Faithful Thomas

The message this weekend is titled Faithful Thomas.

And what I want to do is talk about Thomas and the journey that he went on the weekend after Easter.

So this weekend, I'll mention to you, has been an eventful weekend.

If you want to, you can turn in your Bibles to John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

But this weekend has been a very eventful weekend for me.

This weekend, this past Friday, I got to throw the opening pitch at the Rangers game.

And if you were there, it was a gateway night.

Yeah.

And uh so it was a really uh a great uh event for us, a fun time.

Uh I threw the first pitch.

I gotta tell you, I think it might have been more pressure than preaching here.

It was I felt a lot of pressure.

Uh so I threw it.

It was at least within the catcher's reach, so that was good.

I felt good about that.

But if there were a batter there, I would have hit him for sure.

There's no question about it.

I'm not gonna lie about that, but uh, but I was I was happy to be able to do that.

And then also this weekend, uh I celebrate 13 years of marriage to my beautiful wife, Hannah.

She's down here tonight.

So uh so I want to then uh be able to sort of unpack Thomas's story for you as we talk about what were the events that took place in the week after the resurrection.

What were the events that took place in that time?

And so if you're in John chapter 20, I'm going to start in verse 19.

John 20 · chapter mention

Okay, I'm gonna read the whole story to you, so it's gonna be a little bit of scripture for us, but if you'll just really listen, I know you've heard this story before, but if you'll really listen and take in the events of what were taking place in Thomas's life, that's what we want to talk about.

So, starting in verse 19.

That Sunday evening, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.

Suddenly Jesus was standing there among them.

He said, Peace be with you.

As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side, and they were filled with joy when they saw the Lord.

Again he said, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.

Then he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven.

If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

And then he goes to verse twenty-four One of the twelve disciples, Thomas, nicknamed Twin, was not with the others when Jesus came, and they told him, We have seen the Lord.

But he replied, I will not believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them and place my hands into the wound in his side.

Eight days later the disciples were gathered together again, and this time Thomas was with them.

The doors were locked, but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them.

Again he said, Peace be with you.

Then he said to Thomas, Put your fingers here and look at my hands.

Put your hand into the wound inside my side.

Don't be faithless any longer, but believe.

My Lord, my God, Thomas exclaimed.

Then Jesus told him, You believe because you have seen me.

Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.

So I want to do something to start this message.

And if you come from uh maybe a church background where you've done this before, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Uh, but I'm going to say, Peace be with you, and you're going to say back to me, and also with you.

Okay?

You ready?

Peace be with you.

The reason this is important is because I want us to remember what it was that Jesus greeted Thomas with when he came back into that room.

There he said, Peace be with you.

And the very last thing that I'm going to tell you at the end of the message is, peace be with you.

Because I think many of us have, if we're honest, have been through a similar situation as Thomas.

I want to sort of retell the story of what was going on here, and I want you to imagine yourself in his shoes.

Imagine the things that he's going through in this time.

Thomas had and many others had put all of their faith and their hope and their trust in this Messiah who is going to reign and rule, take over, take over the kingdom, and reign and rule on earth.

And they put all their faith and hope and trust in him.

And then they got, they had to see him hanging from a cross.

And all their hopes and dreams were shattered in that moment.

They were filled with despair.

And so they go away out of fear for the Jews, and they hide themselves in a room, possibly a basement, and lock the door, and they're hidden inside this place.

And but then a strange thing happens on Sunday.

Mary Magdalene bursts in and says, You won't believe it, but I have seen Jesus.

He's alive.

Thomas is probably thinking, There's no way.

It's not, that's not possible.

I mean, Mary, of all people, she would desperately want to see Jesus alive.

There's no way that that could be true.

That just can't be.

And then yet again, Peter comes in and says, I've seen Jesus.

And he says, Well, certainly Peter, obviously, he would say that.

Peter feels bad.

He denied Christ.

Obviously, he feels that way.

You're going to imagine that you've seen Christ.

And Thomas is still struggling with belief.

But then even Cleopas comes in.

And Cleopas came and claims not even just to see Jesus Christ, but to have walked with him all the way on the road to Emmaus.

And then that in the moment of the breaking of bread, Jesus Christ was revealed to him.

Thomas probably thinks this story is a little suspicious and he's not buying it.

And he's he's starting to get frustrated in his disbelief.

And then Thomas gets all emo and decides he's gonna leave everyone.

He's gonna get out of the room, and he's like, I'm out of here.

And he walks out of the locked room and he throws his hoodie up and he's walking around.

No, not like a hoodie like you're thinking, like more like uh the knights of the holy grail type of hoodie, that kind.

It makes sense, fine.

It makes sense in my head.

It's fine.

And he's and he's hiding and he's walking around the city and he's moping and he's going, Just I wish I could just see Jesus.

Is this true?

Is it not true?

What's going on here?

And when he walks back into the room where the disciples are hiding, you can't imagine the look on their faces.

They're beaming, they're so excited, they're all running around in joy, and they're going, Thomas, you won't believe it.

We just saw Jesus, and he's like, Are you kidding me?

Are you kidding me?

Everybody has seen Jesus.

I want to see him so bad, and the one moment that I'm not in the room, that's when Jesus shows up.

I mean, in reality, we all can say that we have felt this way at one time or another.

That everyone around us in church maybe is having a very real experience with God, and we're going, I don't know, it's not happening for me.

I'm not feeling it.

And of course, of course, he would show up for that person.

Of course, he would be there when they need him in a time of need, but he hasn't shown up for me.

Not for me.

I mean, Jesus of all people, he knew how badly I wanted this, and he's Jesus.

He could have shown up in a locked room at any time, but he did it the one time where I was not in the room.

And so he's feeling these emotions and possibly the rejection of not being able to see Christ in this moment.

And he he's feeling all of this and and and and probably stewing on this, and so he makes a declaration.

He says, That's it.

Unless I can see him and I can actually touch him and put my hands in his side, I will not believe.

But then soon enough, just eight days later, Jesus shows up again in the locked room.

There, Thomas gets to see him.

He falls to his knees weeping, my God, my God.

Jesus says, Here, come, Thomas, touch my wrist and touch my side.

And Thomas gets an experience with God right there.

I I had uh a similar crisis of faith in in my life.

Um, you might not think it's the same as Thomas's, but I put it right up equal equal level.

Uh I was probably about 12 or 13, and uh I I'd gone to my grandparents' house with my brother, and it was opening season of deer hunting, opening day of deer hunting, and it was a youth season.

So you had to be under a certain age to be able to go hunting that that day.

And opening day was a really, really big deal for me and my brother.

And uh it also happened to fall on uh a very interesting weekend.

And so my brother and I were we're there at my grandparents' house.

My parents aren't there, it's just my grandparents, and which by the way, grandparents are awesome.

My my dad likes to say all the time that grandkids are way better than kids.

So I'd like to exact my revenge right about this moment and say, grandparents are way better than parents.

Way better.

They are way better.

If you have grandparents in your life, honor them today.

They are the best.

I love grandparents.

I I adopt grandparents sometimes.

I just hear about stuff, they're like, yeah, we have all this, you know, for years we've gone to the same cruise liner and we have all these bonus points.

I'm like, you could be my grandparents, I'll go with you.

It's fine.

I want to do this.

So uh we're we're there, and and and I told my brother, I said, you know, I don't want to mess this up.

I don't want to miss opening day.

This is very important.

And so let's set our alarm for about an hour earlier than we normally would.

And he goes, good idea.

I like that.

Well, about that time, my grandfather walked in.

He said, Hey, I just want you guys to know this is daylight savings time weekend.

And we were like, Well, what does that mean?

And he was like, I don't really know, but the time changes.

Some it's changes somehow.

And we're like, oh, great.

Well, this was in the fall, so you know the time would fall back, the the time would go backwards and not spring forward, but we didn't really know that.

We were like, what if it springs forward instead of falling back and we adjust the wrong direction?

I realized none of this makes sense, but I'm like 13 years old.

And so we're like, and then if we were to send it the wrong direction, then we'd be off.

And so I said, instead of setting the time back one hour, let's set it back two hours just to be safe.

And he was like, Yeah, that's a good idea.

So we already want to wake up an hour earlier, then we set the time back two hours, which we gained an hour, so we woke up four hours early.

It felt like we had slept for 10 minutes and we had no idea.

We wake up, we get on the four-wheelers, we drive out to the place where we're gonna go deer hunting, we get in the deer stand, and typically, whenever my dad was taking us hunting, we would be in the stand, and and about 30 minutes later, the sun would come up.

We can imagine, we don't even have a watch.

I didn't even own a watch at that time, but I can tell that about 30 minutes has passed, the sun hasn't come up.

An hour has passed, the sun hasn't come up.

Two hours, I'm 13 years old, two hours have passed, the sun hasn't come up.

Three hours, let me just jump to the end.

This is what we were doing.

We honestly thought, and if you grew up in the 80s like me in like an evangelical church, all you ever worried about was the rapture.

So three hours into this, we're certain that the rapture has happened.

We're completely positive, and we're praying, we're on our knees, we were singing the songs of the time, we were doing the motions, we're some may trust in horses, and we were, I mean, we were we were scared to death.

We were certain that Jesus had come back and we we were praying, we had a prayer service in there.

We didn't care if the deer hurt us, we were speaking in tongues out loud.

We were hoping that Jesus would swing back around and pick us up on his way out.

I mean, it was it was an intense.

So, anyways, that's it was just like Thomas.

I can't so I tell when I tell you I can relate to him, I'm serious, I can relate to exactly what he went through.

So I want to talk to you about the three characteristics that Thomas displayed in this in this time.

He displayed several characteristics that we ought to be able to emulate, and and many of them are ones that we have been through in in our lives, whether we admit it or not.

And the very first one is doubt.

So one of the characteristics that Thomas displayed is the doubt.

One of the things I really, really don't like is when people call Thomas doubting Thomas.

Everybody's heard that.

We talk about Thomas and and and all the other disciples, they were so faithful and they just loved God.

And and here's Thomas griping and complaining.

If I don't get to touch Jesus, then I'm not gonna believe.

And I really can't stand that.

Like, first of all, we call him doubting Thomas, and we act like everybody else is being super faithful.

Let's remember where the rest of the disciples were, hiding in a locked basement.

I mean, they it's not like they were out there preaching the gospel, being so brave and everything.

So I really, I really don't like us to cast any type of uh negative atmosphere on what Thomas went through.

What he went through was very real and genuine, and and we can relate to that.

It's something that we can relate to.

So doubt was something that Thomas went through, and I want us to understand that doubt has a place in our life, even as Christians.

And so we we needed to talk about a couple different things that come up whenever we talk about doubt.

And I'm not necessarily saying a general doubt that God exists.

I think we're all here because, in some sense, we believe that there is a higher power, there's uh there's a uh a creator in in the world, in the universe.

And we know and understand that, but we still struggle with doubts even as Christians.

We walk through these times of does God see me?

Does he care for me?

Is he is he noticing me at all?

What do I believe about this?

Is do I believe this or that?

And so there are a couple things that come up whenever we talk about doubting, and I just want to address some of those.

The first is faith and reason.

Faith and reason, or you could call it logic.

And I I I one of the books that has been really influential to me is a book called Reasons for God by Tim Keller.

And uh in this book, he talks about the difference between faith and reason, or faith and logic.

And what he says is that there's a general belief that there are some people who look around at the world and they say, surely a God must have made this.

Surely a God exists.

And those people come to that conclusion by faith.

And then there are other people who look at the world and they come to a conclusion that says, Surely there is no God, and they come to that conclusion by reason or by logic.

And what Tim Keller says is that the truth is that both views, the one that says there is a God and the one that says there is not a God, both of those views require both faith and reason in order to come to that conclusion.

Both views require that.

Faith and reason is used in both views.

To illustrate this, in the book, he talks about a letter that was written to the New York Times, and I'm gonna read part of the letter to you right now.

It says, when the Hubble Space Telescoped telescope pointed to a black spot in the sky about the size of an eraser head for a week, it found 30,000 galaxies that were over 13 billion years old, with many trillions of stars and many more trillions of inferred planets.

So, how significant are you?

You're not a unique snowflake, you're not a special, you're not special, you are just another piece of decaying matter on the compost pile of this world.

Nothing of who you are and what you will do in this short time you are here will matter.

Nothing you will do will matter.

Everything short of that realization is vanity.

And then the letter goes on to say so, or to say, in essence, therefore, because of this, because of the things that you've just learned, then it says this: so celebrate life in every moment, admire its wonders, and love without reservation.

I don't know about you, but when I look at that, I think that has got to be a way bigger leap of faith than Christianity.

To say, okay, it's natural selection, only the strong survive, the strong kill the weak, and that's how we are here today, that's how it happened, that's what takes place, and because of that, that the strong kill the weak, and so we we know and understand this natural selection, and because of that, because of that, and you're insignificant, you're not really anything in the scope of the grand uh the grand view of the universe and the galaxies and all these things, you're really nothing, so because of that, you should love other people.

The truth is, I don't I don't jump to that conclusion at all.

I go, I should kill the weak, obviously.

That's what I should do.

It's like as you go, so this.

That doesn't make sense to me.

That is a leap of faith that I cannot make.

But when you have a God who says, I am here and I am here for you, and I'm leading you and guiding you into all truth, so love one another, that's something that's very easy for me to connect myself to.

And so we have this view that faith is only used in believing in God, that it's this blind faith that doesn't use reason at all.

And the truth is that's not true.

Every single person employs faith in their life every single day.

If you eat out at a restaurant, you employ faith.

You have faith that they prepared it properly, that they did what they were supposed to do.

If you get in your car, you have faith.

Faith that others around you are gonna do what they're supposed to do, stay in their lane, that they're not gonna run into you.

You have faith.

You, you, you, you every single day have to employ a level of faith in your life.

And so anyone who says, no, everything must be empirically proven to me is lying.

You don't live your life, and in any way it would be completely impossible to live your life having everything proven to you before you experience it at all.

So we need to understand that faith and reason are joined together and they are used both in the way of finding God and in the way of for the people who just don't see him.

But faith and reason are used by both of us.

We all use faith.

The other thing that we need to talk about when it comes to the subject of doubt is we need to ask ourselves the question: is doubt a sin?

Is doubt a sin?

Because so many times we we have the tendency to look down on Thomas and say, you know, keep the faith, be strong, don't doubt, don't doubt.

We do we have this strong pressure to keep it going, hold up our faith and not ever have any doubts or deal with any doubts.

The truth is that doubt is a necessary ingredient in our faith.

It's necessary for us to sometimes experience doubt.

It's a part of the things that we go through.

If Thomas really was in sin whenever he was experiencing doubt, why did God give him exactly what he asked for?

Have you ever seen a time in scripture where somebody's like, uh God, I'm gonna commit adultery because I want you to give me 20 camels, and then does it, and God shows up, like, you rang?

I got your 20 camels back here.

That was awesome that you committed adultery.

Felt really good about that.

That was really cool.

Thomas says, I will not believe unless I can touch his hands and put my hand in his side.

And Jesus shows up and goes, Thomas, here you go.

I'm right here.

Come here and touch.

Put your hand in my side.

Jesus validates Thomas's cry to have an experience with God, shows up and allows him to have that experience.

This is one of those times where when we start calling Thomas doubting Thomas and not understanding the faith that it required for him to toil with the feelings that he was feeling, the bravery that that requires.

A requirement of faith is doubt.

It's a requirement of faith.

It's how you get to the level of faith is that it begins with doubt.

You see, we we think many times that the opposite of faith is doubt.

That's not true at all.

The opposite of faith is certainty.

If you had complete certainty, you wouldn't need any faith.

If you were completely certain about everything that you believed, there'd be no need for faith.

The truth is that doubt is an important ingredient that helps bring you to a deeper place of faith.

Certainty, certainty, doubt is not a sin, but I'll tell you, certainty can be.

Certainty can be a sin because what certainty can do in our lives is that certainty can become an idol for us.

When you say, I've never doubted, I have a full certainty, I have total confidence, you are the subject of that sentence, and you have become the own provider of your faith.

Certainty leads to spiritual pride.

Certainty leads to a place where you say, I trust in myself to have perfect faith in all of this.

Certainty in my life might look like me saying, you know, I'm not gonna go to that church anymore.

You know, they did something that I disagree with.

It didn't violate the gospel, it wasn't illegal, immoral, or unethical or anything like that, but it wasn't my preference, so I'm out of here.

I'm not gonna go to that church anymore.

See, in that moment, what I'm saying is, I am absolutely certain that I'm right.

I'm not leaving any room at all in this.

If I have a personal disagreement with them, then I'm done.

It might look like for me in a friendship, saying, I don't agree with the things that they do or the things that they say, and it's not, again, illegal, immoral, or unethical, but I don't agree with them, so therefore I can't associate with them.

That is spiritual pride.

It is an assumption that you are right, that there couldn't be anything wrong in what you believe or what you what you feel.

In that sense, we've got to watch out for certainty in these times.

Certainty can be very difficult.

Certainty is the enemy of growth.

Uncertainty is what allows us to grow.

Uncertainty is what allows us to ask questions.

Certainty is is responsible for causing war and death and racism.

A certainty that I'm right and must fight for that.

A certainty that I'm better than others and must treat others worse because of that.

See, certainty can lead us down a path that is so dangerous, so difficult.

Certainty can cause so many problems.

The more we admit that we don't know something, the more opportunities we have to grow.

The more we admit that we don't know something, we have so many opportunities that open it up to us to grow.

When I was a kid, I thought lots of crazy things, and I was certain about all of them.

I thought that if you sneezed and your eyes were opened, your eyes would just pop out and fall out of your head.

I genuinely believe that.

I did.

I thought that if you looked cross-eyed, your eyes would stay that way.

I was scared to death.

If someone said you got something on your nose, I wouldn't even look.

I'd be like, I'm not looking.

I don't want to be cross-eyed forever.

I thought you could dig the China, and one time for real, I thought I almost made it.

I thought I was almost there.

I was certain about these things as a kid, but I grew, I grew up.

I thought you had to have a I thought that Washington, DC was actually Washington, BC, and I thought you had to have a time machine to get there.

I thought, I'm telling you, I thought ridiculous things, and I was certain of it.

I thought there was literally a swimming pool in the car whenever someone referenced going carpooling.

I really thought that.

I genuinely thought that as a kid.

And then then when I got to be a teenager, it got worse.

I thought nickelback was a good band.

I genuinely thought that at one point.

I want you to I want you to contrast for just a minute here, uh uh contrast the Pharisees versus the the disciples.

For just a moment.

The Pharisees were completely certain in their faith.

The Pharisees had an innumerable amount of faith in what they believed in.

They had so much dedication.

The Pharisees knew by memory the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch.

They knew it by memory.

And yet Jesus said, your whitewashed tombs full of dead, dry bones.

But they knew this with certainty.

They knew these things and understood this.

So contrast that to the disciples who bumbled their way through their faith the entire time that they walked with Jesus.

The entire time they struggled through this, struggled through believing and non-believing and back and forth and the patience that Jesus had for them.

But I want you to realize when you contrast the Pharisees and the disciples, the people who were closest to God were the disciples.

The people who walked with him daily were the ones who struggled the most.

And so we need to, I'll just leave you with this when we talk about doubt, and then we'll move on to the next thing is that in the Bible, in the book of Jude, in uh chapter 1, verse 22, it says, Christians, be merciful to those who doubt.

Be merciful to those who doubt.

Don't cast judgment on them.

Doubting is a part of our faith.

Everyone goes through it.

None of us just got to faith out of nowhere.

None of us just resolved that we would do that.

We have struggled through these times.

In fact, uh it was just on the video announcements, but in on May 31st, I've invited my friend Daniel Wrangle to come to the church here at the South Lake campus.

All the campuses are welcome.

Just load up in the truck, come on over to South Lake.

And uh, but my friend Daniel Wrangle is gonna be here.

We're gonna do a night of apologetics here.

And if you want to know how to better speak to someone who is dealing with doubt, or if you yourself are dealing with doubt, it's gonna be an amazing night.

So May 31st, please join us for that.

The second characteristic that I want us to look at with Thomas that he went through is desire.

And I want we've already read this, but I just want us to go back and look at John chapter 20, verse 24.

John 20:24

It says, One of the twelve disciples, Thomas, nicknamed twin, was not with the others when Jesus came.

And they told him, We have seen the Lord.

But he replied, I won't believe it unless I see the nails in his hands and put my fingers into them and place my hand into the wound in his side.

What I believe about this is that when you look at this, what Thomas's declaration was, he was not saying, I don't believe there is a God.

What he was really saying is, I so desperately want to see him and touch him myself that I'll do anything to do that.

What I want us to see and to understand is Thomas's overwhelming desire to have an experience with Christ.

That he had an overwhelming experience for it to be real to him.

Not to be operating off of borrowed faith, not to be able to just take others' word for it and let the disciples tell him what to believe and say, fine, I'll just accept it.

There was a longing in him that he had to have a very real experience with Jesus Christ, and he acknowledged it and he spoke it.

He said, I want this.

This is what I desire to experience this.

Uh I'm uh I'll admit to you, my faith growing up in a Christian home, my faith in God uh too closely resembled what a child has faith in Santa Claus.

If you think about the way that a child's belief in Santa Claus works, is that the their parents tell them, hey, there is a Santa Claus.

And so they believe this, and then their friends confirm it, and people around them go, yes, there is a Santa Claus.

And then there's evidence to prove it.

They wake up and there are gifts there, the cookies are eaten, the milk has been drunk, and and so you say, Okay, yes, I I've I've heard it for myself, I've I've heard it from others, and I've seen the evidence, and so therefore I believe, and I operated on this belief in my Christian walk for far too long, not really ever desperately desiring to have my own personal experience with Christ.

And so I wanted to inherit my faith from my parents or inherit my belief in God from somebody else, and I wanted to be able to just skate in on their faith and their belief.

But what I really needed was a time where I threw up my hands and said, God, I'm gonna need you to show up for real for me.

I'm gonna need to have a real encounter with you.

Maybe you've been operating on borrowed faith.

Maybe you come to church because most of all you get surrounded by people who believe something that is very difficult for you to believe.

And you go, if I could just have a little bit of theirs, if I could just grab a little bit of theirs, let me tell you something.

Don't look side to side anymore, look straight up.

Go, God, I need to have a very real experience with you.

And if you'll profess that with your mouth, I fully believe that He will show up in your life.

That you will have a profound and deep and real encounter with Christ.

The third characteristic that we see in Thomas that we need to notice is the declaration.

You see, Thomas was able to make a declaration and then to go out and to minister his faith to others.

And what changed this for Thomas, what changed it was the resurrection.

He had this experience with Christ, and he was able then to go out and to then to then give account for his experience.

In essence, to tell his testimony to those around him.

He was able to preach the gospel to those around him.

But what changed it was the resurrection.

Uh, as I was remembering Tim Keller's book and going back to this, I stumbled upon a YouTube video with him, and he was doing a talk somewhere, and there was a question and answer time at the end of his talk, and this man stood up and for the question and answer time, and he said, uh he was talking to Tim Keller, but he said, I have an announcement to make.

He said, I'm God.

And the reason that you'll know I'm God is because I say I'm God.

And uh and you didn't, you you don't know this, but but I can do pretty awesome stuff, but you'll never you'll never really be able to see me or see those things, but you just need to understand that because I say I'm God, and uh my friend over there, he'll he'll attest to you that I'm really God, then you need to believe that I'm God, and you need to bow down and worship me and give me your money.

And and and and how in the world, if you can't believe that I'm God, how could you take Jesus' word for it just because he stood up one day and said, I'm God?

And so I was sitting there watching in anticipation, how is he gonna respond to this?

And uh it was so brilliant.

Tim Keller said, uh, I don't have time to give you a very full answer to your question.

And so he said, instead, I'll give you a pretty snarky answer to your question.

He said, Uh, if you walk around with thousands of witnesses watching you heal people, and then you say, I'm going to die, this is how I'm going to die, I'm going to stay dead for three days, and then I'm going to rise again, and then you actually do it, and thousands of people see you after that, 500 at one time.

He said, Then I will bow down and worship you.

You see, the truth is, what changes our faith is the resurrection.

You see, uh, it would take a huge leap of faith for you to believe that the resurrection never really happened whenever you look at it and say, the gospel was preached in the very same town that Jesus died and rose again.

The Romans, the Jews, everyone agreed that the tomb was empty.

Jesus appeared to many.

It would take a huge leap of faith to say that nothing ever happened whenever you look at this and realize that thousands of Jews converted and said, Yes, I believe that that man, Jesus, really was God, which is completely opposed to their faith.

That the gospel then spread all over the world.

Christianity, I don't know if you know this or not, is still growing throughout the universe.

It is still growing and expanding.

It still lives on today.

If you really believe that that movement started because some people made up something about a resurrection, that is a huge leap of faith.

Because the movement of the gospel, the movement of Jesus Christ has been truly profound.

It has been unlike anything that human history has ever seen.

The momentum behind this, the force that has caused so many people all over all the world, Muslims to say, I'm converting because I saw Jesus show up in my dreams.

The movement of this has been so powerful from the moment that Jesus resurrected.

It would take a huge leap of faith to believe, well, nothing really happened that day.

Just a few people started a rumor, and then it's this large today.

See, the truth is the resurrection really does change things.

The resurrection changes things for us.

The gospel of the resurrection was preached in that very same town.

It would have been disproved within seconds or minutes or hours if it was not true.

But that gospel was preached in that very same town and then went out from there.

So, what happened to Thomas?

Thomas went out from there and he preached all over the world.

Many people believe he was responsible for starting the church in India, and he did so many profound things from that moment.

He went out of that place and led so many people to the Lord because of an experience that he had with Christ.

See, I want you to think about this.

Thomas said, I want to put my hand in his side.

And that is the side of Jesus where the spear went in and pierced his heart.

He said, I want to put my hand right there, and if I can do that, then I'll believe.

And Thomas did that.

He got to place his hand there in the spot where the spear confirmed Jesus' death.

And then he went out from there and he preached the gospel all over the world.

And one day he was preaching the gospel and he was martyred for his faith.

And the way that he was killed is that he took a spear to the chest.

See, Thomas was able to be right there in that moment and experience Jesus Christ for himself.

So much so that he went out and he preached the gospel, not fearing death, and then dying in a way I can only imagine him looking down at that spear and being so grateful that he had the courage to say, Jesus, I want to touch you with a spear inserted into your body.

Looking down at that spear and saying, I'm so proud of my life.

Because I toiled with my faith and my doubt.

I asked the difficult questions.

I had a very real experience with Christ, and I'm honored to die in a similar way.

That's the effect that the crucifixion and resurrection has on us.

St.

John Chrysostom wrote this about Thomas.

He said, Thomas, being once weaker in faith than the other apostles, toiled through the grace of God more bravely, more zealously, and more tirelessly than them all, so that he went preaching over nearly all the earth, not fearing to proclaim the word of God to savage nations.

I don't know what you're going through or what you're experiencing, but I know many times I found myself in a place where it's really difficult for me to go out proclaiming my faith in the world.

And one day I realized I needed not to be able to go out and tell people about someone else's experience with Christ.

I needed to go out and tell them about my own experience with Christ.

And I decided bravely to go in and toil with my faith, to wrestle with God and to have a very real and profound encounter with Him.

In just a moment, we're going to have a moment of prayer here at the altar.

And I want to encourage you, this moment of prayer is for everyone.

No matter what your need is in your life, we want to pray with you.

But especially if you need to toil with your faith, we want to pray with you.

Let somebody agree with you in prayer.

Let somebody walk you through this time.

And as I pray in just a moment, I want to pray especially over those who either need to have a time of wrestling with their faith or are in a time of wrestling with their faith.

And if that's you right now, if you will, wherever you are at any campus, just discreetly, I just want you to rest your palms out in a receiving position.

If you need to toil through your faith a little bit more, you it's fine.

Maybe you've been a Christian for many years, but you're saying, God, I need a very real experience with you.

Maybe you've forgotten or lost touch of the time that you had a profound encounter with God, and you say, God, I need you to show up.

I've been surfing in on someone else's faith.

God, I need you to be here.

If you'll just hold your palms out, I want to pray for you right now.

And then after we pray, we're gonna have a moment of prayer at the altar.

And what I say to you, for those of you who are toiling through your faith right now, this is what I say to you: exactly what Jesus said when he entered that room.

Peace be with you.

Peace be with you.

It's okay, no condemnation.

God's not against you, he's for you.

He's with you.

He's gonna walk you through this time.

He's gonna be there for you.

Peace be with you.

Father, right now I pray for all of us, Lord.

All of us who are walking through our faith with you, God, all of us who are learning to walk in stride with you, Lord.

I pray that you would be with us, that you would lead us, that you would guide us, that you would comfort us.

And Lord, especially for those who need an encounter with you, God, we know that you answer our prayers just like you answered Thomas's.

That you will be there for us.

God, that you will show up in a mighty and powerful way.

God, we say today we need a profound experience with you.

And God, then let us go out and profess our faith to the world.

Let us be a body that goes out and ministers to everyone that we meet.

God, let us proudly go out and say that you are God.

And we can say that boldly because we had a we had an encounter with you, Lord, that we experienced you.

And so, God, for those who need an experience with you, I pray that you would be on them, that your presence would be there, Lord, and that they would experience you today.

I pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.