The following is a sermon from Grace City Church in Denver, Colorado. Grace City exists to make and mature disciples of Jesus Christ. For more info, visit gracecitydenver.com. John 20, we're gonna start in verse 19. 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. When he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 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 said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. 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 twelve, 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 marks of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. Eight days later, his disciples were again inside 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 fingers here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God, Jesus said to them, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen me and yet have believed. This is the word of the Lord. Have you ever had a falling out with a friend or neighbor, co-worker? And I mean they they sinned against you. Like they really legitimately hurt you deeply and they are not sorry, and you just kind of end up going your separate ways, and you may carry some of that pain of this is unresolved, and then you run into them in public. Ever happened to you? Several years ago, a church member way no longer here, got upset about something, and fired off an email to the entire church, except for the leadership team, and just said, this is what happened, and these certain things, and all this, and this email got back to me. So I called this person, I said, hey, I saw your email. None of these things are true. None of these things were said. And he responded and said, well, it's my truth, and I'm not sorry. And a few weeks after that, I was walking through the soda aisle in King Soopers, cutting through to the butcher counter, and I see this person coming the other way. And I see him a few seconds before he sees me, so I have just enough time to pray something like, Lord, please help. And then he sees me and just freezes. His face turns white, his neck turns bright red. He's carrying two 12 packs of soda. He just turns and stashes them and like bolts off the other way. did not want to engage at all, okay? I want you to put yourself in that person's shoes for just a moment, because this may have been true of you, that you are guilty of hurting someone, of maybe slandering them, lying about them, taking something from them that you can't return or are not willing to return, but you're too stubborn and too proud to simply say, I'm sorry I sinned, I hurt you in this way, will you forgive me? How do you feel when you run into that person? I think you feel probably that shame is what that is, that sense of guilt, but also embarrassment of like, I'm not going to engage because I know where this stands and I know it's my fault really deep down. And if you flip that around, what if you're the one who has been hurt and you see that person. You said this about me. You were very divisive. You were very hurtful. You hurt people that I care about deeply and you're unrepentant. And you see that person and that can almost serve as a trigger point for now we're starting over and I'm reengaged in that sadness, that grief, maybe anger, frustration, Just like an acute pain of, I remember what that felt like. And just even seeing you brings that pain comes rushing back. I'm sharing this because it's the Sunday after Good Friday. Mary has reported to the disciples that someone has opened the tomb and stolen the body of Jesus Christ. Peter and John go running to the tomb. They look inside. And the evidence that they see is not aligning with Mary's initial story, because as you saw last week, the grave clothes are still there. In fact, they're there in a sense that if a body had simply passed through them, that's what it would look like. And they start to surmise some level of belief of like, maybe Jesus is risen like he said. Mary comes back to the tomb as we saw last week, and she sees angels and Jesus himself. Jesus says, go and tell my brothers what you've seen. And she does. She goes and says, Jesus is alive. I met him. And immediately the disciples sprang into action. They began scouring the streets of Jerusalem. Where is our risen savior? This is so exciting. They begin to tell people he's risen just like he said. And of course I'm kidding because verse 19 says, They remained in hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. They didn't react the way that you might think they would. They did not react with joy. They did not react with any sense of mission or purpose for their lives. They were simply terrified. This is reasonable fear. Matthew 28 says the religious council, the one that found Jesus supposedly guilty of blasphemy and all of that, they are now circulating a story that the disciples have come in like seal team six in the middle of the night, and they've stolen the body of Jesus, even though his tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers. And they're like, they're gonna pass off this hoax on the world that Jesus has risen, but the disciples have taken his body. And I think there's a credible sense that the disciples would think we are bracing for some kind of retaliation. Not only are we associated with a crucified Messiah, but now we're being accused of being grave robbers and liars. So big picture as we start the text this week is Christ is risen as he promised. He's alive and if he has not returned to heaven, he's got to be nearby. There's only so fast that he can move. So I always come to the text with this question. Why are the disciples not out sharing the good news that he has risen? Why are they not even looking for him? And the answer in our text is because of the fear of man. Cowardice has silenced and paralyzed all of them. So they've abandoned Jesus. It's the hours of his greatest crisis. Remember, start just rewinding from last supper is over. They take the Passover meal. They go to the garden. Jesus is praying alone. He's like, watch and pray with me that we enter not into temptation. They just keep falling asleep. Judas goes off and betrays him. But then the Roman soldiers show up and they all abandon him. Peter follows at a distance, but just close enough to see Jesus and deny him three times. And then only one of them, John, according to what we know in the Gospels, even bothers to go to the cross to associate with him in the hours of crucifixion. Now they're all sitting home behind a barricade, consumed with fear. And by the way, again, let me just take a step away from the text. If you're making up a new religion and you're like the guys, this is not the kind of stuff you say. You don't admit. None of us believed it. We were all cowards. We abandoned him. You don't say that. The reason the disciples are communicating, yeah, we were scared. Yeah, we lost faith. Yeah, we abandoned him. Yeah, we should have been there. No, we weren't. It's because this is what actually happened. And it lends tremendous credibility to the rest of the story that they're simply telling things as they happened with all of their brokenness and fear. Well, this is what's going down. Then right in the middle of this, without warning, boom, there's Jesus standing in their midst. Verse 19, Jesus came and stood among them. And if you didn't already know this story, what would you think Jesus would say to his disciples? This is the first time I've seen you since everyone left me in the garden. And I'm taken away for this trial and beatings. and scourging and mockery and then crucifixion. Or how about this? If you were Jesus, what would you want to get off your chest? You know, I think a lot of us would say things like, you bunch of losers. Like, seriously. Pete, my good man, let's just start with you. I told you you were going to deny me three times and you went and did it. John, Hi, John. Thanks for coming to the cross. I appreciate that. I appreciate that you were the one that showed up and I could entrust the care of my mother to you. But what about the rest of you punks? No faith, no association with me. I didn't see any of you, by the way, waiting at the tomb this morning when I walked out, just like I said I was going. None of you were there. And he could say, honestly, what is your deal? I told you what was gonna happen, I did the things, and none of you were there to see it because you didn't trust me. And he could say something like, I seriously need to get better disciples. Now, that's obviously not what Jesus said, but I wanna pause for a second and just point out something really important. I want you to notice the disciples were not changed, I mean transformed. by the principles that Jesus had taught them. They were not changed by the promises that he had given them. They were not changed by the example that he'd set for them of incredible self-sacrificing love, but they weren't changed by that. They weren't even changed by his death and resurrection per se. And we know that because it's in the story. They knew all of those things. They had listened to his teaching. They had observed his example. They knew he died and he's risen and Mary's seen him. So we know all of this and they remain unchanged. They're behind locked doors, hunkered down. And my point is there is only one thing in the story that could change them. And do you see what it is? Jesus came to them. Jesus came to them. It is the presence of God that transforms our lives. It is not simply you knowing things about Jesus or even believing things about Jesus that you're kind of somehow changing yourself by the faith in those things. We need the Spirit of Christ to do in us and for us what only the Spirit of Christ can do. Okay, by the way, this is another way that Christianity is completely different and categorically different than every other faith tradition or religion. Is Buddha present with you? Is Muhammad present with you? Is Confucius present with you? Is Joseph Smith present with you? We could go through all these founders of various different religions, and you would say, of course they're not present with us, that's beside the point. The point is, they told you, don't do this list of things, do this list of things, believe these things, don't believe these things, follow this path, and whether they're with you or not is irrelevant to the religion. May I suggest to you that if God is not with you, there is no Christianity. It is the core of our faith that Jesus did not just come as a better teacher with better ideas and a better example and say, do these things instead of the other religion. And I'm out of here. I'm going to die. The reality is if he didn't come back and be present with his disciples, they would have never been changed. And that's what this theme this morning is going to revolve around. The idea is the living God is present with you because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And his presence is the key to eternal and abundant life. We're going to look at seven things briefly each this morning. That because the risen Lord shows up In the flesh, with his disciples, he can give these things. He gives his peace, his proof, his pleasure, his purpose, his, here's a two-four, his presence and power, his patience and his praise. And you'll see, this is only 10 verses, but you'll see each of these in the text and how important it is that because then Jesus is going to ascend to the Father and send his Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, to be with you, to never leave you or forsake you, to never leave you orphaned, to never leave you alone, His presence, may I suggest, continues to bring these things to your life. First of all, the risen Lord gives His peace. You see this, that not only did Jesus not rail against His disciples, ridicule His disciples, say, seriously guys, the first words out of His mouth were, Peace be with you. And he almost certainly said this in the familiar Hebrew of the shalom. The standard greeting of one Jew for another saying shalom, peace. The idea of shalom is not only the absence of conflict and hostility and scary stuff, It is the positive presence of tranquility and harmony and safety and security. It's a word for the total sense of well-being. It's like, I wish you everything well in your life, is what he's saying. And you may remember in his last conversation before he died, Jesus had said this in John 14, 27, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. And let me suggest when Jesus shows up inside a room that's been locked, it's safe to say the disciples' hearts were troubled and afraid. Okay, the idea of trouble, that word literally means to be stirred up with distress. And the afraid here is not the standard Greek word for fear. It's a word that means timid or cowardly. And that's exactly what you see in the disciples. Again, there's a fear of man. And it doesn't, in a sense, matter to them that Jesus is risen because Jesus isn't there. And they're still just gripped with distress and fear. I wonder if you've ever, you ever dropped something in a lake? or in the ocean, and that thing is precious enough to you to look for it. We do this in Grand Lake or in Shadow Mountain Lake up in the mountains, which are actually quite dirty lakes. And the longer you look for something, the more you're stirring up sediment. And it almost becomes this futile thing, like if you don't find it right away, you're just stirring up more junk and it would have to die down to even see again to look for what you're looking for. I think of fear like that sometimes, that when we continue to obsess over something and that has our focus and our attention, it's like stirring up the sediment and it's just clouding everything. And our judgment is no longer clear, but we're still obsessed about the thing. That's what they're doing. They're not thinking clearly right now. They're troubled. They're anxious. And they're afraid. And Jesus steps into that place and says to his disciples twice, peace be with you. Shalom, friends. I know you're anxious, I know you're troubled, I know you're confused, I know you're scared, but may my peace be with you. And eight days later, when Thomas finally sees him, he leads off again, verse 26, peace be with you. And I want you to hear in those words, first of all, Jesus is giving his disciples and he's giving you by his presence an objective peace. And that's so important because the reality is sin creates hostility between us and God. And when he says, look, I came and I paid the debt of your sin and I cleansed you from sin. He's saying the objective hostility between you and God has been removed. And the biblical word for that is reconciliation. You are reconciled to God through the work of Jesus Christ. And what he's saying is now from this point forward, I've saved you, I've forgiven you, I've given you my grace. There is a unification of peace between you and the Father, between you and Father, Son, and Spirit. So that's objective peace. And because of that objective peace then, it means we can experience peace, even though conflict and trials and painful things will continue to happen in our lives. Because we can look at those things and say, the trials and storms are real, but they cannot separate me from the safety and the security that's mine in Christ. And I just wonder, do you know that kind of peace? where even when you sin and you feel guilt and you feel shame, you're not thinking, I am separated from the love of God, I must now do penance, I must somehow work my way back. You're saying, no, I've displeased you, I've disappointed you, but you are unshakably for me because of the work of Jesus. And I can experience your shalom and I need to confess that sin, but I'm convinced that you're faithful and just to forgive me. and to constantly reconcile. Would those who know you best describe you as a non-anxious presence? That it's like there's stuff going on in your life. It's physically painful. It's emotionally painful. It's mentally consequential. And you have turmoil. And it's not like your life is non-anxious because those things just somehow miraculously are not present in your life like they're present with everyone else. It's like you can look at those things. You can acknowledge those things and say, yeah, I'm anxious about this. But I commit that anxiety to the peace of Christ. And I can move forward trusting the risen Lord. He's with me, first of all, bringing his peace. Notice verse 20, when he said this, when Jesus said, peace be with you, he showed them his hands inside. And then eight days later, jumping to verse 27, 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 I want you to think about this for a moment. I guess Jesus could have gone straight from an empty tomb back to heaven and just said, look, I told you I was going to rise from the dead. You should just believe. And we should just believe. And his disciples should have just believed. But that's not what he did. On the contrary, he deliberately showed himself multiple times to hundreds of people. And he said, look at me. Eat with me. Touch me. He's offering them proof. He's actually saying, I'm not asking you to just believe and put it together. And you see the empty tomb and you see the grave closed. And so you just know for certain. He's like, I want to give you proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am risen from the dead. And by the way, notice there's an actual resurrection body that he can point to and say, touch me, eat with me, look at me. And that's important because Christianity is not Gnosticism. Okay, there are different circles and trains of thought that basically think the physical tangible realm is somehow inherently stained with evil, that the spiritual realm is not. And so there are different religions out there that teach something like this. Salvation is when you get spiritually vacated from your physical body. Like physical body is chaining you down to this earth and this brokenness. And if you could just be liberated to be this ethereal soul, And what Jesus is showing you is like, no, there's a resurrection body. You are gonna be tangibly there present. And by the way, he's intentionally saying, look at the scars, look at the wounds. And because there's a continuity to the historic events that just happened to me, you know, again, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's really me. It's really the same Jesus that just suffered and was crucified. All of us who have had ACL reconstruction, we're in a club. We don't know each other until it's summer and we're wearing shorts and we meet each other, okay? And then you're just standing there and you're talking and someone looks at that big scar right there on the front of your knee and they're like, oh, you had ACL reconstruction. And you're looking at them and you're like, oh, you noticed that because you also had ACL reconstruction. And it's like that wound, it's like I could die one day. I will die one day. But they could be like, oh, no family's here to identify this guy. And they could start putting like, oh, he got a scar here. So he had his ACL reconstructed. He's got a scar back here because he got hit by a propeller. And they start piecing together these wounds and scars to identify. That's deliberately what Jesus is doing. Even in my resurrection body, look at the wounds, look at the scars. May I prove to you that it's me. And again, I want you to note a massive difference between Christianity and all the other religions. Every religion says certain things are true and certain things are false. Every religion says certain things are right and certain things are wrong. Every religion calls you to believe certain things and to do certain things. And if you're sitting there thinking, well, why should I believe your religion? And you ever wonder that? Even about Christianity, it's a fair question to ask. Matt, there are hundreds of religions. Now, there are only, you know, seven or eight major ones. But there have been branches off those trunks over and over and over again to where people believe certain things about the afterlife and morality and our origin story and all of these things that constitute a religion that are very different than other religions and also similar to other religions. And if you're like, well, how would you ever know that yours is the right religion? And most religions are stuck answering it really intelligently like just because. And that's about all they have. I just believe that ours, you know, the angel named whatever really talked to our guy. Do you have any evidence of that conversation? Well, yeah, he wrote a book. No, do you have any evidence that that conversation actually happened and someone's not just writing a book? Well, no, we don't, but we believe it. Okay. Do you see that Jesus and Christianity are not like that? That our faith is not centered around, you should just believe this story that no one else was there to observe. It's actually the opposite. that our faith is centered on the life, death, and resurrection of a historic person, Jesus of Nazareth, if these events didn't happen to Jesus, we don't have a faith, as I said last week. Do whatever you want, because the Jesus story isn't real if these things didn't happen, but if they did happen, then I believe we must follow him, because he's king, because he's God, and because He gave His life and rose from the dead and conquered sin and death and offers us hope. You've got to think something got the disciples from hunkered down in fear to boldly going around the world and proclaiming the message of a risen Jesus. Something got Thomas, let's just let's pick on him for a second. Something got him from, I will, and it's a double negative in the Greek, he's literally, I will never, ever believe what you 10 friends say you saw unless I personally see it and touch him. To Thomas going and sharing the gospel and by tradition becoming a very effective church planter and evangelist. The risen Lord gives his proof. And thanks be to God that he did. Number three, the risen Lord gives his pleasure. You gotta love the understatement of the ESV in verse 20. Then the disciples were glad. when they saw the Lord. Look, I'm glad it's not raining today. I'm glad that right after this, I get to go eat lunch. The disciples were not glad that their best friend, their rabbi, their savior was risen from the dead, okay? They were ecstatic. And that's actually what the Greek word here means. They were ecstatic. They were rejoicing. God brought pleasure to their lives by reuniting with them. By the way, this word that's here interpreted glad. The disciples were glad. This is the word that Luke uses. Remember the story of the, well, it's in Luke about all the lost things. And one of those lost things was that a shepherd with a hundred sheep lost one of them. So the picture is he still has 99, but he's grieving, he's concerned about the one. And the Bible says he leaves the 99 in safety and he goes and searches and searches and looks high and low and across the countries. Where could my one sheep be? And he finds the one. And it says he is overjoyed and he comes back and he literally throws a party and says, all my neighbors need to come because the one was lost and has been found. Let us rejoice, that text says. That's the word glad here. And the idea is the disciples see the impossible standing in the room with them behind locked doors. And they're like, God, you have restored our delight. We were anxious, we were terrified, we were melancholy, and that has now been drowned in a flood of relief and pleasure at the presence of our friend. The risen Lord gives pleasure. Next, the risen Lord gives his purpose. Verse 21, he says, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And then in 23, he says, if you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven. If you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld. Now, let me take these one at a time, but understand those two statements are connected to each other. The first statement, as the Father sent me, even so I am sending you, is kind of John's version of the Great Commission. Jesus is giving his disciples a mission, a purpose. Look guys, you have had no purpose since I died. You're just sitting here scared, paralyzed by fear. You've lost the narrative. You've lost the power to go do what I've asked you to do, but now he's restoring that to them. I have a purpose for your lives. I want you to think about how the father sent me. That's what he's saying. Think about how the Father sent me. Think about why I came in the first place. Think about my focus. Think about my priorities. You've heard my message. How would you distill that message and share that good news with other people? What would you do in addition to that? You would say, the Father sent Jesus not only to proclaim the gospel verbally, but to live it out through healing and miracles and all these different things. So he's like, okay, you've seen that. Now, as the Father sent me, even so I am sending you." By the way, pause there. Can I just urge you as followers of Jesus, read the four Gospels over and over and over again. And if Jesus did it, do it. I mean, to the degree that you can. To the degree that Jesus empowers you to do something. And you say, yeah, I see the Father sent you to do this, to say these kinds of things, to do these kinds of things. Then embrace what Jesus says right here. He gave you a purpose. He gave you a mission. Now go live that purpose and mission. While the church's mission, by the way, focuses on bearing witness. There's a reason last week we saw the word saw or see or seeing over and over again. They were eyewitnesses and they were meant to go and testify to other people. And today our ministry focuses on testifying to other people. But I agree with D.A. Carson when he says this, the church's mission must not be restricted to evangelism and church planting. It embraces everything that we rightly do in imitation of Christ. We are both salt, a preservative function, and light, a revelatory function. So again, if Jesus did it, let's do it in his name and in his strength. Now, that's the easy part. Now, what do you do with the forgiveness thing? If you forgive someone, I forgive them. If you don't forgive them, I don't forgive them. And some of you may be thinking, that's a really cool weapon. Because the guy I saw in the grocery store, it's like, ooh, seeing you brought pain back. And I had to ask God, Lord, just help me to have a good attitude. Help me to continue with a forgiving spirit. Because seeing that person all over again is like a new wound. It's a new hurt. So what do you make of the forgiveness thing? A couple things to note. Number one, Jesus is not talking about individual forgiveness. In the sense, he's not saying if someone sins against you and hurts you, if you forgive them, then I'll forgive them. If you don't, then I don't. So the idea is not like we got in a fight and this person slandered me or this person gossiped and I withhold forgiveness and God's like, good, me too. That's not what's going on here. Again, what I want you to see is that Jesus is linking this forgiveness to the extension of his mission. And what he's really saying is, as I proclaim the gospel, you are to go and proclaim the gospel, and here it is. For those who repent and believe, You are to proclaim authoritatively, you are forgiven and they are. And if they do not repent, you are to continue to exhort them, you are not forgiven. You have not received the gift. You have not believed and trusted and turned and you're still in danger. One writer says, the church is authorized not to remit sin, but to tell sinners the terms on which they may know that their sins have been forgiven, or conversely, that forgiveness is withheld. The reality is, friends, we do this every single week as we gather together. And I'll point it out, and hopefully now it's obvious and this kind of sticks. But when we have this section of our service before the message of a corporate confession, We're saying, yes, Lord, I know, I did not walk through this week perfectly. And we say like, I've sinned against you in thought, in word, in deed, in things that I've done, in things that I've left undone, and I'm asking for your forgiveness. And you notice every week someone who's standing up here will usually read a little part of a verse or a couple verses and say on the authority of God's word family, what? You are forgiven. So as you've brought that guilt and shame maybe into church, on the authority of God's word, we can say, God forgives you because of the work of Christ. And if you were sitting there and saying, well, I don't repent, then we don't say this, but it's like, then at this point, you still need to confess that, you still need to repent and receive Jesus. And that's the idea is he's saying, you go out in my authority as my ambassadors, and you let people know on the authority of my word, you are forgiven as you turn to Jesus. And if you're not yet turning to Jesus, you must do so. or else the pardon is withheld because you're not receiving it. Now, how do you do this if you want to? If you're like, great, he comes and I'm no longer scared, I'm no longer just hostile toward God or anxious about my circumstances because he brings me his peace, he brings me his purpose. Now, how do I go do this? Well, you might recall from Jesus' last conversation at the Last Supper, That he said things like this, John 14, 16, John 14, 26, John 15, 26, but when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the father, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father, he will bear witness about me. And John 16, 7, if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him. Now look at verse 22. So in between saying, I have a purpose for you, I have a mission for you, go do what I did. I'm sending you as the Father sent me, and you're going with this binding forgiveness that you need to let people know they are forgiven if they're turning and receiving the good news. In between that, and when he said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. This is point five, the risen Lord gives his presence and power. Now you picture this, Jesus' work is finished on earth. He's about to ascend back to the Father as King of Kings, Lord of Lords. Jesus reigns today, we believe that. But instead of leaving the disciples orphaned, instead of leaving us as the church orphaned and alone, he promised to send the Holy Spirit, which is not a force, It's a person, it's the third person of the Trinity. By the way, look at verse 22 again. Why do you think Jesus breathed on them? And the Greek is actually not that he breathed on them, it's more just like he breathed out. So it's like Jesus is saying, receive the Spirit. And really what I think he's saying is receive the Spirit when he comes, more on that in just a second. But I think when he's, He's reenacting Genesis 2.7. Remember that? The Lord God formed the man, Adam, out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. And I think now what the risen Jesus is saying, live a new humanity. I'm making a new creation. By my authoritative, life-giving resurrection power, I'm constituting something completely new, which is this new humanity to go and spread the gospel. Now, why do I say I think he's looking forward to the time later when the Spirit would come rather than giving the Spirit right then? Well, part of that is the disciples don't immediately go out in power after this. So that's odd if he gave the Spirit right there. Acts 2, which is like book two of Luke, so if you read the gospel of Luke, book one, book two written by Luke is the book of Acts, Acts of the Apostles. In Acts 2, we explicitly are taught that the Spirit came at Pentecost on those disciples who were waiting for him, and he shows up in power. I also think the spirit probably doesn't come at this time because it's doubtful that Thomas missed the spirit just because he wasn't in the room. I think Jesus is saying, receive the spirit when he comes. Sign and symbol, I'm making a new creation. And family, this is meant to encourage you and to empower you that anything that Jesus has called you to do, it's not just like, oh yeah, I should do the principles. Oh yeah, I should follow the example. Oh yeah, I should be motivated by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And we should be. But you've got bad days, right? And you're not. You fall down. But you are empowered, you are filled with the very presence and power of God. And we need to kind of get our Holy Spirit theology correct. Again, he's not a force, he's a person. And that person is faithfully with us and for us. We are not asking him to, Lord, would you enter into the room with us now? We came to church this morning and you weren't here, but we're gonna sing a song and we're asking you to show up. He's like, are you kidding me? You are the temple of the living God. My spirit is present within you. Now, apparently after Jesus says these things, he disappears. And then eight days later, he shows up again because he's got a special point to make. And I always feel bad for Thomas. You know, he's got a nickname, Doubting Thomas, as if he was any different than any of the other disciples who also doubted. He just happened to not be there when Jesus showed up for whatever reason. So he gets the nickname. But I want you to see number six, the risen Lord gives his patience. I think Jesus, in a sense, is just coming back for Thomas. He again blesses them, verse 26, shalom. And knowing what Thomas had said, by the way, that's interesting, Thomas had said, I will never ever believe in Jesus unless I personally see him and touch him. Jesus knows that he said that and he shows up and says, see me, touch me. I think this is remarkable patience on the part of our Lord, that he's so kind, he's so compassionate, he's so over the top gracious. He could have humiliated Thomas with a few well-placed zingers of like, are you kidding me right now? Not only do I show up to Mary, I show up in the room where all the disciples in Jerusalem are gathered together except you, and they all told you they saw it. And you're like, nah, I don't believe them, and I don't believe Jesus himself that said he would come back. I just don't believe any of it. But he doesn't say, how dare you? He doesn't say, who do you think you are? He says, shalom. Now touch me. Interact with me in whatever way, Thomas, you need to be healed of your brokenness and your doubt, because I see you and I love you. And we receive a similar patience from our Lord, that when we fall, when we doubt, when we're scared, when we mess up, I don't see God rolling in just hot under the collar, but showing up like, shalom. Do you want the shalom back in your life? The Lord gives his patience. Finally, the risen Lord gives his praise, verse 29. And probably most of you remember the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Notice here's one last beatitude before Jesus goes back to heaven. Blessed are those who believe in me without seeing. Now blessed could be translated happy, but it's more than just happiness. It's not an emotion, it's not primarily an emotion. It has this fuller range of meaning like highly favored, fortunate, honored, worthy of praise is the idea. And that's good news for you because none of you have seen the risen Jesus the way the disciples saw him. He's gone back to heaven, he sent his spirit, but we don't like, oh, look over there, that's the spirit. We don't see the spirit that way. We don't engage with the spirit that way. But most of you believe, absolutely, Jesus died for my sins and rose again and he reigns in heaven and my faith is in him. I know I can't save myself, but I need a savior and it's Jesus. And so he says on the authority of God's word, not only are you saved, you are praised. by the Son of God. He's like, that is the kind of reaction to the proof, to the patience, to the purpose, to my life, death, and resurrection that I'm looking for. Praise you. And it's not in the same way that we praise him, but he wants the kind of relationship where he's like, even as you bless me, I am blessing you. Even as you favor me and worship me, I am enjoying you and heaping praise on your life. Like do that. And in closing here, I just want you to think for a moment about the God who came to his disciples. Because this is crazy paradox of infinite power and patient empathy. Okay, again, if you haven't already caught this detail, the doors are locked and Jesus shows up inside. Okay, that is a supernatural, unlimited power and authority that Jesus has, even about how we think about space and time. This is crazy divine stuff going on, but he shows up, he's a wounded man. Supernatural power, patient empathy. And here, family, in a nutshell, is how Jesus can save you. and transform your life. He is the infinite, eternal, all-powerful God. And He's the perfect man who stood in your place and took the nails. And forever he is those two things together. I love the book of Revelation where you get to peek into like the worship of heaven and the end of time. And you know, John is looking there and he's seeing these visions and he's like, man, I see the, I see the son of God. I know that's Jesus. And he's like, but I see this king who is like glowing in his glorious brilliance, like just so holy and beautiful and powerful that he's radiating this light that's brighter than the sun. The lion of the tribe of Judah. And you know, he turns right around and says, I see a lamb standing as if it had been slain. And if you could look into heaven right now, let me suggest to you, you would see something similar and something very different than what those first disciples saw. You would see the infinite supernatural power and glory of the risen Jesus. And you would see the wounds. You would know he has the power, the authority to fix things in your life. And he has the wounds that say, and I already did. I literally empathized with you. I came into your suffering and I took your pain, your brokenness on myself. If you've got an all powerful God who doesn't empathize with you, you're out of luck. And if you just have a really, really, really good man who's like, I'll take your place, and he's not God, you're out of luck. But forever we can see Jesus with this supernatural, infinite power as God and the wounds as man. Will you welcome his presence as King, as Savior, as a wounded substitute for your sin? Edward Sholito in Jesus of the Scars writes, the other gods were strong, but thou wast weak. They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne. But to our wounds, only God's wounds can speak. And not a god has wounds, but thou alone. Or did you just listen to a recording of a sermon from Grace City Church in Denver, Colorado? We hope you can join us in person soon. Thanks for listening. The Lord bless you and keep you. Amen.