John chapter 20, we'll be starting in verse 24. And I joked earlier that when we're gone on vacation next week, you'll miss Jude and Grace, my son and daughter, more than me. But I've got to tell you that Grace is starting to talk a little bit, you know, just the little bits, and I've got to call it. She has officially said mama first, and then second is bubba or brubbra or something along those lines, and she lights up when Jude comes in the room. And so I'm number three in the household. Just like... in my parents' hearts when we bring the kids to see them. No, I'm just teasing. They wouldn't believe that when I said it. But it's incredible as we celebrate Father's Day to kind of see the next generation. My dad sent me a picture, a picture we have of my grandfather and my dad and me and my son Jude when he was really little. It's just wonderful to recognize what God's given us in fathers. the heritage that is passed down from generation to generation, and how we're called to be men, not just men who exist, but men who point to Christ in every way that we're called to do that. And so the human race is known for its ability for reason and creativity. Reason and creativity. And that's part of what separates us from the rest of creation. And so a dog is not concerned about what it means to be a dog. It's concerned about a lot of things, but it's not concerned about the existential questions of life. But yet a human cannot help but ask the question, why do I exist? And now the fact that we have the ability to reason doesn't mean that we use it, does it? We seem to choose the illogical or the harmful despite knowing good will that it's not good for us. Why do we pick fights we can't win? Why do I keep saying dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, and it just comes back bruh, bruh. So it is what it is. But why do we eat the food that doesn't nourish us? We are given evidence, but we ignore it anyway. And that evidence is what we're gonna look at this morning. We are reasoned and we're creative. in avoiding the evidence. So Romans 1 says that the truth about God is seen plainly in creation. God's existence is not up for debate. It can be denied, but it's not up for debate. More generally, biblical revelation doesn't read like fiction. As you read the Bible, it reads like the historical narrative it is. because it takes care to note historical geography, places that can be traced back. It takes note to mark dates and times and people, people who can give a testimony to what they experienced in their time, in their place in history. And so the fact that it's ancient means that not everything that has been lost to time can be recovered. We recognize that. But I hope we see in John's gospel is the ring of authenticity, which God uses so that we might believe. And so the evidence God provides can lead us out of tragedy and into triumphant eternal life. And that's what I want to speak to this morning. The evidence God provides can lead us out of tragedy and into triumphant eternal life. Let's pray this morning. Father, we thank you for your word. We ask that you would work in our hearts, that we would be ready to receive spiritual nourishment, that we would be ready to receive the truth of your word. Let it take root in our hearts and grow and grow until we see you for the greatness and the glorious God that you are. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So let's first look at, we talked about a few weeks ago, the tragedy to triumph that happened when Mary Magdalene saw Jesus. And now we're gonna get to part two where we see Thomas have a similar, but John uses it in a different way. And so let's see how Thomas goes from tragedy to triumph, but we're gonna start with the tragedy, the tragedy of death. So verses 24 and 25 say this. Now Thomas, one of the 12, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord. But he said to them, 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. So not many disciples get attention in the Gospels. Thomas, however, gets three times the spotlight here in John's gospel. In John chapter 11, he is willing to follow Jesus back into Judea, which is where Jesus had performed miracles and been chased out. I mean, it was a dangerous place to go. And so Thomas convinces the other disciples and says, let us also go that we may die with him. That's a bold declaration of love and commitment to Jesus. And in John chapter 14, when Jesus says that he is going away, he's going to heaven, he's going to prepare their place for him, Thomas asked, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? He wants to go with Jesus yet again. He wants to go to where it's dangerous. He thinks that the next place might be dangerous too. The next place might be a place, but he has to go with Jesus. Follow him wherever it leads. And so this is the character we see in Thomas, a commitment, a love for Jesus that he'd even try to follow him beyond the grave. And so after Jesus's death, Thomas knows that he can't follow. The resurrection predictions that Jesus made have not yet been understood by the disciples. So when Jesus is arrested and crucified, he may have been so lost in despair that he didn't want to join the disciples on that Sunday night. It was too fresh. The wound was too deep that gathering with the people he'd been with for the last three years would remind him of Jesus. He may not have just wanted to be there. And notice that the disciples who see Jesus on the night of his resurrection, They have already given to Thomas a testimony so that he can come out of this funk and out of the despair of death of Jesus. And they tell him, we have seen the Lord. And so Thomas's despair was one focused on death, much like Mary Magdalene. Jesus was gone beyond their reach and God's anointed one had failed. I think we may fail to understand all the messianic hope that Jesus did fulfill, but they were sitting in the disappointment that he had failed. They thought he talked about how he was gonna bring his kingdom. Where was his kingdom now that he's in the grave? So I can imagine that Thomas believed that Rome had won, the corrupt courts had won, that demons and evil had won the day because his Messiah, his Lord, was in the grave. So why should he hold out hope? Even when he gets these testimonies that he's still alive, he's saying, no, I can't give into hope because I love him too much. So this is the deep tragedy of sin. The deep tragedy of death is that even in the face of loving testimony, of friends that tell us that life is possible, We will still cling to death to unbelief. Sin blinds us to unbelief and unrepentance. If you have friends and family, which I know many of you do, that cling to unbelief, it's easy to be frustrated at their sin. It's easy to be frustrated at their rebellion. because we see so clearly that Jesus is risen from the dead. The testimony is so steadfast. How could you not repent and believe? But we must not be frustrated with them, friends, because we must love them because they are dead. We are dead in our trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2 says, and without divine intervention, it will stay that way. Yet what do the disciples do who saw Jesus? They testify to what they've seen. They testify to what they have touched. And Thomas' response makes sense to me. I want the same proof. You say you saw his hands, his side, I want the same. Unless I see his hands, place my hands physically in his side, I will never believe. And we're prone to ultimatums, aren't we? Something isn't going our way, and we throw down the gauntlet. This is my standard for obedience. I don't care about the testimony. I'm going to give another standard, my own standard, rather than what's offered to me. Unbelievers do this, but so do believers. Thomas was wrong to reject the testimony of his friends. When we are starting into the waters of opinion and putting ourselves above the authority of scripture, the authority of steadfast testimony. Because we are willing to say, we must be willing to say, when we encounter the testimony of scripture, that I feel this way. And I mean, I think when I encounter a non-believer and they're saying, I just, and I remember a specific conversation I had in high school with a Muslim friend of mine. And she said, I wish I could believe like you do. But I just don't believe. And I remember being frustrated in that moment, unaware of how to proceed. But I think we have to understand that when you have this feeling that you cannot or will not believe, we tell them, go to Scripture. Go to the testimony. Because sin blinds us, and when You have people that you trust, or you have the church that is intended to be the testimony to the world, the light on a hill, the salt to the earth. We are intended to give steadfast testimony to the blind and to the dead. And Christ followers, when you're being encountered by other believers that are wanting to tell you, look, you're blind to this sin that's in your life, You're blind to this unbelief that's happening. You're failing to live out the testimony that you've given at first. When you say, I have another standard, when you say that you have some other way that you feel, and that's more important, you're failing to heed the authority of scripture. And brothers and sisters, if you're a Christian, you're not alone. You're not alone. The pastors, And the church itself, the brothers and sisters in Christ, when they're telling you something, look, the Lord is risen. Look, the Lord has called you to faithfulness. Come in faithfulness. We have to understand that the Lord has sent pastors, brothers and sisters in Christ to point us to the truth. And we should not ignore their testimony. Because we cannot let the effects of sin blind us and keep us in tragedy. in the effects of sin and disappointment when the God of hope offers us a living and loving testimony. So here's where the story shifts. From tragedy to triumph, into the triumph of resurrection. So let's look at verses 26 and 27. It says, eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. And when it says eight days later, we've progressed in the story and The time that Jesus had appeared before, the doors were locked. They were huddled, thinking that they could have been arrested by the temple police, just like Jesus was. And where are they again? Back under lock and key, fearful of what might come. But now Thomas is with them. And although the disciples are fearful, I know that John is trying to speak to more than their fear when he says the doors are locked. because he's showing us a bit about how the resurrected body of Jesus is. He doesn't walk in, he doesn't knock, he simply came and appeared and he did this before them and stood with them and offered them peace like he did last week. And notice how quickly he goes from his offer of peace to Thomas. He says, and then he speaks to Thomas and he says, look, this is why I came. He is not trying to just do another run. This is not a repeat process. He's trying to come specifically to Thomas because what did Thomas say he wanted? He needed to believe. He is coming to Thomas to show him that he has not forgotten him and he wishes help to help him believe. And these resurrection appearances to the apostles are so important. They're so important. Do you know what makes an apostle different than every other believer? Every other disciple of Jesus that was in that day or will be, it's not about the apostles' ability to write, although many of them wrote. It's not about their preaching, and many of them preached. It's not about their knowledge or their training, although they had some and they had the best. being taught from Jesus. But it's their testimony of seeing the resurrected Jesus, of this moment. These moments right here between his resurrection and ascension, the apostles see the resurrected Jesus and they can give a steadfast testimony that he's alive. Because Paul becomes an apostle later on. on the road to Damascus, he became an apostle because he saw Jesus in his resurrected body in Acts chapter 9. It's an incredible story. I encourage you to read it. The requirements to be an apostle are again laid out in Acts chapter 1. As the apostles, after Jesus' ascension, the apostles gather and they say, look, let's look at the scriptures. They quote from Psalm 109 and say, let another take his office. And so they know that they're called to replace Judas, who had betrayed them, to make it a full 12 apostles. So in verse 21, out of 120 people that were gathered, they list the requirements. There must be a man that's accompanied them during Jesus's ministry on earth, so they could testify to his teaching. And from the very beginning, they wanted someone that was with them, not just on the last days, but in the beginning, early days. And then they wanted him with them when he was taken up, when he was ascended. They could speak to the fullness of his ministry. But then he says in verse 21, one of the men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. It's the witness to the resurrection that's the key point of apostleship. The apostles are the official God-selected witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus. It's upon their testimony that God builds his church. And this is why we cannot have more apostles today, because they must have been a witness to the resurrected Jesus. So here's where we get back to Thomas, who is told by Jesus to put your finger here, see my hands, put out your hand and place it in my side. And Thomas is given the exact proof that he asked for. It doesn't change that he should have believed his brothers. He should have believed the other apostles in their testimony. But it does mean that God, in his love and his mercy and his care for you and for me, provided for Thomas the evidence he requested. And Jesus follows this immediately with the imperative command. A command, not just a suggestion, but a command to not disbelieve, but believe. And it's on the proof of his resurrected body that Jesus calls Thomas out of the tragedy of death and into triumph, from death to resurrection life. And I'm convinced that in our day, in our day when there's a lot of hope lost, a lot of despair about what life is about, there's an increase in suicides and despair and mental illness in America, which I believe has a lot less to do with the physical problems but has much more to do with the spiritual roots that run all the way back to Adam. It's in our sin nature. We despair of life and we need the author of life to show us the hope that we are intended to have in this life. Many today do not believe in a soul or in the God who created it. Many do not have hope that there is life beyond the grave or a God who has made us for eternity. I think it's C.S. Lewis that says that eternity is written on our hearts. Wouldn't it make sense that we have a longing for the life beyond? When we suppress that longing, when we are told time and time again by the world that there is nothing beyond the grave, well then every day that you could die becomes a fearful prospect. Every day that you go without a meaningful point of like, well, I accomplished this today, man, wouldn't you just sit in despair because you know that, man, one day all that I've done will amount to nothing anyway. Because our sin has tilted the world out of control and left so many without despair and hope, and our rebellion, as it continues, just pushes the angle to continue off kilter. Yet here, in the testimony of Thomas, in the command of Jesus, in his triumphant appearance as a resurrection, It's a great command to believe in Him and the divine Lord that He is. That life beyond the grave is not just possible, but it is inevitable. And resurrection into life can be ours. Do not disbelieve, brothers and sisters. Hear Jesus' words, that He was raised from the dead physically, Do not disbelieve this truth. Because this is where the encounter hits its climax. As Thomas's tragic doubt has turned into the triumph of the resurrection and the triumph of belief. Let's look at verses 28 and 29. Thomas answered him. Jesus commands to do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answers him, my Lord and my God, Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Thomas' belief that was given by God begins in his heart and it bursts out of his mouth as one of the greatest and highest praises of Jesus in the Bible. This is the climax of the book of John. My Lord and my God, His two titles equally claimed with ownership. That it's not just, you are a Lord and a God, you are my Lord, my God. His Lord, His master is the one who owns and rules over Him. His God, His supreme creator and sustainer of His life. The one who is deserving of all glory and honor as He conquers death and the grave. This is the response deserved by Jesus when he comes to you and to me. All throughout Jesus' ministry, he claims and affirms and performs miracles to prove he is the Messiah and God in the flesh. Yet they reject and fail to believe his claims. So Thomas does hear what the Jewish people will not. He speaks the highest messianic and divine titles of God to Jesus. And so when we encounter Jesus and his beauty, his glory, his wonderful cross, he must become your Lord and your God. He's the one you serve and the one you worship. Thomas' great love for Jesus had been clouded by grief, but the cloud break of belief gives him the clarity to speak and proclaim that Jesus is both my Lord and my God. And Jesus receives this worship. And he offers Thomas a response. And it's rendered here as a rhetorical question, but rhetorical questions are simply a statement, a statement of truth, and the answer is implied in the statement. Thomas, have you believed because you have sent me? And he's showing that his belief comes out of seeing Jesus, and he wants to contrast this with what is coming after. For every believer that will come after, blessed are those who have not seen. and yet have believed. The late first and second century Christians that John writes to would have never seen the resurrected Christ, but many would have known Thomas. Many would have known his disciples that he made. John writes them now. He writes the words of Thomas now so that everyone who reads them would have the warm joy that just trickles down your spine when Jesus speaks of us. Blessed are we. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. And what does it mean to be blessed? A blessing is a pronouncement that we are accepted by God. Everyone who ever asks the question of, will you marry me? doesn't want the awkward silence that could come when they wouldn't have secured the answer beforehand. That's my suggestion, men. Do not go into that question without confidence that the answer will be a yes, because you've already discussed the plans, maybe even the date of the wedding, because you're planning your life together. And so when you ask, you're not sitting in awkward silence. You get the warm joy that this is the moment you'll remember for the rest of your lives. And then when we read this, we remember the time that we believed. And today we remember and we rejoice that we believe today, not because we have seen, and we're blessed because we haven't. We receive a blessing that Thomas never had since he sees and believes instead of believing in the testimony of his friends. Mary saw and believed, and it's on their testimonies together that we are given the blessing through the Holy Spirit that we're given ears to hear and a voice to respond through the Holy Spirit and be blessed as we believe without seeing. Peter writes about this same blessing as given to non-eyewitnesses. This is what we read earlier in 1 Peter 1, verses eight and nine. And 1 Peter is written to Christians that are under persecution, that are scattered far away from Jerusalem, maybe even far away from the apostles where they once heard the message. And Peter wants them to remember the blessing that they have, that although they never saw the resurrected Jesus, they believe in him and have the blessings therefore. 1 Peter 1 8, read it for us again. Though you have not seen him, you love him. I told you earlier, Thomas loved Jesus, and we get to love him as well. Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. We share the love that Thomas had. He walked with Jesus. He saw Jesus die and rise again. He touched his hands and his side. And this belief becomes triumphant with joy that, as Peter says, is inexpressible. And it's silly that a word like inexpressible even exists because it's trying to express inexpressibility. But the blessing is that what wells up inside us as God reveals Himself to us in His Word today, this morning, the words you are reading, that we're understanding, and I hope you are believing, that Christ is raised from the dead. We don't move on from that reality, we sit in it, because death is no more for those in Christ Jesus. It's joyful and glorious, which Peter must use the word inescribable to describe it. It goes beyond what we can express, but because of Jesus, it's not beyond what we can experience. Do you understand that? The joy that we experience is not expressible, but just because we can't express it doesn't mean we don't experience it, and that is the beauty we live in as Christ followers. This experience then produces an outcome. What is that outcome? As Peter says, the salvation of our souls. And that's the outcome we turn next to, the triumph of life. Let's read in verses 30 and 31. Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." John steps out of the story right here to show us something. It's odd because this is understood to be the purpose statement of the book. And the purpose statement of the book is not at the very tail end, although he expresses some purpose at the end, but he puts it right here because he's putting it right next to Thomas' testimony, right next to the blessings that we receive as we believe by reading these words. And so John wants us to know that the key words that we should look at to see the full triumph of the resurrection, the full triumph of the life that we've been given are the word signs, the word written, and the word life. It talks about the signs that we've been given. And we've already talked about belief, and that's in there too. But we cannot miss that John wrote his gospel about the signs that Jesus is the true Lord and God. So for those of you that have been tracking with Craig and now with me, walking through the book of John, The first 12 chapters give us seven signs that John marks out as Jesus's miracles in his ministry, as the signs that the Jews and the people that read this book should see Jesus is the Messiah. He is God. The first sign is that Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding in Cana. The second sign being the healing of the noble man's son. The third sign healing the lame man who could not walk. The fourth sign feeding 5,000 and then as he escapes the crowd, the fifth sign is he walks on water to the boat where the disciples are. The sixth sign is healing the blind man, and the seventh sign is the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Each sign John marks out because Jews ask for signs to authenticate that he's from God. And we understand this because all throughout the Old Testament, Jesus said that prophets will be accompanied with signs, that their prophecies would come true, and so they would test the prophets. And so Jesus knew this would be the case. And so in the midst of the second sign, he says, unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. Jesus knows the heart of the Jews and he knows how hard it is to believe without seeing. But when Jesus finishes all seven signs, he says in John 12, verse 37, though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him. Do you get this? That in the day that Jesus was walking on the earth, walking from town to town, performing miracle after miracle, gathering disciples, teaching, preaching, having authority in how he did it, and there were still unbelievers. They saw and witnessed it, yet they did not believe. My friends, when we stand here today, and look at this testimony, do you realize that we have better evidence than the ones who saw these signs? Do you realize that through the course of human history, we have an incredible wealth of evidence? We have an incredible wealth of church history, of people being transformed by this testimony. We don't stand 2,000 years distance from the time that we needed to be there. We stand exactly the date and time that God has appointed for you to be on the earth and you to hear the testimony of Thomas and the apostles and for you to believe. So don't think that if you had your own standard of what God should offer you as evidence, that even if it was met, that you would believe, because many who saw Jesus's miracles did not. But John tells us that what is written in this book cannot contain all the miraculous and wonderful works of Jesus. But yet he chose these seven signs, just seven, and then eight chapters of the Passion Week so that we may believe. And I know you're noticing, and maybe I should mention it, that it says may believe. The evidence is sufficient for belief. Yet John knows, God knows that not all will believe. We don't just tell people about the miracles of Jesus and expect them to believe. It is the act of the Holy Spirit who shows you the depth of your sin, that shows you that as you're encountering the testimony, that if you reject it, you will be lost and you will be lost to eternal death. And so when you read the testimony and you come away with it saying, I just can't believe, this is why we pray for you. This is why we gather to pray as a church. This is why we pray every Lord's day that the Lord would open the eyes of the blind, open the hearts and transform the heart of stone that you may have this morning into a heart of flesh. And I believe that when you realize that without Christ you are dead, you're really dead, you believe the testimony of the scriptures that the hardness, the fact that it makes no difference on your hard heart may be the moment that God is revealing to you that your hardness of heart will not carry you very far. In fact, it will sink you to the bottom of the grave. The miracles that John provides are the authentic witness of the greater truth that Jesus is what Thomas proclaimed, Lord and God. Yet the Word of God was written so that in believing in this testimony, that God's Word is true, we may have life, eternal life, not just breath in our lungs today, but that we would praise Him forever in eternity. The testimony of the disciples, Thomas, John, Peter, Paul, and the rest, is that their name means nothing, because life is about the name of Christ. We are reading God's word, not so that we can have a triumphant life here on earth, but much deeper and eternal is that we'd have a triumphant eternal life that this life prepares us for. Week after week, I want you to be brought back to the book of John. Understanding the testimony that John gives of Jesus is so that you will hear with crystal clarity that Jesus is both Lord and God. You cannot leave this morning without understanding that John recorded Thomas' words so that you might believe them to be true and have eternal life. So why should you believe and act upon a belief in Jesus? Because he will be your Lord. Philippians says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. That doesn't mean that everyone comes to saving faith. That means that some will bow to him in joy and reverence because their salvation has been secured and they now see the fulfillment of all they've waited for. But it means that some will finally recognize him as Lord, but it will be too late. And so when we understand that Jesus is our Lord here on this earth, before it's too late, it means that our life is not ours anymore. That Jesus becomes your master and your commander, your Lord. He is to whom we surrender control of our lives. And this is the most intolerable idea to our individualistic culture, because we want so desperately to be in control of our lives. When we realize that we have mucked it up, that to be an individual, to be completely separate from everyone else and to God himself, most importantly, we must realize that that will lead us nowhere. And when we do, we find Jesus, our Lord, to be worthy of our lives and able to perfect us as our Lord. And we will want to surrender our life to him. It's not that Christians really want to be trotted on, It's that we really want to be surrendered to Jesus. But He's also to be your God. He is worthy of worship. He is your creator and sustainer. He isn't just our Lord, but everything about Him makes Him worthy to be our Lord. He's not just someone we've picked and said, He's gonna be the Lord. No, He is God. the supreme being and the supreme master of all that is. And he is perfect in every way. And his power, love, justice, and all of his attributes together are glorious beyond compare. So we make him our Lord. And here's I want you to understand. Most of us that come into this room this morning are experiencing one tragedy or another. the loss of a loved one, the trouble in your own mind, your own heart, your own family, your own marriage, and you feel stuck in this tragedy. But no matter the tragedy that you are in, no matter how present it is or how much you say, God, this is the only thing I will accept to believe that you can fix this, No matter the tragedy you're currently in, no matter the tragedy that you may soon be in, that tragedy is no more tragic than eternal death, which is overcome by our resurrected Lord and God. The evidence that God provides can, and if we were to have life, must lead us out of tragedy and into triumphant eternal life. The evidence that he gave to Thomas, he wrote and gives to us so that we might have eternal life. So let us pray to both our Lord and our God to save us from our tragedy of sin and death and give us triumphant eternal life. Father, Lord, Master, God of all creation, may we proclaim the same testimony that Thomas did, that you are our Lord and our God, submitted to you in every way, committed to you in every way, casting off the shackles of our sin and our formal life and our death, and surrender to you in new life, recognizing that to have the testimony of the scriptures is enough. That we would not see and yet believe is a blessing. May we live in that blessing as we are accepted by you through the blood of Jesus Christ. So Father, I pray this morning for the heart of heart. that this sermon was one to be slept through or this sermon was one to be ignored or cast aside. Father, I believe that you are the author of salvation. May your Holy Spirit show them the folly of their ways. May it show them the death that they are headed to as they rebel and continue in rebellion against you. So Father, I ask that you would reveal yourself to us. Because as you loved Thomas and showed him the evidence despite his ignoring earlier testimony, I pray the same would be true of us. That despite the times people have lovingly come and told us repent and believe, despite the times that people have come and told us you need to believe in Jesus, you need to come to church, you need to be a part of the church you've been saved to be a part of. May we no longer languish. May we no longer run. May the heart of stone be turned into a heart of flesh. Father, thank you for your goodness and your evidence that we can believe today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.