Lord, as we now come to your Word, we thank you for your Word, and we recognize what an incredible gift it is that you would reveal yourself to us through your Word, by the power of your Spirit working in us. And so we ask, Lord, that you would help us to not only be hearers, but to be doers, that the Spirit would arouse us within, that he would cause us to have convictions, to act based on what we hear, to act based on what Your Word says. Not to only know these things intellectually, but to know them experientially as well. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles with you today, please turn to John chapter 20. We'll be looking at verses 24 to 29 as we continue in our study, and I think we have about a month left in our study of the Gospel of John. But today we'll be looking at John chapter 20 verses 24 to 29. You might be saying, hey I thought Jordan was going to preach today. He was going to preach today, but we also know that he comes from Klaallam. And there was a lot of snow on the pass today, so they weren't able to make it. And seeing that at the beginning of the week, there was a possibility that today would be a snow day. I started writing a sermon immediately at the beginning of the week, and I'm glad I did. But maybe next week, Lord will in a new series on the Ten Commandments that he'll be starting. And if he's not able to make it, I'll be preaching Psalm 56 next week. So yeah, we'll see what happens. But today we're in John chapter 20, verses 24 to 29, which is really a passage about God's blessing. You know, everything that God has given his people, throughout the ages, from the very beginning, everything that God has given His people, He has given them as a means of blessing them. He has not given us anything as a curse or as a condemnation. Hasn't He even given us His word as a blessing? He has. When He gave the law, It was even given as a means of blessing his people because it was a perpetual reminder of our inability to live up to those standards and thus our constant need to rely entirely on God's grace. just knowing that we can't live up to God's perfect standards. What God requires, He must provide. When God gave Israel the promised land, it was given as a means of blessing them. And we can even say that when God raised up the Babylonians to come against Israel and to take them into captivity for 70 years, God's temporal judgment, even that was given as a means of blessing His people. This is a pattern and principle that we see throughout the Old Testament, and then when we get to the New Testament, of course we're immediately confronted with the ultimate blessing, the blessing which every previous blessing and every blessing since points to, that being when God sent His only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to take on flesh and to live a perfect life in the place of all who believe in Him. Surely there is no blessing that compares to Jesus. And Paul would go on to reiterate this principle that everything that God has ever given His people has been given as a means of blessing His people. When he wrote to the Ephesians that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Ephesians 1, verse 3. Peter would say in 1 Peter 3, verse 14, Even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And again, in 1 Peter 4.14, if you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Everything that God has ever given His people has been given as a means of blessing them. Indeed, nothing that God has given us should be viewed as burdensome then. And how much less should anything be viewed as a curse. But friends, with this principle firmly established from the beginning of Scripture to the end of Scripture, what I now ask us to do is to consider that it is God who has given us what we refer to as the Great Commission. If God has given us the Great Commission, and if everything that God has given us is given as a means of blessing us, what does that say about the Great Commission? It's not burdensome. It's not a curse. In fact, it is given as a blessing for the church. And may God grant us repentance that leads to life. If any of us should ever find the great commission to be burdensome or perish the thought, a curse of some sort, it is given to us as a means of blessing us. And we must learn to see it as a gift that a loving father has given to the bride of his very own son. God's purpose from the beginning, was to bless all the nations. Jeremiah told of the coming day when the nations will bless themselves in him, and in him they will glory. That's from Jeremiah 4.2. Habakkuk told of the day when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. chapter 2 verse 14 of Habakkuk. God himself says in Malachi chapter 1 verse 11 that from the rising of the sun even to its setting my name will be great among the nations and in every place incense is going to be offered to my name. Now, moving into the New Testament, Paul quoted from the Old Testament in Galatians 3.8, when he wrote that the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, all the nations will be blessed in you. Well, how are the nations going to be blessed? Through the preaching of God's Word. by the carrying forth of the Great Commission. And so to this end, the head of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ, has sent us forth as earthen vessels to bring the gospel message, to bring the good news of reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus Christ to the whole world. It starts with our homes, sharing the gospel with our kids. It extends to our neighbors. It extends to our workplaces. It extends, ultimately, to all the nations. He's given us the task of evangelism, not as a burdensome task or as a curse, but as a means of blessing us. Now, there's really only one reason I can think of why any Christian would find evangelism to be burdensome. And that is if they are lacking a proper understanding of God's sovereignty in evangelism. And I say this as somebody who was once lacking a proper view of God's sovereignty in evangelism. I thought that it was my responsibility to persuade people, to convince people. And let me tell you, you're better off talking to a wall, you know, and trying to get a response from a brick wall. But you see, we're not to evangelize in our own strength or in our own wisdom. And the fact is that evangelism that doesn't produce a conversion only looks like failure according to worldly standards. Worldly standards counts numbers. You know what God counts? Faithfulness. Faithfulness. He takes care of the numbers. We take care of preaching faithfully. And worldly standards are just standards that I fear we are far too quick to just swallow hook, line, and sinker. In our study of John's Gospel, we have seen that Jesus has just given the Great Commission to His disciples and to His followers who were gathered on that first Lord's Day, that first day when Christ rose from the grave. I think it's very telling to consider the fact that the first thing that Jesus did was give them the Great Commission after rising from the grave, and the last thing He did before He ascended into heaven is reiterate the Great Commission. From beginning to end, it seems, everything that he did was centered on, was focused on, was related to the Great Commission. Now we saw in our previous lesson in John, that in chapter 20 verses 22 and 23, Jesus established both the power and the authority that the church was to go forth with. He established that the power the Great Commission is to have is to be done with the power of the Holy Spirit, who testifies of Christ inwardly in those who hear the gospel, as we as man testify outwardly of the gospel. And He has also given us the authority with which we go, that being the authority of the Scriptures, which are the highest authority on earth. There is no authority that's higher than God's Word, because God is our highest authority. And this brings us to a passage where we see the church's first mission's endeavor. Do you know what the church's first mission endeavor was? It wasn't to Judea. It wasn't to Samaria. It wasn't to the enemies and the oppressors of Israel, the Romans. It wasn't to the Gentile nations. Do you know who the object of the church's first missions endeavor was? It was Thomas. the disciple named Thomas, the disciple who hadn't been gathered with the other disciples and followers of Christ on the evening of the day when Christ rose from the grave. So we'll be looking at the way their evangelism to Thomas unfolded as we continue our study of John's gospel today looking at verses 24 to 29. The central point of this passage is that Jesus himself promises that if we believe his word, even without seeing him with our physical eyes, we will be blessed with every heavenly blessing. And so having established the power and the authority that the church was to carry out the Great Commission in the time that would begin on Pentecost. John now tells us about the church's first missionary endeavor. Let's look at verses 24 and 25. John writes, But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. Now, Thomas is actually one of the disciples that gets mentioned a few times, particularly in John. John quoted him back in chapter 11, verse 16. In that scenario, we saw that Jesus and the disciples had been ministering out in a very remote region of the wilderness, beyond the Jordan River, because of the hostility that had escalated between Jesus and the religious leaders. And so there, out in the wilderness on the other side of the Jordan, Jesus had received word that his beloved friend Lazarus had fallen sick. And so after delaying for two days, on the third day, Jesus decided to go and attend to Lazarus, despite the inherent danger that that presented to both Jesus and to his disciples if they were to go to Bethany, which was near Jerusalem. which is where the Jewish religious leaders were sure to be found. And the disciples were pleading with Jesus, urging him to consider this danger, saying, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again? But with nothing that they could say, being persuasive and having no ability to change Jesus' mind, they just fell silent, we can imagine. We can imagine the way that Jesus just stubbornly refused to heed these desperate warnings, and how quiet it must have been when the disciples finally realized, oh, he's not going to budge. He's not going to change his mind. And finally, Thomas breaks the silence, saying, okay, let's go also, so that we may die with him. in verse 16. Now this has led scholars to believe that Thomas was probably something of a pessimist, a man who would insist that the glass is half empty rather than half full. That conclusion may or may not be accurate. But it does seem to be reinforced by his question to Jesus in chapter 14 when Jesus said to the disciples in John 14 2-4 he said, I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also and you know the way to where I'm going. And again, we have to imagine that there was probably a prolonged period of silence as the disciples looked at each other. And Thomas was apparently the only one who was brave enough to express the fact that he had no idea what Jesus was even talking about. And so he responded by saying, Lord, we don't know where you are going. How do we know the way? That's what he says in verse five. So there are two instances where we were kind of introduced to Thomas and now here again in the passage at hand. Today we see Thomas for a third time in John's Gospel. Now when you think of Thomas, You know he's got a nickname, right? You know that people have referred to him as Doubting Thomas. But let me say this, Thomas isn't doubting here. His words don't indicate doubt at all. What his words indicate is hardened, stubborn unbelief. He is disbelieving, not doubting. All the disciples had either disbelieved or doubted Christ's bodily resurrection to some degree prior to seeing him for themselves, but only Thomas is quoted as uttering the words that we see him concluding his arguments here as he seriously digs in his heels by saying, I will not believe. Richard Phillips notes in his commentary, he says, quote, this small amount of evident fatalistic endower, end quote. And to that I would say, with all due respect, because his commentary is a great commentary, I would say not so fast. Not so fast. Keep in mind that this is all taking place well before Pentecost. It's on Pentecost that the Holy Spirit would begin His ministry of accompanying the testimony of the church inwardly. Jesus says to the disciples in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth. Did you catch what Jesus said? He said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and you will have power. And so, what we see here is that they don't have power yet. In other words, the Holy Spirit coming upon them would happen at some point in the future. What does that indicate? What does that mean for our passage here in John 20? It means they have no power. What it means is that the church, the followers of Jesus, who were trying to convince Thomas of the resurrection of Christ, were witnessing to Thomas of Christ by themselves, without any power, unaccompanied by the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. Thomas was the one disciple who had been absent on the prior Sunday, the evening of the day when Christ rose from the grave. Jesus had revealed himself to all who were gathered there that evening, but he had not revealed himself. to Thomas, which is why Thomas is still in a state of unbelief. So to clarify, sufficient proof or sufficient evidence of Jesus' resurrection. No, there was plenty of proof. There was plenty of evidence. He was surrounded by these ten men who were full of hope and joy, who prior to seeing Jesus had been very upset and pessimistic about the future. because they thought that their Messiah had died. So he's surrounded by these joyful men whose dispositions are completely changed. That is evidence of what they were witnessing to. It was evidence of the resurrection of Christ that they truly had seen him. Now his unbelief could only be attributed to the fact that Jesus himself had not revealed himself personally to Thomas. And let us not miss that this was entirely Thomas' fault. Where had he been the previous Sunday evening when all the other disciples and all the other followers of Jesus were gathered? We don't know where he was. All we know is that his absence was not doubt, but unbelief. And so at this point, I'd say there are three very, very important lessons that we can glean and gain from Thomas. First of all, with what Thomas says here, with what happens here, he reminds us of just how important it is that we make sure that we are gathering regularly with God's people. Why did Thomas not receive the same blessing that all his friends, all the other disciples, had received? Only because he hadn't gathered with the disciples at Jesus's first appearance to them. If he had been there, That blessing, the great blessing of faith and confidence that Jesus had risen again, would already be in his possession. The only reason it's not is because Thomas didn't show up. Paul instructs us in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25, yes Paul I said, to not forsake our own assembling together as is the habit of some. In so far as we are able, in so far as you are able, you have the responsibility to gather on the Lord's Day with your church family. If you're in town, if you're out of town, gather with another church family. not only because there might be someone there who needs to be served or ministered to in a way that only you are capable of, maybe a way that you are specifically gifted to serve someone, but also because there very well may be blessings for you that you will miss out on if you are not there. But you won't know if you're absent. I mean, think about it. I can't even tell you how many times somebody has told me that some aspect of the sermon or some aspect of the service was exactly what they needed at that time. How it scratched an itch that maybe they didn't even realize they had yet. I mean, what a blessing that is. Has that ever happened to you? Where you hear something and it's like, wow, this preacher is saying something directly to me. He's like either watching me and stalking me on Facebook, or the Lord has ordained that I would be here so that I could actually receive this blessing. Do you know how to make sure that never happens to you? One sure way to make sure that never happens is to simply rarely come together with your church family or a local church for worship on the Lord's Day. In J.C. Ryle's words, he said this, He said, quote, never to be absent from God's house on Sundays without good reason, never to miss the Lord's Supper when administered in our own congregation, never to let our space be empty when means of grace are going on. This is one way to be a growing and prosperous Christian. The very sermon that we needlessly miss may contain a precious word in season for our souls. The very assembly for prayer and praise from which we stay away may be the very gathering that would have cheered and established and quickened our hearts. We little know how dependent our spiritual health is on little regular habitual helps and how much we suffer if we miss our medicine." End quote. This the gathering of the saints, whether it's here or another local church, this is where we avail ourselves to what we refer to as the ordinary means of grace, right? The ministry of the word, the sacraments, prayer. Thomas reminds us, therefore, first of all, of how much we can lose, how much we can miss out on by being absent when the church body gathers. Secondly, Thomas' unbelief. is a reminder to us that the most persuasive arguments and the most trustworthy evidence in the world is insufficient. It is not enough to convince a person to believe in Jesus. This is why we must be faithful, faithful to share the good news, but we must trust the results in God's hands. He's the one that takes care of conversion. We just take care of faithfully preaching the gospel. Jesus spoke back in chapter 10 about how His sheep will hear His voice and they will follow Him. When do they initially hear His voice? when the gospel is being preached. That's why Paul would argue in Romans 10, verse 14, how then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? Notice, by the way, that Romans 10, verse 14 doesn't say, how will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? That word of is found in some translations as a translation note, but it's not found in the original Greek. So what that means is that there is a spiritual sense in which a person, Christ's sheep, hears the voice of the Good Shepherd through the voice of the Under Shepherd, through the voice of the one preaching the gospel. And this is, once again, God's sovereign, effectual calling that we're talking about. Without this inward calling, this sovereign, effectual, inward calling, man's natural condition will be identical to Thomas' condition at this point, and that is hardened unbelief. The only thing that can break hardened unbelief is God himself. The cure for this hardened unbelief therefore must be administered by God and God alone. But we must also be faithful to do our part in bringing the gospel message to their ears, knowing that this is the means by which God brings the gospel to the heart. By the means by which God initially calls his people out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. So Thomas reminds us first of the importance of participating in the assembly of believers. And he reminds us secondly, that there is no evidence in the world that can convince a person to believe. And so therefore, our duty is simply to preach faithfully, knowing that God can convert. And this brings us to the third principle that Thomas reminds us of. And that is that we have a responsibility to be taking note of times when people go missing from our fellowship, and we should be calling them back, inviting them back. The disciples couldn't convince Thomas to believe, right? But did they just give up on him? Absolutely not. In fact, the fact that they didn't give up on him is made evident by the fact that he does gather with them on the following Sunday despite his unbelief. Let's continue with verses 26 to 28. John says, After eight days his disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Reach here with your finger, and see my hands, and reach here your hand, and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God. So this is why I say that he wasn't doubting. Jesus doesn't say don't doubt. He says don't be unbelieving, which is what Thomas was. Now when we consider the testimony of the four Gospels in our Bibles, it becomes apparent that Jesus did not appear to his followers until the following Sunday. Now you might say, wait a minute, it says after eight days, that's okay. John tells us that indeed the next encounter with Christ came after eight days, but keep in mind that the Jewish pattern of counting days is inclusive. which means that you would count from Sunday to Sunday rather than from Monday to Sunday. So you would count that very Sunday, the first Sunday that Jesus rose from the grave, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, that's four, right? Thursday, Friday, that's six, Saturday and Sunday for a total of eight days. Eight days. So we see this pattern also in the way that days are counted between the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. We say that he rose on the third day but he wasn't even in the grave for 48 hours. So again, what we see is that Jesus met with and attended to his people on the first day of the week. Again, one of the reasons that we meet on Sunday and not on Saturday is because Sunday was the one day of the week when Christ appeared to and attended to his followers after the resurrection. The Jewish cycle of the week ended with a day of rest, whereas the Christian life, and thus the Christian cycle of worship, begins with resting in Christ, who is our Sabbath rest. And so, a week after he's risen from the grave, a week after he has encountered his disciples the first time, minus Thomas, the disciples and the followers of Jesus were once again gathered, and this time, thankfully, Thomas was with them. And we see the same thing that happened the previous week happen once again. The door is closed and Jesus appears in their midst. Jesus gives them the same greeting that He had given the previous week. Peace be with you. And after he did, we can't miss the fact that he seems to turn immediately and speak directly to the one person present who was still hardened in unbelief, that being Thomas. And so he says to Thomas, reach here with your finger and see my hands, and reach here your hand and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing. Now again, there are three important observations for us to make here. Three important things for us to see here. First of all, Jesus condescended from heaven to bring peace between God and men and women who are lost in sin, hardened in unbelief. And so it wasn't burdensome for Jesus to do this again just for Thomas' sake. It was a joy for him to greet even Thomas, with this blessing of peace because that is the very purpose of the incarnation. It wasn't a secondary reason for Jesus to condescend from heaven. It was the primary reason that he took on flesh And it's in this same manner that Jesus continues to present Himself today to sinners who are absolutely ruined by sin, to sinners who are so hardened in their unbelief that nothing that we can do and nothing that we can say could possibly change their minds. And yet, He presents Himself to people today and calls them to salvation by the grace of God. All who believe, all who are converted, only do so, are only converted because they hear the voice of the shepherd calling them by name through the preaching of the gospel. You weren't convinced by me to believe. You weren't convinced by any preacher that you have peace with God because of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. If you believe that, it's because Christ Himself has personally spoken to you and has called you to saving faith through the preaching of His glorious gospel. See, I can give you all the proof that Jesus was a real man. that Jesus really did walk the earth. I can give you proof. I can give you evidence that He really did die on a cross. There is historical evidence. There are historical arguments that a person can make. But I cannot convince anybody that Jesus died for your sin. That's something that must be believed by faith. That's something that only faith can receive. It's something that I can't persuade you of, but God can. And so if you do believe that, if you believe that you have been reconciled to God, that you have peace with God through the atonement, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, It's because He has personally, individually called you through the preaching of His Word. And it is all of God's grace. So God is the one who gets all the glory. You cannot glory in the fact that you have chosen Christ freely of your own volition. And neither can I or any other Christian, and I also can't glory or take credit for the fact that anyone has believed our message. God is the one who gets all the glory. See, if I can say, hey, I'm saved because I made the right decision, who's getting the glory there? I am. And so you can know that that's not the way it works. Second, notice that as Jesus speaks to Thomas in Thomas' state of unbelief, Jesus presents the basis for the peace that He has established between a holy, righteous God and rebellious, unbelieving sinners. He displays the wounds that point to the cross. He displays the wounds that he bore in presenting himself as a sacrifice for sin on the cross. The wounds that he suffered on the cross remind us, as Peter says in 1 Peter 2.24, that he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. For by his wounds you were healed. The blood that He spilled forth from those wounds was not spilled in vain. It was spilled for the remission of sins for all who would repent and believe on Him. And if you fear that that doesn't apply to you, if you fear that you're not a recipient of His grace and of His peace, or if you worry that your sins are just too many and you just haven't kicked this habit hard enough, for God to ever forgive you? That you'll go to hell for some sin that might remain on you? Remember that, as John would write in 1 John 1, verse 7, the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. From all sin. That's what this is pointing to as he shows Thomas his wounds. It doesn't just cleanse us of some sin. It doesn't even cleanse us of just most sin. It has cleansed us from all sin. And that's what we present to sinners today, that Jesus' blood is the only thing that can cleanse a sinner of all their sin. It has cleansed us from all sin. How blessed are the wounds of Christ that bled for us. Third, man don't you dare miss, we absolutely cannot miss in this passage how gracious, how gentle, how pastoral, how sweet Jesus is as he ministers to Thomas. In fact, he invites Thomas to see and do the very things that Thomas had insisted he would have to do if he was going to believe. Thomas said, unless I see his hands, the imprint of his nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, and Jesus answers every single one of those criteria. Jesus says, reach here with your finger, see my hands, and reach here your hand, and put it into my side. He knew exactly what Thomas had said. How could Jesus have possibly known what Thomas' criteria for believing was going to be? Because he's God. Because he knows it all, and he knows how to deal with us in our unbelief, in our skepticism, and in our doubt. He's able to meet every single one of Thomas' objections. Maybe you've witnessed to somebody who's like Thomas. who says, I will not believe. Somebody who basically tells you, there's nothing that you can say, and there's nothing that you can do to convince me. That's basically what Thomas said to the disciples, isn't it? And actually, we would agree with them. He essentially told them that Jesus could convince him, but that they couldn't. Hallelujah. We trust in that. That's awesome, Thomas. And so we must confidently preach the gospel knowing that Jesus still reveals himself personally to people when the gospel is preached. And he can deal with them. He can deal with their objections. He can deal with their unbelief and their skepticism in ways that we can't. And he does so ever so graciously. Thomas had acted like a stick in the mud, and that's putting it nicely, I think. J. C. Royal says this, he says, quote, it's hard to imagine anything more tiresome and provoking than the conduct of Thomas. Amen, if you've ever witnessed to somebody like that. He goes on to say, when even the testimony of ten faithful brethren had no effect on him. But, it is impossible to imagine anything more patient and compassionate than our Lord's treatment of this weak disciple. He does not reject him or dismiss him or excommunicate him. He comes again at the end of a week and apparently for the special benefit of Thomas. He deals with him according to his weakness like a gentle nurse dealing with a froward child." Jesus has revealed himself personally to Thomas. That's what Thomas needed. That's what everybody needs in order to believe. And Jesus concludes with this instruction. It's not a suggestion, it's an instruction. It's imperative. He says, and do not be unbelieving, but believing. Again, he doesn't say do not be doubting, He says, do not be unbelieving, but believing. This wasn't a suggestion. It wasn't just a good idea. It wasn't something for Thomas to go home and mull over and think about and pray about. It was imperative. It was a command. And what happens? Well, let's first consider what Thomas doesn't do. You know what we don't see Thomas do? We don't see him put his finger in Jesus' wounds. We don't see him put his hand in Jesus' side, which he said he was going to have to do. No, he didn't. What he needed was for Jesus to simply reveal himself to him. He didn't need to do those things after all. What did he need? He needed Jesus. He needed Jesus to reveal Himself to him, to Thomas, individually, personally. Thomas didn't need to test Jesus. He didn't need to be persuaded by Jesus. He didn't need to be persuaded or convinced by arguments. As soon as Jesus told him to believe, what happens? He does. Friends, if Jesus is calling to you, let me say that you should listen and obey. Because the truth is, If you're persuaded that He's talking to you, that He's saying something to you, you have no reason to think that you're going to have a second chance. So you should answer immediately. But also, we see that He instructs us in the same way, not to be unbelieving, but to be believing, to trust Him, to follow Him, to surrender ourselves to Him. Do you find yourself struggling with unbelief? You can pray, Lord, help my unbelief. What stops you from praying? Help my unbelief. What stops you from praying, Lord, I've got these doubts. I've got this disbelief that's lingering in me. Help me deal with this. Hear Him calling to you to put your unbelief to rest immediately and to simply believe on Him just like Thomas did. We're told that what Thomas did is something astonishing. He cries out in response immediately, my Lord and my God. That is the highest accolade that anybody ever gave Jesus throughout his earthly ministry. He goes from being a hardened skeptic, a hardened unbeliever, to giving the highest title that Jesus receives from anybody in the four Gospels. He says, my Lord and my God. Richard Phillips notes, quote, it was not because his demands had been met that Thomas decided that he was willing to believe. Instead, Christ's personal self-disclosure overwhelmed the unbelief and drew Thomas to Christ as a servant and worshiper, end quote. He immediately acknowledges Jesus as his Lord. The word Lord means master. It's not just a title of respect. It's a title of lordship, of him being the one in charge. One of the things that you'll hear Christians sometimes say when they talk about the moment of their salvation is that they believed and made Jesus Lord of their life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Guess what? He already is Lord of your life, whether you like it or not. He is Lord of all, and one day every tongue will confess and every knee will bow before Him, confessing that Jesus is Lord. He is Lord. We aren't autonomous, we don't own ourselves, we didn't make ourselves, and you, like everyone else, you are a slave to your nature. No, what we do is what Thomas did. We acknowledge, not make, we acknowledge, we give assent to a certain fact or truth that Jesus is Lord and always has been. But Thomas doesn't only acknowledge that Christ is Lord, he says, my Lord and my God. That is to say that he recognized the fact that Jesus was God incarnate, that he was true God from true God. He is affirming that Jesus is God, fully God in human flesh. There are those who would have us believe that the Bible never presents Jesus, at least in any explicit terms, as being God. What in the world do they do with this? What do they do with that? Because the fact is that Jesus, if he's not God, and if he's a good person, then he has the obligation to rebuke Thomas or to refute Thomas. But he doesn't do that. Why? Because Thomas was correct. He saw Jesus rightly as God. And it wasn't an argument. that persuaded him. It wasn't some logical reasoning that convinced Thomas to surrender his unbelief and to worship Jesus, affirming him as the sovereign God of all creation. It was the self-revelation of Jesus that convinced him. And so now as he worships Jesus, he doesn't just say, you are Lord and God. No, he says, you are my Lord and you are my God. Just as Jesus offers Himself to sinners personally, they must receive Him and believe on Him personally. He's not just a God, He is our God. Friends, this is why John wrote this book, that you would come to the same conclusion that Thomas did, that you would be like Thomas and the other disciples and the other followers of Jesus and that you would lay down any unbelief you might have and simply believe. The fact that Jesus is Lord and God is not only truth, it is saving truth, it is necessary truth. And if you don't believe that these two titles can be ascribed to Him, Friends, you do not have peace with God. Indeed, you are still at war with God if you don't believe that He is your Lord and your God. John has now written 20 chapters for one reason, for one purpose, and that purpose is this, that like the disciples and now like Thomas, you will believe in Jesus and that by believing on Him, you will have life in His name. And so now John records a final promise that Jesus made to us as he spoke to Thomas. I imagine that John knew, and I'm positive that Jesus certainly knew, that seeing Jesus with their physical eyes was a privilege that wouldn't belong to most people who would believe on Jesus through the church age. Thomas needed to see Jesus in order to believe, but so do you and I. But Thomas was filled with spiritual eyes. And here, therefore, is Jesus' promise to us, spoken to Thomas. He says in v. 29, "'Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed.'" You know who that is? That's us. That's us. Jesus knew that there would be millions and millions and millions of unbelievers who would be delivered out of their state of unbelief without physically witnessing the resurrected Christ. Instead, they would be delivered by something that is far more trustworthy than your sight. And that is through the self-revelation of Christ in the written records of the apostles. It's through His Word being read, being studied, being taught, being prayed, being preached, that Jesus now, today, throughout this age, makes Himself known. See, to an extent, we all trust our eyes, right? But at the same time, we know how easily our eyes can deceive us, don't we? That's what optical illusions are all about. Magicians know it. They take advantage of it. Psychologists know it. And they develop all these weird pictures that if you stare at it for 30 seconds and then look away, your eyes do something weird, right? We know that we can trick the eyes. We can trick the mind. But God's Word presents Jesus in such a way that is more real than what our eyes see. And His Word can and must be trusted completely, more than what we see with our own eyes physically. for the millions of people who through the age of the church would believe without sieve on Jesus and truly acknowledge Him as their Lord and their God. What are those blessings? Very quickly, let's start with the basics. The promise of peace and reconciliation with God. The joy of being washed clean of every sin. The hope that's found in knowing that He knows you. And by that I mean He knows the absolute worst things about you. and that He nevertheless set His covenant love and grace upon you. You've been granted the blessing of adoption by God's grace into the family of God. The promise that He will raise you up to glory on the last day. You've received the blessing of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, who will work inwardly to conform you to the likeness of Christ in every circumstance and in every situation that you face in life, and who will go with you and use you as a means of calling others unto salvation through the sharing of the gospel. What a powerful reminder of the reality and the centrality in the Christian faith of the resurrection of Jesus. And what a powerful reminder that God can save anyone, anyone. What a powerful reminder that if God can save Thomas from his hardened unbelief, He can save anybody He wants. We preach, therefore, Christ and Him crucified, not because we're confident in what we can do, but because we're confident in what God can do through the preaching of His gospel. So friends, is Jesus your Lord personally and your God personally? Remember that to believe is to see. That's a theme that we've seen throughout John's Gospel. Believing is seeing. If you can truly say that this confession that Thomas makes of Jesus is your confession as well, then you can have all confidence that all of these blessings are yours as well. And you can know with unflinching certainty Because Jesus himself promises that if we believe his word, even without physically seeing him with our physical eyes, we will be blessed with every heavenly blessing. And we should want that not only for ourselves, but for our neighbors as well. That's what love looks like. Love looks like the carrying forth of the Great Commission. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. the way that it confronts us, the way that it convicts us, and the way that it comforts us. Oh Lord, we can take no credit for our salvation. As wiser men than I have said before, the only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that made our salvation necessary. And we thank you that you have provided what you require to that end, that you have sent the Lord Jesus Christ to live the perfect life that you require of us. And yet we know that we have fallen so far short, that all indeed have fallen short. But we thank you that you have given us ears to hear and eyes to see the glorious truths of the gospel. the wounds of Christ that bled for the remission of our sins. Oh Lord, teach us to love our neighbors because of the love that you have shown for us. Help us to love our neighbors enough to share the gospel, to bring the gospel to them, and teach us to rest in Christ and in His sovereignty and salvation and in our evangelism. Help us to trust Him with the results, knowing that there's nothing that we can do other than faithfully preach your glorious gospel. We pray for opportunities to do that and we pray that it be your sovereign will to save many, to save all of your people through the faithful preaching of your word for the glory of Christ. In his name we pray.