And that's what we have to do as well.

So secondly, we have to examine the evidence.

We have to examine the evidence.

So Thomas says that,

unless I see with my own eyes,

I won't believe.

And what happens?

He sees Jesus with his own eyes.

Verse 26 says that,

eight days later,

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.

And then I think what is a very interesting exchange,

in verse 27,

Jesus turns right to Thomas

and starts engaging his doubt.

And notice the way that he engages with Thomas.

You know,

he doesn't dismiss him.

He doesn't scold him.

He doesn't shame him.

He doesn't say,

you know,

stop trying to think so critically.

You know,

stop trying to be so rational.

Stop trying to be so empirical.

Right?

He doesn't say that.

He actually says the opposite.

He says,

verse 27,

he says,

put your finger here.

See my hands.

Reach out your hand

and put it in my side.

Stop doubting and believe.

Jesus invites Thomas

to consider the truth for himself,

to examine the evidence for himself.

He's saying,

look,

you want empirical evidence?

Here I am.

Reach out.

Touch me.

Feel my wounds in my side.

Now,

this is so important

because it's important

because we need to know

that to be a Christian,

is not to believe in blind faith.

It's not to believe without evidence.

Christianity doesn't dismiss

rational inquiry.

No,

it invites it.

It invites examination.

It invites skepticism.

It invites inquiry into the truth.

To be a Christian

is to be someone

who considers

and who wrestles with

the reasons for believing.

Now,

when it comes to the reasons

for believing the resurrection,

unfortunately,

we don't have

the resurrected body

of Jesus here with us.

But here's what we do have.

What we do have

is a lot of good,

solid,

historical reasons

for believing

that the resurrection

really happened.

And I'm just going to fly through

three quick reasons.

And if you're interested

in researching this more,

exploring this more,

I'm going to recommend

a couple books at the end

that would be helpful

to help you explore more.

One of the first reasons

that we have

of why we can believe

historically the resurrection

really happened

was the widespread

eyewitness evidence.

So the early church's testimony

was based on

the eyewitnesses

of those who saw

Jesus alive.

So in 1 Corinthians 15,

Paul's talking about

the resurrection

and he says that

Jesus appeared to the disciples

and he appeared

to more than 500 people.

And so part of what

Paul's doing

is he's saying,

look,

I'm talking about

the resurrection

and how this matters

for our hope

and for our faith.

But listen,

don't take my word for it.

If you don't believe me,

these people are still alive.

They're still living in Jerusalem.

If you really want to go

and talk to them,

you can go and talk to them.

There was incredibly widespread

eyewitness evidence.

The second thing

is that the gospel records

record

that the first people

that Jesus appears to alive

were women.

Now this is an interesting detail

but it's fascinating

because in the Greco-Roman culture,

that society had a fairly low view

of women

which is sad

but the reason why it's important

is that a woman

could not testify

in court.

Her testimony was not valid

in a legal court of law.

And why that matters

is because if you're trying

to make something up,

if you're trying to persuade people

in the first century,

that this person

rose from the dead

and if you're just trying

to make up a legend,

you wouldn't include women

as a testimony.

You would include

the most reliable men

that you can find

and so what you have to do

is you have to ask,

why include this detail?

If they just were trying

to fabricate it,

if they just were trying

to make it up,

why include this detail?

The most logical explanation,

I think,

is that the gospel writers

were simply just recording

what happened.

They just were recording

the events

as they took place.

And Jesus appears

first to two women.

The third is the rapid growth

of Christianity.

So in the ancient world,

you know,

the Roman Empire was vast

and so you had

a lot of revolutionaries,

you had a lot of groups

of people who would try

to rebel against

the Roman Empire,

who would try to overthrow

the authorities.

But as the great military power,

Rome knew,

all you have to do

to crush the rebellion,

all you have to do

to crush the revolution

is to kill the leader

or to imprison the leader.

And if you do,

the revolution dies.

The rebellion dies.

And that's what Rome did

throughout the Mediterranean area.

But it's interesting,

when they kill Jesus,

when they execute Jesus,

the revolution doesn't die.

the revolution explodes.

And it explodes

and it explodes

and it explodes some more.

And it explodes

through suffering

and death

and persecution

until a few centuries later.

It has exploded so much

that it's the official religion

of the Roman Empire.

And so the question

that you have to ask is why?

Why when they killed

this group,

this leader,

this revolutionary,

how did it explode?

And so what you have to do

is you have to ask yourself,

you have to consider

the evidence

for the resurrection.

And if you would say

that this is something

that you want to look into,

that this is something

you're considering,

the truth of the Christian faith,

two books

that treat this topic

from a historical perspective

are Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

by Richard Balkan

and The Resurrection of the Son of God

by N.T. Wright.

And these books,

I think,

would be great resources

for you to look at

if you're interested

in looking at this more.

But here's the point.

Listen,

if you doubt the resurrection,

if you doubt

if this could possibly be

true historical event,

you can't just say

it just couldn't have happened.

You can't just dismiss it.

You've got to come up

with a better explanation.

You've got to come up

with a better reason

why all these things happened

in the first century.

Because unless you do,

your doubt

isn't based on a solid belief.

Your doubt is actually

based on blind faith.

And so if you're a skeptic

like Thomas,

you've got to examine

the evidence

for the resurrection.

But for others of us,

our main form of doubt

isn't intellectual

or philosophical.

It's more personal

and existential.

It has to do with

the realities of our lives.

Many of us would say

that we believe

Christianity is true.

We believe the resurrection.

But my doubts are

about doubting things

that I know to be true.

I'm having a hard time

really believing

and experiencing

what I believe

in my mind is true.

Maybe like me,

like you've experienced

doubt in your life

that I did

when I was in college.

That when the storms

of life come,

you've doubted,

you know,

does God really love me?

Does He really care?

Is He really involved

in the circumstances

of my life?

And so for those of us

who are there,

what we need

is not more evidence.

What we need

is confidence

to believe in our hearts

what we already know.

And so for that,

we have to fuel our faith.

We have to fuel our faith.

In verse 28,

Thomas sees Jesus

and he sees the scars

on his hands

and on his side.

And he says,

he recognizes Him

as Lord and as God.

And in a moment,

he has moved

from committed skepticism

to confident faith.

He no longer has a reason

to hold his prior beliefs.

Jesus is there

standing right before him.

He can reach out

and touch him

and see him

and talk to him.

And it's easy maybe

for Thomas

to move towards faith

in that moment.

I mean,

Jesus is right there with him.

And so what about us?

What does it look like for us

to fuel our faith?

What does it look like for us

to have deep confidence

in what we know,

even though

we can't reach out

and touch Jesus

with our hands?

We have to doubt our doubts

and we have to remember

his scars.

In order to fuel our faith,

we have to doubt our doubts

and we have to remember

his scars.

We have to doubt our doubts.

See, doubt happens

in the Christian life

when how we feel

conflicts with what we know

to be true about God.

And this most happens

when the storms of life come.

When life is going well,

I think it's easy

to have confident faith

and to trust in the sovereignty

and goodness of God.

But when the storms of life come,

that's when it's easy to doubt,

when it's easy to question

the goodness and love of God.

But here's the thing about faith

and here's how it works.

Faith is not primarily

a function of how we feel.

It's not primarily

a function of how we feel.

It's a function of living out

what we know to be true

despite how we feel,

despite our circumstances,

despite the difficulty

that we're going to.

It's humbling for me to admit

that there was a time

in my life

when I ignored the advice

of my parents

when I should have followed it.

I know that I'm probably

the only person

who's ever done this

in their entire life.

So I'm just going to be lonely

in this confession up here.

But it was a time in my life

when I was getting ready

to go to grad school

and I was going to move

across the country

to St. Louis.

And, you know,

if you've ever moved

across the country,

the biggest thing

you've got to figure out

is where you're going to live.

And there's so many factors

that go into

where you're going to live

and rent

or, you know,

share a room

or all this stuff.

And so their advice was,

you know,

Jeff, live on campus.

You know,

it's more expensive

but the community

is going to be better.

You're going to form

better relationships.

It's going to be,

you know,

close to where you go to class.

And they were like,

you know,

it's more expensive

but listen,

the benefits outweigh the cost.

And so they were urging me

to live on campus.

But I doubted their advice.

I doubted the advice

of my parents

and I followed

my own intuition

and my own feelings.

And I felt pretty strongly

that saving money

was a better choice

economically.

And, you know,

I wanted to live in the city

and experience

the cool hip parts

of living downtown

and living in the city.

I didn't want to live

on campus in the suburbs.

And so I decided

to live off campus.

I doubted my parents' advice.

I went against them.

I went with my own feelings

with my own intuition.

And it was one of the worst

decisions that I ever made

because it was one

of the most lonely

seasons of my life.

I went and lived

with a roommate

I had never met

and I was incredibly

disconnected.

I was incredibly lonely

and it was one of the

toughest times emotionally

for me in my life.

And I look back on that

and I regret that decision.

I wish that I had

lived on campus.

I wish that I had

engaged in that community,

that friendships.

And I look back

on that decision

and I think,

why did I doubt?

Why did I doubt

the love of my parents,

the trust in their relationship

and the wisdom

that they had?

My parents know me.

They love me.

They have my best interest

in mind.

I wish I would have

trusted that relationship

more than I trusted

my own intuition,

my own feelings.

And what I needed

in that moment

was the ability

to rely on

the relationship

that I had.

What I needed

in that moment

was the ability

to doubt my doubts.

To doubt my doubts

in the midst of feelings

that told me otherwise.

And the same is true

in our relationship

with Jesus.

And the classic example

of this is

the story

in the Gospels

when Peter's

on the Sea of Galilee

and they're out

on the boat

and he sees Jesus

walking towards him

on the water

and he gets out

of the boat

and he starts

walking towards Jesus

on the water

and he's filled with,

it's this faith

that allows him

to walk in the water.

But then he starts

to doubt

and he pays attention

to the wind

and the waves

and to the storm

around him

and he starts

to sink.

And Jesus says,

Jesus grabs him

and saves him

and he says,

you of little faith,

why did you doubt?

See for Peter,

the reality of the storm

was greater

than the reality

of Jesus.

The belief

in the power

of the storm

to sink him

was greater

than his belief

in the power

of Jesus

to sustain him.

And that's us,

isn't it?

Isn't that us?

I know that's me.

When the storms

of life come,

we need to begin

to doubt our doubts,

to doubt our feelings,

to doubt what we feel

so we can live out

what we know

is true.

And this is why,

this is why community

is so important.

This is why good

Christian friendships

and relationships

are so important

because none of us,

none of us can doubt

our doubts by ourselves.

It's an incredibly hard

thing to do

by ourselves

when we need others.

You know,

every Sunday

we say the creed

and we say,

you know,

I believe

in the communion

of saints.

You know,

and the communion

of saints

isn't just this thing

where we have people

that we can go out

to eat with

and talk about sports with.

No,

the communion of saints

is about having people

in our life

who when the storms

of life come

can help us doubt

our doubts,

can look us in the eye

and remind us

of the goodness

and the love

and the sovereignty

of God

who can help us

doubt our doubts.

That's what the communion

of saints is about.

So,

in order to fuel

our faith

we need to doubt

our doubts

but we also,

we've got to remember

his scars.

We've got to remember

his scars.

It's interesting

in this passage

that Jesus

not only invites Thomas

to believe in him

but to believe

by touching his body,

to believe by touching

his scars.

I think it's remarkable

that Jesus

in his resurrected body

still bears the marks

of his crucifixion.

I don't know about you

but this is not

what I would have expected

at all.

I would have expected

that if God had the power

to defeat sin and death

and rise from the dead

that he would have

certainly had the power

to heal a couple scars.

I mean,

this kind of seems inconsistent.

Of course he would have

had the power

to heal the scars

in his body

but he didn't.

He kept them.

Why did he keep them?

Why did Jesus keep his scars

in his resurrected body?

I think there's a lot

that we could unpack here.

I think there's a really

robust theology

of suffering here

for Christians

that the resurrected Christ

bears our wounds

but I think one reason

that's based on this passage

here in John 20

has to specifically do

with our doubts

because I think that Jesus knew

like Thomas

that there is going to be

that the people who

knew him the most

the people who

loved him the most

the people who were

most faithful to him

that it was those people

who would experience

the most doubt.

You know some of you

have been following Jesus

your entire life

and you've been committed

and you've been faithful

and some of you still doubt

whether God is with you

in some of your

most difficult moments.

Some of you would say

that you would never doubt

the truth of the gospel

that you believe

that you are saved by grace

that you're justified

in him

that you're righteous

that you are loved

and approved by God

and yet some of you doubt

whether or not God

isn't somehow

just vaguely disappointed

with you all the time.

You know some of us

I think

are utterly convinced

that our truth

is intellectually solid.

We could build

a great philosophical

and intellectual argument

a rational argument

for why Christianity is true

and yet at the same time

we doubt

the fact that God

loves us

that really loves us

in our being

as much as his word

says it does.

I don't know about

the individual circumstances

of your life

I would imagine

that that's some of where

some of us are at

this morning

and if we're not there

that we have been there

or we're going to be there

eventually.

You know I love

the prayer of the man

in Mark 9

who asked Jesus

to heal his son

and he says

Lord I believe

that you can heal my son

I believe

help my unbelief

you know

it's this incredibly

honest confession

for the grace

the ability

to live out our faith

to live out what we know

despite how we feel

and I need that prayer

about every five minutes

I don't know about you

but friends

let me tell you

something wonderful

about Jesus

is that even

in his resurrected body

he bears our scars

this is the objective

evidence

that what we feel

and what we experience

isn't the thing

that is most true

about us

and it's not the thing

that's most true

about God

it's the objective evidence

that the thing

that is most true

is that the one

who was raised

from the dead

the one who conquered

sin and death

the one who is

ascended at the right

hand of the Father

the one who reigns

as King of Kings

and Lord of Lords

is not absent

from our pain

is not removed

from our difficulty

he's not aloof

from our suffering

he's intimately

acquainted with it

he knows

and the objective evidence

is that he bears

our scars

and so when the storms

of life come

I think

one of the ways

that we doubt

is we say

why?

why is this happening

to me?

and we can doubt

the goodness

and the love of God

but the scars of Jesus

are a reminder

that even though

we might not know

what the answer is

we may not ever

be given an answer

for why we're going

through this particular thing

we can be confident

we can have faith

in what the answer's not

and what the answer's not

it's not because

God's displeased with us

remember his scars

remember the fact

that all of God's wrath

all of his judgment

for sin

was poured out

on Jesus on the cross

and if we have faith

in Christ

it's not because

God's displeased

with us

it's not because

God doesn't love us

remember his scars

remember the fact

remember what he went

through for you

on Good Friday

remember what he went

through for you

on the cross

that's the objective

evidence of his

great love

of his great mercy

of his great compassion

for you

and his love for you

isn't past tense

it's present tense

that's how much

he loves you right now

it's not because

God has abandoned us

remember his scars

remember that Jesus

was utterly forsaken

by the Father

so that you and I

can know that he

will never leave us

he will never abandon us

listen

when we doubt

the goodness

and the mercy

and the love of God

the scars of Jesus

are an invitation

to fuel our faith

and to the reminder

that he is alive

and he's risen

and he knows our pain

and he is aware

of our difficulty

and that's why

this meal

that we're about to eat

is so important

that's why it's so important

that we eat it

every week

because I have to

fuel my faith

I have to doubt my doubts

if not every week

probably like once a day

if not more than that

the bread

and the wine

that we're about to eat

is a great opportunity

weekly

to doubt our doubts

to doubt how we feel

and to trust

in what we know

to be true

which is that God

hasn't abandoned us

that he's with us

that he's good

that he loves us

and so as we prepare

to come to the table

I would invite you

to consider

what is it in your life

today

that is causing you

to doubt

the goodness

and the love of God

what is causing you

to question

whether God

loves in you

and delights in you

and is for you

as much as he says

in his word

and let this be a moment

where you can begin

to doubt your doubts

let this be a moment

where you can

start to fuel your faith

where you can

stop doubting

and believe

and as John says

that by believing

that we might have

life in his name

let's pray

and Psộc

and the future

of Israel

and to интерес

and tohearted

and to darkest

that were

because today

and the future

have already recognized

to undermine