The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E08 - Thomas

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

If you have doubts about your faith, you’re in good company. Thomas, one of the twelve disciples, struggled to believe in the resurrected Christ. But just like Thomas, we can pick up our questions and follow after Jesus. Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” — John 20:29

Hey church family, welcome to Devo Time. If you got your Bibles, we're going to be in John chapter 20. I figured what I would do this week. There's two words that I've never heard so much before in my life as I have in the past week. Those words are quarantined and shelter in place. I guess shelter in place is three words. But it led me to begin to think about there were times in the scriptures where some of the disciples, or maybe even Jesus himself, but definitely the disciples and followers of Christ, they were, in essence, quarantined. They couldn't go outside. They were kind of stuck in place. And I think sometimes we can begin to think that if the people of God are stuck, then the word of God is stuck. But that is not the case whatsoever. And so this week,

we're going to look at some places in the New Testament where the disciples were quarantined or we're sheltering in place. And so the first one is John chapter 20. In John chapter 20, just to give you a little context before we get to where we're going to start in verse 19, Jesus has been crucified, dead buried, resurrected on the third day, on the first day of the week, that's Sunday. Now, the couple of the women were the first ones to come to the tomb. and so honestly since the empty tomb until today, some of the best evangelists have always been the women of the church. And so they go and they see Jesus,

they see that he's been resurrected, and they come back and they tell the disciples, and the disciples run, and they go check it out. And then after they see that the tomb is empty, they go back to this upper room and they lock the doors and they hide. And the reason that the disciples are hiding, and essentially they're quarantined, it's because they feared for their life.

I mean, think about this. If the Roman government, by push of the religious Israelites, if they just tried and crucified your leader, then you would think, well, surely they're coming for us next. And so the disciples are hidden together in this room under locked door, not going outside and sheltering in place, and this is what happens. It says, on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews,

Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, peace be with you. Church, I think some of us just need to hear that right now. I know some of you can't go to work right now or you're working remotely. A lot of us are trying to figure out what it means to be homeschooled parents in our. Our kids, man, bless you, real teachers. Bless you, because we are trying to figure out what it is like to be in a house with all of us, kind of all the time. And just know this.

There's no locked door that can keep the presence of Jesus out. That Jesus walks through this locked door and he looks at these disciples. And when Jesus walks in the room, peace walks in with him. You get this? When the presence of God enters into a. space, then peace comes into that place. A question that I would ask you is this, if you are a Christ follower, when you walk into the room, does peace walk in with you? Jesus looks at his disciples and he says, peace be with you. Peace is not found in our present circumstances.

Peace is found in the person of Jesus Christ. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side, and when he's showing them as the scars on his hands and in his side. And then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. And Jesus said to them again, peace be with you. As the father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them. And he said, received the Holy Spirit. Now think about this.

Jesus walks into the room. He shows them his nail-pierced hands and his side. and then he blows him. I mean, think about it. What would you do with the resurrected Jesus showed up in the locked room? You're kind of freaking out and then he just blows in your face.

I mean, especially right now, you'd be like, come on, man, you don't let anybody blow in your face right now. What is he doing? Well, he said these words, receive the Holy Spirit. Now, we know that the Holy Spirit is going to fall on all believers in Acts chapter 2.

I think what's happening right here is if you'll remember, I talk about this kind of a lot, If you remember all the way back in the book of Genesis, when God, God says, let us create mankind in our own image and likeness, and that God speaks everything into existence. And then, and he says it's good, it's good, it's good. And then he creates mankind. He creates the very first man named Adam.

It's from the Hebrew word Adam. Adom means dirt or soil. And the Bible says that he gathers together the dust of the earth and he creates Adam, but he is not yet a living being is what it says. He's just the shell of a man. And then the Bible says that God breathes the ruah of life into the nostrils of Adam. The Bible wants us to know that God is face to face

with the very first man and he breath. Ru'a. Ru'a means breath. Ru'a means spirit or ruah means wind. All the same thing for that one one person. verse, that one word, Ruach. And Adam, the very first man, opens his eyes and he is in a face-to-face relationship with God, just as God intended. And then, as we studied last week, Adam and Eve reject God, and that relationship is broken. But God said that he was going to send a deliverer. He was

going to send one, and that enemy would bruise his heel, but the one that he sent was going to crush his head. And on the cross, when Jesus says, it is finished, he has made a way for you and I to be reconnected back to that face-to-face relationship with a perfect and holy God. And the way he did this is at the cross, our sins were forgiven and the perfect righteousness of Christ was counted unto us, accredited to our account. So now you and I, as sinners, the sin is washed away and we are counted as saints and how we once again can be face to face with our heavenly father just like we were intended and created to be like they were in the garden. So maybe what Jesus is doing when he walks into that quarantine room and he says, look, it is by my scars that your sin is forgiven.

It is because of my bloodshed for you that you can have peace, not just peaceful circumstances and not just a peaceful, easy feeling, but you could have shalom, wholeness being right with God. And then in that, what if Jesus breathes into the face of his followers because he is starting essentially a new creation? That what God created in Adam, Adam failed in. And so then Jesus, the greater Adam, comes and conquer sin and conquers death. And now the kingdom of heaven is starting over. And he breathes life into the believers.

And so the Bible says, it, Jesus, he breathed on them, and he said to them, received the Holy Spirit. He goes on to say, and if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. Now Thomas, one of the 12, called the twin, he was not with them when Jesus came. And so the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord, but he said to them, unless I see in his 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. You see, in these crazy days where what has been normal for the last three years, although the three years following Jesus weren't normal, they saw supernatural things all the time.

Jesus walking on water, dead people coming back to life, wind and waves being calmed. But what was normal is that they got to see Jesus, the son of God, in the flesh. And then when Thomas shows up, the other disciples are like, bro, you missed it. He was here. The resurrected Jesus, the door was locked, and then Jesus just walked in somehow,

and he was here, and he breathed on us, blew in our face, and he talked to us. And then Thomas is like, I mean, I don't know about that. I mean, I'm not calling you a liar, but unless I see it, I don't know that I can believe. and I think there's some of us that may be kind of like Thomas right now

like you believe in Jesus but you're scared or you believe in Jesus but you want to know why why is this happening you believe in Jesus you just are hoping like crazy nothing happens to your family and so kind of like the man in Mark chapter 9 you believe but you've got some unbelief

well I've got some really good news for you that if you've got some doubts and you've got some unanswered questions, you can make a really great disciple. The reason I say that is see the disciples. Thomas legitimately just says, hey, listen, I want to believe him, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around what you are telling me is happening right now while we are being quarantined. And then look how Jesus responds. It says, eight days later. By the way, as soon as these words come out of Thomas's mouth, Jesus does not immediately show up. For whatever reason, Jesus waits for eight days. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but it seems to me in my own life that God's

timing and my timing just are not the same. And God is always on time. He's never late, but he's rarely early. And God just seems to do things in his own time. And for whatever reason, Jesus decides to wait eight days to do anything about this request. But eight days later, his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them, although the doors were locked again, they're sheltering in place. Jesus came and stood among them and said, here's what he says again, peace be with you. Again, peace is found in the presence and person of Jesus.

And then he said to Thomas, put your finger. hear here and see my hands, put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. You see, I believe when we have genuine questions for the Lord, then we need to bring those things to him. When we have genuine places where we want to believe, but we need him to help us overcome our unbelief, notice that Jesus meets Thomas exactly where he is, and this may be, it's equally as important. But Thomas is still following along with the disciples. That just because Thomas had unanswered questions,

and just because Thomas felt like there was a whole bunch of stuff that he couldn't wrap his mind around, Thomas continued to be a follower of Jesus with the disciples that he was with. So what do you do when you have questions and what do you do and you have when you have unanswered questions and what do you do when you have doubts like doubting Thomas? You pick them up and you follow after Jesus.

You pick them up and you follow after Jesus. And so Jesus says to Thomas, look Thomas, here's all the evidence. He says, do not disbelieve, but believe. And Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God. You see, this is the normative response when we see Jesus for who he really is. The Christ, the Messiah. the Son of the living God, the lamb that was slain for the forgiveness of our sin. When we get to the place, when God reveals himself to us, and we know that Jesus died on the

cross and was resurrected on the third day, the natural normative response of the human heart is to say this, my Lord and my God. Ultimately, that's surrender to Jesus. And then Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. Church, he's talking about us. I've never seen the physical resurrection of Jesus, but I believe you've never seen the physical resurrection of Jesus, and yet you believe.

So blessed are you when you place your trust, not in your temporary circumstances, but blessed are you, church family, when you place your trust in the resurrected Jesus. Over the last several weeks, and I'm sure over the next several days, be all kinds of information coming at us and there will be all kinds of uncertainty for sure. And when you are tempted to put your trust and to put your hope and to put your faith in that

uncertainty, let me remind you, blessed are you when you take your faith, when you take your trust and you put it in the resurrected Jesus Christ, whether you're going to work or whether you're doing everything you know how to do at home online, the presence of Jesus is with you. And wherever the presence of Jesus is, may there be peace with you. Let's pray. My Father in heaven, Lord, Lord, we know that you were sovereign. You were in control of all things. And God, we thank you for this time when you have completely disrupted our normal rhythms of life. May it be a reminder that above all things we need you. God, may you remind us of the gospel, the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus.

God, may you breathe fresh upon your church that we would be filled with your Holy Spirit. And as your spirit fills us, may be, may we be filled with peace because we know you. We pray it in Jesus' name.