A Believing People

Hello, you're listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.

This epiphany in Lent, we're back in the Gospels,

specifically the Gospel of Mark. We are seeing

the revelation of God in Jesus. Mark is showing

us the true King becomes a servant for us. He

says right at the heart, the Son of Man came

not to be served, but to serve and to give his

life as a ransom for many. And Mark is nearly

always asking his audience, what do you make

of that? So, what do you make of this good news?

We'd love to meet you and we hope you'll consider

coming and joining with us each Sunday morning

at 10 a .m. in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg.

You can find us online at secondcitychurch .org

and on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We hope

you enjoy this sermon. God bless. Lord, we thank

you for your word this morning. We thank you

for this beautiful account of how you met your

disciples there in that locked up room full of

fear and and unbelief and I pray that you'd meet

us in our fear and in our unbelief and draw us

more and more into the great story of your redemption

of the world in the death and the resurrection

of Jesus in whose name we pray. Amen. All right,

so I'm just going to make this comment that I

occasionally make at the beginning of sermons,

and I'm not going to say everything there is

to say about this passage, okay? There is a lot

here, and there's a lot of wonderful things that

could be said. You may have heard that religion,

again, is on the rise. I wonder if you've heard

this. It's true. There have been a number of

studies, actually a good number of studies and

fairly rigorous studies that have shown The decline

of religion has sort of reversed. It's sort of

over, if you will. For the most part, over the

last 25, 30 years, year after year, religious

adherence, faith has been in the decline. In

fact, probably some of you heard this, but in

the year 2021, the membership in churches in

the United States for the first time in recorded

history dropped below 50%. Okay, so it had been

sort of steadily going down, and yet these studies

have shown that this has changed over these last

four or five years, and it has not just stayed

sort of steady, held steady, but has actually

been on the increase. Two weeks ago, maybe you

saw this article in The Guardian, that British

newspaper. It was quoting a British study that

was just done, and it actually showed us that

over the past six years, Church attendance in

England and Wales was up 50%. Guess what the

age group that made the largest jump? Anybody?

What was that? College age. 18 to 24 year olds

made the largest increase in that regular religious

adherence going to church. And then actually

it was 65 and up. They made the next jump up.

But a huge percentage of people that are more

interested in churches in the UK. It seems as

though religion and belief seem to be on the

rise. Now, here's another thing. If you've kind

of been abreast of these conversations, what

you probably also heard is in some ways it was

never entirely in the decline. In fact, what

we have done is we've sort of moved our beliefs

and our religious practices and those things

which we adhere to. So quite a number of people,

maybe you've read this, have said that what we

have done is instead of getting what we've done

is we've shifted our devotion to God and to religious

practice and our hope in God to political figures

political practice the sacrament of vote we wear

our badges proudly don't I vote Pascal famously

wrote there is a god -shaped vacuum in the heart

of every person Children, that is not referring

to a vacuum that you clean with. It just means

an empty space. There's an empty space that God

alone fills. But the truth is, and this is what's

being argued, is that we try to fill it with

all kinds of other things, in all kinds of other

ways. Maybe you saw this, or maybe you read this

article by Lauren Jackson. used to be a Mormon

and doesn't adhere to any religious practice

now. She wrote an op -ed piece in New York Times

a couple weeks ago. The title was Americans Haven't

Found a Satisfying Alternative to Religion. That's

what she wrote. She said that she spent her 20s,

quote, worshipping at the altar of work. And

we all know that that's an alternative. to religion,

place where you find your meaning and your hope.

Place your dreams there. But she shares with

us how she gave up her religious ardor and her

desires over to her workout practices, her practicing

mindfulness, therapy sessions, saunas, mindfulness

apps. Here's what she writes specifically. But

even as people left religion, mysticism persisted.

More people have begun identifying as spiritual

but not religious. In 2015, researchers at Harvard

began studying where those Americans, sorry,

where these Americans were turning to express

their spirituality. Reporters did too. The answer

included yoga crossfit. Now I know we don't have

a lot of crossfitters here. I'm telling you,

I have quite a few friends that are crossfit

people and it fits. Soul cycle. It's a type of,

you know, cycling. I love the name even, soul

cycling. Supper clubs and meditation. She says,

Oprah tried sound baths, Gwyneth Paltrow advertised

energy healing. More than a third of American

women under 30 have downloaded the personal astrology

app, CoStar, according to the company. Now she

quotes from Ethan Shagan, a historian of religion

at UC Berkeley, secularization in the West was

not about the segregation of belief from the

world, but the promiscuous opening of belief

to the world. We have a God -shaped vacuum. So

during this Easter season, we're looking at some

of the accounts of Jesus and his disciples post

-resurrection. And in these accounts, we're asking,

what does it mean for us? What kind of people

are we to be? How does Jesus interact with us

as a church? Last week, I suggested to you that

from that story of Jesus and the two disciples

on the road to Emmaus, we're to be people that

actually receive the questioning word of God,

allow God to ask his questions to us. We're to

be people that are to receive the given word

of God, the Holy Scriptures, as they've been

given out, inspired by, breathed out by the Holy

Spirit. And we're to be those who receive the

suffering word of God, actually Jesus in the

flesh suffering for us, his body broken for us,

and his blood shed for us. But this morning we

have one of the other great stories of the resurrected

Christ and his disciples. And this story is often

referred to by one man's name. Who's that? Thomas

and his nickname, which we give. Nickname Downing

Thomas, right. And that's kind of... That's kind

of interesting and it's a little bit odd because

what is overwhelmingly true of this story is

that what Jesus is inviting us into and what

John desires for us to be is a people of belief.

He actually says at the end of the story, these

things are written down so that you may believe.

And belief actually, this word pisteo, which

is the same word that we often translate in the

New Testament, faith, that word that was mentioned

three times in the Romans chapter one passage.

Pisteo here is mentioned some seven times. In

some ways, the emphasis of this story is the

idea of belief. So, we're going to look at this

passage. Again, I said we're not going to look

at everything that we could in this passage.

But I want us to look at it through the idea

of a believing community, okay? A believing community.

And first, I want you to see where Jesus meets

his disciples, okay? And the first place that

Jesus meets his disciples is in a place of fear.

So, open up your Bibles with me. If you don't

have one, you can grab that one in front of you

in the pew. And if you don't have a Bible, please

take that Bible home. Or if you know somebody

who's just interested in maybe reading the Bible,

grab one of those, bring them for them. You can

take them and have them and give them to your

friends. Okay. So if you look with me down there,

verse 19, where our passage began, chapter 20

of John. On the evening of that day, the first

day of the week, the doors being locked, Excuse

me. Where the disciples were, for fear of the

Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. So the

first thing we learn about is that Jesus comes

to these disciples who are so fearful that they've

locked the door. And I want to suggest to you

first that this is a very understandable place

for them. The disciples living in fear, okay?

There's lots of reasons for fear here. It says

that they were fearful of the Jews. But that's

to say that they were fearful of what could possibly

happen to them, or maybe what could be said of

them, or how they might get caught, or how they

might, actually at this point, they haven't seen

Jesus. Two of them, Peter and John, onto the

place where his body had been laid, and they

had been told about him. And they've heard these

rumors, but maybe they're thinking, you know

what? What if they think that we took the body?

There's all kinds of legitimate reasons for these

disciples to be full of fear. They're gathered

together, they're huddled together. Maybe they're

talking over the news of what had happened, how

they'd seen Jesus die, and how they had heard

of this news, but there's no way it could have

happened. But what could possibly happen to them

now if they were found out? Maybe they would

be blamed for taking the missing body. And the

point is that they are living in fear and in

a way that their disbelief in what God has done

and what he said he would do is manifesting itself

now in fear in them. And let's just admit for

a moment that this is actually a state that we

often find ourselves in and that we are overcome

by and that we actually want to lock doors to

protect ourselves, right? Because we often actually

live in fear. We hear Jesus tell us in Matthew

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, right in the middle of the Sermon

on the Mount, that we're not to worry about tomorrow

because tomorrow has enough worries of its own.

And I hear that and I'm like, wait, that's exactly

why I'm worrying. Because it has enough worries

of its own. You know, we have all kinds of reasons

we can think of to simply lock the door and live

in fear. We've heard about the risen Christ.

but then we've also heard about people being

canceled and smear campaigns and bankruptcy and

being shunned by one's friends and adult children

not speaking to you anymore and all Innumerable

things that we go that is fear inducing Lock

the door We have friends my friends that have

lost jobs and taken 18 months to find their next

job Friends that have lost homes, lost spouses.

If there's one thing that is sort of understandable

and that we are unbelievably good at, it is fear.

You all have heard the stats about anxiety, how

it's unbelievably risen recently, largely with

the rise of secularism. The anxiety is just blowing

up all over the place and we know the reasons

for it. So, my point with you, and for us today,

is that Jesus meets these disciples in this place

of fear, okay? The second place that he meets

them is actually in this place of unbelief. Or

at least, he specifically meets one of his disciples.

Now, we actually, we're told that this is...

week later it says eight days later most Bible

scholars actually thinks that this is emphasizing

a week later because they were gathering together

and John mentions this actually again later on

in Revelation he was taken up on the Lord's Day

John has a strong theology of Sunday being the

day of the resurrection and the people time when

people gather together, but anyway They gather

together and again We learn that the door was

locked they might be in this it might be in the

same room and And I said, you know, what's Thomas's

nickname? But it's doubting. But actually, our

passage tells us that he has another nickname.

What is that other nickname? Anyone? The twin.

It's a didymus. I mean, John's like, hey, it's

not that big of a deal. He's just Thomas the

twin. And we're like, no, we're going to give

him the doubting name. OK. Anyway. I feel like

we should reinstill the true nickname of Thomas.

He's just Didymus, the twin. Sort of mundane,

come on. But rather than doubting Thomas, or

rather than the twin Thomas, at the very least

what we could say is that he's the unbelieving

Thomas. So Thomas wasn't with the others. When

Jesus appeared to them in the locked room, they

tell him about it, about seeing the Lord, and

he says, unless This is verse 25. Unless I see

in his hands the mark of the nails, and place

my finger into the mark of the nails, and place

my hand into his side, I will never believe.

He says, I will never, and actually in the Greek

it's two words, it's ume, which is like not know.

I'm never gonna believe this. And then when Jesus

actually, Meets him in verse 27. What does he

what does he say at the end there? But do not

disbelieve which is a piste Oh Just this the

little prefix for not not believed in not, you

know, don't be the one who not believes but Pisteo

believe So what I'm suggesting to you though

is that Jesus meets these disciples and specifically

this disciple in his unbelief first their fear

and second in their unbelief so Part of Lauren

Jackson's article in the New York Times is about

her tracing the rise of unbelief. You can think

of the new atheist movement from years back.

But she says this, she says, American secularization

was an immense social transformation over this

rise of secularization. So there's this immense

transformation. And she goes on to say this,

has it left us any better off? Are we better

off for giving up on belief? She says people

are more unhappy than they've ever been, and

the country is in an epidemic of loneliness.

It's not just secularism that's to blame, but

those without religious affiliation in particular

rank lower on key metrics of wellbeing. I've

shared some of these things with you in the past.

They feel less connected to others, less spiritually

at peace, and they experience less awe and gratitude.

regularly. We know that there are probably many

factors that play with the rise of anxiety and

loneliness and these kinds of things. Okay, there's

no question about that. But what she's saying

at the very least is that we see the rise of

secularization, the rise of giving up on belief

in God, unbelief, disbelief, and the rise of

anxiety and loneliness. They seem to have gone

together on the same trajectory. And what we

see here is that Jesus is meeting his disciples

in their fear, and he's calling Thomas out from

his lonely unbelief into the belief of what God

has done in Christ. Now, this is the end of the

Gospel of John. The beginning of the Gospel of

John says this, in the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Interestingly, throughout that whole gospel,

nobody actually says to Jesus, your God. John

tells us that. In fact, John tells us that in

quite a number of ways. Some of you know that

seven times in the gospel, Jesus says, I am.

You know, the way, the truth, and the life, the

good shepherd, and the bread of life, and these

kinds of things. He's claiming the identity of

the God who saved his people out from Egypt that

met with Moses there in Exodus 3 and said, I

am. But when we look at the Old Testament, often

what we find is people living in these two things,

fear and unbelief. The idea of scarcity, will

I have enough? Will the future be okay? And unbelief

and the idea that God is actually going to care

for us. I mean, think just at the very beginning,

the very first sin in some ways were these two

things. They had all... all the trees and the

plants to eat, but they saw still scarcity. And

they said, we need to take it all. Are we going

to be okay if we don't have it all, right? And

they don't believe the words of God that are

good for them. Or if we continue on, think of

the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. God

has just literally saved them out from slavery

in Egypt. And they've just sung the song of their

redemption being brought through the Red Sea.

What happens in Exodus chapter 16? We have hamburgers

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

back in Egypt. Let's go back. You're like, what?

Fear and unbelief. Can God actually do what he

promised to do? Can he bring us through this

great desert? What happens when they finally

are brought back, brought through the desert?

Brought to the promised land and the, you know,

the 12 spies go into the land. 10 of them come

back and they go, this is too scary. God cannot

do it. Fear and unbelief. It is the pattern of

how the story of scripture is told with regards

to God. We often engage with him in this idea

of fear and unbelief. Think with me just a few

weeks ago. We looked in Mark about the story

of Jesus with his disciples in the boat in the

storm in the Sea of Galilee. they're all fearful

they're rousing him from his sleep and what does

he say you know but you have little faith you

have little belief this pattern of fear and unbelief

and we can trace these two traits again and again

throughout the Bible and among God's people and

what we see when these two traits are actually

together is actually an increase in the same

things that we live in now. Anxiety and things

going awry and just not going well. Loneliness

increasing. Anxiety going through the roof. Reaching

after other gods. Let's make a golden calf to

fill the god -shaped vacuum in their hearts.

And yet, here's part of my point for us this

morning. This is actually a big point. Jesus

goes to them in that place. Right? He's not going,

oh, you full of fear people. Thomas, the unbeliever.

He doesn't treat them like that. So the two other

things I want you to see actually is how Jesus

does treat them. What does he do? Two things

he does. He does a couple others, but these two

things I think stand out to us. And the first

thing is something that he says to them. What

does he say? But he says it three times in this

passage, peace be with you. So he comes to us

in our fear and he doesn't just say, you fearful

people, haven't you read in the Old Testament

all the times people were fearful and what that

did for them. He meets them and he extends his

peace to them. All right, look with me again

down at verse 19. They're huddled up. The doors

locked. Jesus came and stood among them. By the

way, we don't know how he did that, okay? One

commentary said, there's way too much ink spilled

on this. We just don't know, okay? Peace be with

you. What's the very next thing he says to them?

Verse 21. Jesus said to them again, peace be

with you. If you go down to the next section

right where he is engaging with Thomas I'll start

at verse 26 eight days later his disciples were

inside again and Thomas was with them although

the doors were locked again still living in fear

Jesus came and stood among them and said peace

be with you Which is to say that Jesus knew their

fear he knows your fear He knew their ultimate

fear. He knows your ultimate fear. And he knows

that it is not going to be addressed by would

-be gods. These alternative religious practices

that we pursue. Many of them are great. I have

dear friends that genuinely love CrossFit. And

it has done a lot of good for them. I still mourn

Marie not being the cycling instructor at the

Y. I know it's not SoulCycle per se, but it felt

like it. therapy and saunas and all the rest

those are good things but he knows where we need

peace and the only place we find peace is with

him so to believe to be a believing people is

to say these other things can be good and our

hearts are bent towards finding our rest in these

other things but there is only one being give

us that is Jesus the risen Christ Faith cannot

be escaped. Belief cannot be escaped. We all,

everybody believes. Everybody gives authority

to something and organizes their life around

that something. He knows that. The question is

belief in what? And he knows that belief in him

is the only place where actual true peace can

be offered and found. In Christ. So Jesus speaks

peace and lovingly he says this three times to

them and he does not do so in shame, you know,

Jesus is gentle with them. So the second thing

that I want us to see in this is so he shows

or he speaks to them three times but he does

something else that he does twice here and that

is that he shows them his scars. shows them his

scars. So verse 19 right after verse 19 he says

peace be with you and then 20 it says when he

had said this he showed them his hands and his

side. He showed them his hands and his side.

If you go down actually verse 26 says he came

and stood among them and said peace be with you

then he said to Thomas put your finger here see

my hands. put out your hand and place it in my

side. What he's saying is he's following up the

idea of peace for them with the reality of his

suffering for them. So he's addressing, he's

addressing their fear and their unbelief by his

peace that comes through his own suffering. Jesus

wants our belief. Do not disbelieve. But believe

and John says he's written these things so that

we may believe But I want you to also see that

in all this Jesus is very gentle He's inviting

He offers you peace and he said come and see

how I've brought it about He's not it's sort

of where they are. He's not dismissing their

unbelief or their fear He's not saying doubts

don't arise. In fact, if you've been a Christian

for any time at all, you know how often they

do But how gracious is Jesus with his disciples

here? Pascal, some of you know this, did not

just say, there is a God -shaped vacuum in the

heart of every person. This is what he says.

There is a God -shaped vacuum in the heart of

every person. And it can never be filled by any

created thing. It can only be filled by God made

known through Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters,

this is what I long for us. If we're asking of

these resurrected narratives, what does it mean

for us as a church? It means for us as a church

to acknowledge these ideas that our hearts are

eager to grab on to different things to find

our meaning in them. That we're often living

out of fear and anxiety and we're running to

all different kinds of things for it. We're often

living in unbelief and yet Jesus is inviting

us back to him and he is the only place where

peace will be found. It is only through his suffering

and his risen body where his scars were still

present. that our fears and our anxieties and

our great desires for the world will be found

is only in Him that we have peace. It's only

in Him where we have faith that God has acted,

that He will act, that He will care for us. What

the world needs is Jesus and what the world needs

is a community, communities, churches that truly

believe that Christ rose from the dead. He really

did. That we no longer have to be people that

are full of fear, living in unbelief and doubt,

but we can actually enter into this great story

of what God has done in Christ. Many of you probably

are sick of me quoting Leslie Newbegin, but he

says this. How is it possible that the gospel

should be credible? That people should believe

that the power which has the last word in human

affairs is represented by a man hanging on a

cross. That's a great question, right? How in

the world can people believe that? That the answer

for the world is somebody who suffered on a cross

long ago. He says the only answer, the only hermeneutic

of the gospel, hermeneutic meaning the way we

understand it, is a congregation of men and women

who believe it and live by it. How is the world

going to see The hands and the feet of Jesus

as the hope for their fears, as the answer to

their unbelief, as actually the thing which they're

searching for when they're running after all

these other things. How are they gonna do that?

By us believing it. By us actually understanding

the cross and the resurrection for us, that Jesus

really rose for us, that he comes and he meets

with us, and he speaks his peace over us, and

his scars are for us. That is how others will

know. There's great stories about this, of course,

through the history of the world, where people

really believed this. And out of that belief

of those congregations, many people came to faith.

One of the great stories, I'll end with this,

is from the town of Le Chambon -sur -Lignon.

I, some of you know this, I have a hard time

saying French words. Because I spent three semesters,

a year and a half, studying in France. And so

if I say it like I was taught it, some of you

are going to go like, that sounds so snooty.

Le Chambon sur Lignon. And if I don't, it just

sounds weird. Le Chambon sur Lignon. Doesn't

work. It doesn't work. I don't know what to do

about it, OK? Gosh. So Bolster -Lignon, that's

the halfway for me, is this town, this Protestant

town, this Huguenot town in Loire, in France.

And maybe some of you noticed this town wasn't

a very big town, kind of the surrounding area,

you know, smaller town. And yet it had a huge

impact during World War II, because this town

had a deep belief in the reality of what God

had done in Christ. They actually welcomed in

all these people. They were being shipped off

to concentration camps during World War II. And

it's estimated that there are about 5 ,000 lives

that were saved because of the faithfulness of

those people. Pastor André Trocmé of the Reformed

Church in France, his wife Magda, his assistant

pastor, Édouard Tays, and the rest of the villagers

just simply believing that God alone was the

answer for their fears. That he alone was the

true belief that filled the vacuum of their hearts.

And because of that, they offered shelter in

their homes and the hotels on farms and schools.

They forged identification cards for these refugees.

They guided them across the border into Switzerland.

They acted in a way that the only reality was

that Christ rose from the dead and because of

that they don't have to fear they can enter into

the story of God they don't have to give over

to the gods of the day right the power of of

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi rule or or the cowering

of the French the French at the time They didn't

have to give over those things. They said, we

can follow Jesus despite the fact that so many

others are running to other places to fill the

void of God. Now, their story, of course, has

been told many, many times. But I actually thought

about this in part because this week I was away

with my pastor's group. I have a pastor's cohort.

There are 10 of us. We meet every year on a retreat,

but then we keep up throughout the year. I can

tell you more about that. But one of my dear

friends, John Bourgeois, he lives down in Nashville.

We were meeting in Virginia and he was flying

home Friday night and he was actually sitting

next to a woman and he texted some of us and

we had been talking just a couple of days earlier

about being attentive to the spirit and he said,

guys, I was on the flight back to Nashville from

Richmond and I really just wanted to watch a

movie. And so I was sort of annoyed this older

woman was sitting next to me and she wanted to

talk. and and I ended up sharing the gospel because

she quickly asked what I do and I'm a pastor

and sometimes that opens up doors and and she

asked me why I was a pastor and she he said well,

I think people need to To see the beauty of a

believing community a community that actually

believes the gospel and he said and I told her

about the Shambon and And she said my dad was

and this woman doesn't believe My dad was there.

I've heard that story. In fact, this is one thing

that she told John, my dad was known as the Brad

Pitt of Le Chambon, which I'm not sure what that

means other than like really handsome or something

like that. But here's the really beautiful thing

is that John, my friend said, you know what,

I actually invited her to come and tell her dad's

story to our church. And so she's gonna come

and she's open to Christianity. even in her old

age of long rejecting Jesus because of a community

that believed it long ago and because of my friend

who believes it now who still believes now that

even in the fear of maybe somebody going what

you were a pastor which believe ridicule that

happens um or just the unbelief that god are

you actually able to do something That he simply

showed up and said God has spoken his peace over

me Jesus scarred hands and scarred feet and scarred

side were for me And they still transform the

world Brothers and sisters what I'm telling you

this morning is that a believing community is

the way that the gospel goes forward It's interesting

Jesus says one thing here that is always causing

me to scratch my head and it probably actually

Causes you to scratch your head. He says this

have you believed because you've seen me Blessed

are those who have not seen and yet believed.

I would bet every single one of you have thought,

if only I could see Jesus. If only I'd been there

when he turned the bread and the fish and fed

those 5 ,000 men and probably another 5 ,000

women and children. If only I'd been there when

he sat with the woman by the will. If only I'd

been there and seen the empty tomb. He says,

brothers and sisters, blessed are us. Blessed

is Second City Church. Blessed are we who haven't

seen and yet believe. So what do I hope for for

our church? That we would be a believing community.

It is in our believing, in our belief, in our

active faith, despite the fact that we have doubts,

that God will say, blessed are you. Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank you for this text. We thank

you for the gracious gentleness of our Lord here.

So often we need the same gentleness because

we often so regularly live in fear and unbelief

and doubt and yet we see your grace here. And

we also wonder at the fact that it is Thomas

who says, my Lord and God, Thomas the first one

at the end of the gospel that proclaims what

was said at the beginning. The Word in the beginning

was the Word and the Word was made flesh. The

Word was gone. God, I pray that in that journey

towards belief, we think of Thomas's long faithfulness

to you after this going and being a missionary

and giving his life for you. God, I pray that

we would be those people who are transformed

and believe in the reality of Christ's suffering

for us. And then like the disciples long ago,

would we go out in boldness. to share the good

news, like the people of Le Chambon during World

War II, like my dear friend John just the other

day. God, would we be a people that are sent

by you, sent out of our fear and our unbelief,

to invite others to follow the risen Christ in

whose name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening

to Second City Sermons podcast. We hope this

sermon has encouraged you to worship God and

to celebrate the gospel of Jesus. Please consider

subscribing to this podcast and joining us in

person each Sunday at 10 a .m You can find us

online at secondcitychurch .org and on Instagram

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God bless