to prepare our hearts for worship. so so so so Well, good morning, church. We welcome all of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to our morning congregational worship service on this Lord's Day. We are glad to have you. with us and I do want to have you notice in your bulletin that we are continuing in the Sunday school hour through our Samuel series looking at chapter eight this morning and if you weren't able to to be here for Sunday school I encourage you to grab that recorded message on sermon audio this week and be blessed by it. You will also see that our sermon passage for next week is only two verses long. It's John 20 verses 30 and 31. We're going to zero in on really the purpose statement of the whole book of the Gospel of John. So this is a very, even though it's only two short verses, it's very rich and it's a very important part of the Gospel of John. So what I want to do is to encourage you this week to be really reflecting on those two verses, meditating on it in your private worship time or your family worship time, in your devotions, and also be praying through it. Be praying that the words of these two verses will become effectual in the lives of the people here who gather to hear the Word each Lord's Day. As you know, I'm always very mindful that there are those among us, even with such a small crowd, who don't yet know the Lord and who need to be redeemed. And that was the whole purpose of John's Gospel, was so that we might believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and have eternal salvation through him. Let's see, across the page there, so many announcements, I barely was able to fit them on that page. Let me just go through them. One is I'm super excited to announce that today marks the beginning of Jonathan Cantrell's pastoral internship. He, you know, years ago we affirmed his call into the ministry, we affirmed him to Southern Seminary where he has been diligently taking online classes while working a full-time job, and now he is beginning a six-month pastoral internship here at Dayspring where he will be leading and assisting me in various aspects of pastoral ministry, and so I want you to just take note that Jonathan is available for pastoral counseling in person or by phone or over Zoom. He is going to be accompanying me on a hospital visit this week and other just regular ministry activities, visitations. You want to pray for him and also be evaluating him and providing him with good feedback. as he labors in this internship over the next six months. There's a lot entailed with it. He will get credit with the seminary for the internship that he does. And this will, if you were at the business meeting, you'll know that this is leading into a paid internship for the last half, the three months over the summer when I will be on sabbatical, which we'll talk about in just a moment. But just be mindful. You'll be seeing Jonathan in many, many roles that you're maybe not used to seeing him in. He'll be in on the elders meetings. And really, this will be a time of growth and shaping him for a full-time pastoral ministry someday, we hope. Also, we are in need of a volunteer to serve right here in this room for the great gospel ministry of getting the word that is coming from this pulpit out to the nations of the earth. If you were at last Sunday evening's business meeting, you saw that 72 nations, many closed off violent countries, Muslim countries, having access to the gospel. preached right here were reached just over this last year. And so this is a very effective and blessed ministry by God's mercy. I want to encourage you to join in the rotation. What it would entail would just be to be in this little room one Sunday a month, and you'll get full training on what to do. And basically, you'll be at a computer pushing some buttons and making sure the streaming and the recording is working. You'll also be able to hear everything that goes on here in this room so you won't miss out on the singing or the worship. So see Rob Parchment for more information about this exciting opportunity. And then just a reminder that on the second Wednesdays of each month, we are hearing from Dayspringers who are sharing their testimony about how God has redeemed them and how he has worked and continued to work in their lives. Last month, we heard from Candice Estrada, just a remarkable testimony of God's radically converting her from darkness into light. And she chose, and everyone has the option to choose not to have their witness publicly shared on the internet, but it was recorded by Rafa, and he's trying to figure out a way to get that large recording to a place where he can share it with those who were unable to be here in person. This month, we're going to hear from Rafa himself. Also, just a remarkable radical conversion that the Lord did in his life and through a treatment center even called Teen Challenge, which many of you know is a great faith-based ministry that does a good work. So I look forward to that. It won't be this Wednesday, but next Wednesday, plan to be here. We'll have a brown bag supper, 545 in the fellowship hall, and then at 630 we'll just gather in this room to hear what God has done miraculously in the life of our brother Raphael. Also, you'll see that there is a women's conference coming up this Friday evening into Saturday. So this weekend, Journey Bible Fellowship, right up here in Leander. is hosting this women's conference titled, Rest in a Weary World. If any of you sisters are feeling the weight of weariness, I want to encourage you to pray about attending this. Kurt Roemig is the pastor of this church. He's a good friend of mine, and his wife, Michelle, is very gifted and trained. and is gonna be the main speaker for this conference. To get more information on it or to register, you can go to the link in the bulletin. There's also a flyer on the bulletin board out in the hall table where you can see a picture of her or read more about what this conference will entail. Two weeks from today, so Sunday, March the 16th, just wanna give you a heads up that we are going to have a brief congregational meeting that day after the service. So we're gonna worship together, and then greet visitors and have a little time to use the restroom or grab more coffee. And then at the sound of the piano, we're going to gather back in this room. And the purpose of this meeting is not to make any decisions as a church, but just to...it's going to be informational, to provide information about my upcoming sabbatical and to answer any questions that you might have. So if you were here for my first sabbatical in my seventh year of pastoral ministry here, then you might not even want to attend because you might already know all about what a sabbatical is and its purpose and why we do it. But for those of you who are new and don't even know what a sabbatical is, come with your questions and we will answer those and clarify what's going on there as I will be entering into my 14th year of ministry in April. Praise God for his faithfulness and sustaining me, and I look forward to the rest and the work that the Lord has for me during that sabbatical time. Let's see, a Parchman wedding is really going to be here before we know it. Saturday, March the 15th, so not this Saturday but next, at 2 in the afternoon, right here in this room, a grand wedding is going to take place between Rob and Leslie, and you're all invited to to attend. Today is the deadline to let Rob know how many in your party are going to be in attendance. That way he can make sure that they have enough refreshments. Fifth Sunday fellowship meal. So speaking of refreshments, you want to mark your calendar for Sunday, March the 30th. Since it is a fifth Sunday, we're going to enjoy a fellowship meal after the main service in the fellowship hall together. Couples and families should bring two of these, a main dish, vegetable or dessert, and singles should bring one of these, bread or drinks or ice. All are welcome. So we encourage you to invite your neighbors, your friends. great time of fellowship together around a meal after the Lord's Day service that Sunday. And then finally, remember that the annual Bunyan Conference is this summer, June 22nd to 25th, takes place in Franklin, Tennessee, and the church, Grace Church in Franklin, is hosting it. Just a warm and welcoming church that has a whole group of ladies that cooks for us and opens up their facilities to us for four days over this wonderful conference. It is going to be a remarkable one this year. We're going to focus on what Scripture says about Israel and prophecy, and it will be an exciting time. I already know, like what many of the people have chosen to speak on, and I am on the board that puts this conference together, and we're starting to meet and talk about what this is gonna look like. I'm super excited. Some of the speakers include Dr. Joshua Griever, He's a New Testament scholar and professor. Paul Carstens is our missionary that we support in Cape Town, South Africa, and he, through our connection with him, has been invited to be a main speaker at this conference. are longing to have more fellowship with Paul who visited us here last summer. Please plan on using some of your summer vacation time to come to Franklin, Tennessee to see Paul. Pastor Blake White will be speaking, Gary George, both good friends of this church. I'll be speaking and many others, so I encourage you to be there. That will be during my sabbatical time, so if you're missing me over the 12 weeks that I'm not here, come to Tennessee and visit with me there. I look forward to it. As we begin worship this morning, I want to encourage you to find your red hymnal and turn in the red hymnal to hymn number 342, That's hymn 342 in the Red Hymnal, and please do stand together for our call to worship. Our call to worship this morning, it comes from the second chapter of the second letter from the Apostle Paul to the young Pastor Timothy. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David. This saying is trustworthy. If we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal. The Lord knows those who are His. Let us sing together. Christ has made the sure foundation, Christ the head and cornerstone. Chosen of the Lord and precious, binding all the Church in one. Holy Zion's hill forever and her confidence alone. All that vacated city dearly loved of God on high, in exultant jubilation, hosts perpetual melody. Of the one in three adoring, and glad hymns eternally to this temple where we call Thee. Come, O Lord of hosts, today with Thy word. Having kindness, hear Thy people as they pray, And the fullest benediction shed within its walls away. Here vouchsafe to all the servants what they ask of Thee to gain, What they gain from Thee forever with the blessing to retain. ♪ Here and after in thy glory ♪ ♪ Evermore with thee to reign ♪ ♪ God and honor to the Father ♪ ♪ God and honor to the Son ♪ ♪ God and honor to the Spirit ♪ ♪ Ever three and ever one ♪ ♪ One in might and one in glory ♪ Let us pray together. Our merciful God and loving Father, we do worship you today and we thank you for the great and unshakable foundation that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord, that his kingdom is forever, that he is our mighty and worthy, invincible King. We thank you for the comfort that you've brought to us in times of grief and sorrow and affliction. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for every way in which you have poured out your Spirit upon us and every gift and grace that you have given us through Christ Jesus, our Lord and our Savior and our King and our God. It is in His name, the name of our King, that we gather today to rejoice in your great salvation, one upon the cross, through the substitutionary life and death and resurrection of our Lord and God. And so we pray that you would now meet with us, that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit, that you would be adored in our singing, that you would be pursued in the Lord's Supper, that our prayers would rise to you and be heard by you for Jesus' sake. We pray, Lord God, that you would unstop every ear so that it would be your voice that we hear when your word is read and proclaimed from this pulpit. May all the things be done in this place by these your people for your honor and glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Well, good morning, everyone. All right, still in the red here. Please turn to hymn 605. 605, All the Way My Savior Leads Me. Where my Savior leads me, what have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy, who through life has been my guide? Heav'nly peace, divine is comfort, here by faith in Him to dwell. For I know whatever follow me, Jesus doeth all things well. ♪ The way my Savior leads me ♪ ♪ Cheers each winding walk by true ♪ ♪ Gives me hope ♪ ♪ The way my Savior leads me ♪ ♪ Cheers each winding walk by true ♪ ♪ Gives me hope ♪ ♪ The way my Savior leads me ♪ ♪ Cheers each winding walk by true ♪ ♪ Gives me hope ♪ ♪ The way my Savior leads me ♪ ♪ Cheers each winding walk by true ♪ ♪ Gives me hope ♪ Crashing from the rock before me, lo, a spring of joy I see. Crashing from the rock before me, lo, a spring of joy I see. All the way my Savior leads me, all the fullness of His love. Perfect rest to me is promised in my Father's house above. When my spirit clothed immortal Wings it flies to realms of day This my song through endless ages Jesus led me all the way This my song through endless ages Jesus led me all the way Now please take your blue hymnals to 134 134 when I can read my title clear. When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear and wipe my weeping eyes. And wipe my weeping eyes. And wipe my weeping eyes. And wipe my weeping eyes. Should earth against my soul engage, And party towards me whirl, Then I can smile at Satan's rage, And face a frowning world. And face a frowning world. and face a frowning world. Then I can smile at Satan's rage and face a frowning world. Let cares like a wild deluge come and storms of sorrow flow. May I but safely reach my home, my God, my heaven, my all. My God, my heaven, my all I would safely reach my home, my God, my heaven, my home. Amazing grace! Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. Was blind but now I see Was blind but now I see I once was lost but now I'm found Was blind but now I see When we've been there ten thousand years Bright shining as the sun We've no less days to sing God's grace And when we've first begun And when we've first begun And when we've first begun We've no less days to sing God's grace And when we've first begun Today's reading is from 1 Peter 1, 3-9. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him, Though you do not now see Him, 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. I feel like we can go home now after that passage was read. What a glorious passage. We are a table-centered church, which means that Not only are we word-centered, which is why the pulpit is right here up in the center, but we're also table-centered, which is why this table is up here at the center that says and proclaims, do this in remembrance of me. This is a command and an ordinance from our Lord to do and The example that we see in the early church from Acts chapter 2 is that on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, the church would gather together early before the workday began, and they would devote themselves to four things, to the apostles' teaching, to the prayers, to the fellowship, and to the breaking of bread. And so we celebrate this supper every Lord's Day here. at Dayspring is a central part of our worship. We want to invite you and encourage you, if you're visiting us, to understand that this is the Lord's table, this is not Dayspring's table. so all who belong to the Lord are welcome to it. We do ask three things of you. We ask first, and most importantly, that you are a sinner who is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. So you're not looking to any goodness in yourself, any works that you've done, you're not You're not looking to a prayer that you prayed, or an aisle that you walked, or even back to your Christian baptism. You are, this very moment, looking to Jesus Christ alone as your only hope for salvation, as the one who lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father as a substitute for you in your place, living the good life you have utterly failed to live before God. And the one who died in your place, taking upon himself the punishment that you deserve, you know what you've done, that you deserve for all of your sins, he's taken it all upon himself for you so that you have been reconciled to the Lord Jesus Christ. So we ask that you are one who has been saved, by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, to his glory alone. And then secondly, we ask that you be a baptized believer, but we do leave the details of your baptism up to your own individual conscience. And finally, we ask that you not be under church discipline from your local congregation where your membership resides, the church that you've united with, so that we can respect the work of our Lord as he builds his church here in this world according to his commands. Well, as we prepare ourselves for the Lord's Supper, I want you to take your blue hymnal once again and turn with me in the blue to hymn number 256. 256 in the blue as we sing to one another about the old rugged cross. Let us sing together. On a hill far away Stood an old rugged cross The emblem of suffering and shame And I love that old cross Where the dearest and best For world of lost sinners was slain So I'll cherish the old rugged cross fill my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown. Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world, has a wondrous attraction for me. For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above To bear it to dark Calvary So I'll cherish the old rugged cross Till my trophies at last I lay down I will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown. In the old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine, the wondrous beauty I see. For twice on the cross Jesus suffered and died to pardon and sanctify me. So I'll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown. To the old rugged cross I will ever be true, His shame and repose gladly bear. Then He'll call me someday to my home far away, Where His glory forever I'll share. So I'll terrace the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown. I want to begin by reading the words of a song that you may know. It's known mostly as a children's song, and it goes like this. I'll spare you singing. I'll just read. There is a name I love to hear. I love to sing its worth. It sounds like music in my ear, the sweetest name on earth. It tells me of a Savior's love who died to set me free. It tells me of his precious blood, the sinner's perfect plea. It tells of one whose loving heart can feel my deepest woe, who in each sorrow bears a part that none can bear below. Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus because He first loved me. For a children's song, there is such deep biblical truth, especially in that refrain regarding the priority of Jesus's love for us. He loved us first. So important. While we were his hateful enemies, He loved us, and it's because of His saving love for us that we now love Him. But the Bible says even more than that. In 1 John 4, we read, we love because Jesus first loved us. And you might be thinking, well, isn't that exactly what the song says? Well, no, because John's taking it a step further there. In the context, he means we love others because Jesus first loved us. I love all of y'all, and y'all love me because he first loved us. Jesus said he taught his disciples, we saw this back in John 15, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Simon Peter writes, and maybe he was even thinking of his betrayal of Jesus and then his restoration and forgiveness by Jesus. He writes, as we keep loving one another earnestly, love has a way of covering a multitude of sins. Paul writes, love is patient and kind. doesn't insist on its own way. It's not irritable or resentful. It never ends. But perhaps the greatest of all of Jesus' proclamations regarding true love would be this from the Gospel of John. Greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. And he did, he did. Back to John 4, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. We celebrate that sacrificing, life-giving, never-ending, propitiating love here at the Lord's Supper. And so I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? the bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That's why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. Brothers and sisters, let's take a moment of reflective silence in the presence of our King to examine ourselves. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you that in your great eternal love, you sent your one and only son to die that we might live, to bear your wrath so that we might bear your mercy, to receive in his body upon the tree your divine curse so that we might receive your everlasting blessing. So we ask that you would now bless these elements here at this table, bless this bread and this cup, set them apart for their holy use, and bless us in partaking of them to do so by faith alone, in Christ alone, to his glory alone, and so in a worthy manner. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. This is the body of our Lord crushed for our iniquities. Sister, this is the body of our Lord. This cup is the new covenant in Christ's blood, shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. The new covenant in Christ's blood. Saving blood of the lamb. Let's take your red hymnals again to hymn number 468. My faith has found a resting place. From guilt, my soul is freed. I trust the ever-living one. His wounds for me shall plead. My faith has found a resting place. From guilt my soul is freed. I trust the Ever-Living One. His wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me. Enough for me that Jesus saves, this ends my fear and doubt. A sinful soul, I come to Him, He'll never cast me out. I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me. My heart is leaning on the Word, the written word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name, salvation through His blood. I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me. My great Physician heals the sick, the lost He came to save. For me His precious blood He shed, for me His life He gave. I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me. With your red hymnal still in hand, if you would turn with me in the back of the red hymnal to page 819, 819 in the red. We are gonna read responsibly together Psalm 95, the great 95th Psalm. Please stand together. Come let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. In his hands are the depths of the earth and the mountain peaks belong to him. Come, let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker. Today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert. For 40 years I was angry with that generation. I said, They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways. So I declared an oath in my anger. They shall never enter my rest. Let us pray together. Our gracious and blessed Father, we do praise you, Lord God. We thank you that you have caused your people to turn their hearts to you and to enter into the rest that has been provided to us through your son, Jesus. We do praise you, Lord God, and thank you that you are the great shepherd who is working all things together for good to those who are your sheep, those who love you and who are the called according to your purpose. So we pray for all of those here in our congregation who are in need today, that they would find you all sufficient in every circumstance, in every suffering, every trial of life. We pray for those who are absent from us, those who are sick, Lord, that you would heal their bodies. We pray for healing for Marie and for Sarah and for Sandra and for Chuck. We pray for all in various circumstances who just need your grace and your protection. We ask that you would be with them. We pray, Father, for our dark and fallen world. We pray that you would be with your church in this dark and fallen world, that you would strengthen all of our brothers and sisters. especially those whose very existence is under attack with the immovable hope of the glorious gospel of Jesus. We pray that you would ensure that this gospel is preached throughout this violent and broken world, that you would plunder the house of the devil that you've bound, and that you would add to your church daily as many as are being saved. We pray for our leaders, and particularly that you would bless our president with your wisdom and favor and guidance for the sake of your elect. We lift up to you this morning Pastor Rob Satterfield as he preaches your word at First Baptist Church in Oak Hill that you would fill him with your spirit. We pray that you would be with all those who labor in the spread of the gospel here at home and abroad, all of our brothers and sisters who are on this mission with us. And we left up to you all of our missionaries and pray that you would be with them, that you would be meeting their needs, that you'd be with the orphanage in India. And we ask, oh God, that all Israel would be saved according to the promise of your word and that Jesus would come quickly, that the whole earth might be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. In Jesus' name, and for his great glory, we pray. Amen. Well, you may be seated. And please turn with me in your copy of God's living and active word to the Gospel of John and to chapter 20. John chapter 20. It's been a couple of weeks since we have been in John's Gospel together. So just remember that the risen Lord Jesus has just appeared to his disciples, right? after first appearing to Mary, and he has just spoken to them about their mission. But one of the things that we didn't know that John knew, and we're about to find out, is that there were only 10 disciples in the room that day. One of them was not there. So we're gonna read about him in John chapter 20, and I'll begin reading for us in verse 24. 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. 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. 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 him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Well, Here we have a famous and just a wonderful retelling of an event that happened when the risen Jesus was presenting himself again to his beloved disciples. And there's a good reason that this account is so famous. Thomas's conversion here from this kind of just invincible unbelief to this now joyful embrace of Jesus, it's really one of the most dramatic conversions that you get in the entire Bible. I mean, you've got Saul who gets converted on the road to Damascus. You've got all sorts of other conversions, the woman at the well in John chapter four. But our passage today, this is definitely one of the most dramatic conversions in all the Bible. If you just noticed, right, the two very radically different confessions. that Thomas makes in our passage here about Jesus. He goes from, I will never believe, in verse 25, to my Lord and my God, just three verses later. And that radical conversion, that confession of Jesus as his Lord and his God, That's not just a high watermark for John's gospel. It might be the high watermark of verbalized, Christological confession in the entire New Testament, maybe just short of the book of Revelation with what the angels say there about Jesus. I mean, this might be the highest thing that any human being says about Jesus Christ in the Bible. I mean, just think about it. He says to Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary and Joseph, my Lord and my God. It's just an astounding thing for a person to say, especially a first century Jewish person would just never, as a Jewish person, never call another human being my God. It just wouldn't happen. And yet here is Thomas, this Israelite, this hardened, pessimistic skeptic, saying that very thing about Jesus. It's extraordinary. Well, I believe the most fundamental lesson that we can learn from this short passage today is also the most simple, and it's this. Jesus really did get up from the grave. So stop doubting and believe that. That's the main point of our passage. This is what John is driving at. It's the point that's being made to Thomas as he sees the scars on Jesus' wrists. It's also the point that's being made by the apostle John to you today. Jesus really did get up from the grave after dying. So stop doubting. believe. We're going to look at this passage and that main idea in three points this morning. Number one, we're going to look at Thomas's unbelief, his unbelief. Number two, we're going to talk about Jesus's scars, his scars. And then number three, we're going to talk about our responsibility. We have a responsibility here. So Thomas' unbelief, Jesus' scars, our responsibility. My hope and prayer this morning as we walk back through these verses I just read and think about this very famous retelling from the Bible is that all of you here will, whether you're a Christian today or not, my hope and prayer is that you will be convinced anew and maybe even astonished anew at the fact that Jesus, even though He was crucified. on a Roman cross, even though he had nails put through his wrists and nails put through his feet and a spear stabbed all the way through his side until blood and water flowed out, even though his dead corpse was taken off that cross and buried in the tomb, despite all of that, Jesus of Nazareth is alive and reigning on the throne of his God and Father today. So let's begin with point number one, Thomas's unbelief. his just hardcore unbelief. Last time, remember, Jesus, he appeared to his disciples on the evening of Resurrection Sunday. And now John tells us that one of those disciples, he was not present when that happened. And so he's the man who has come to be known as Doubting Thomas, right? Now, the name Doubting Thomas is a little bit Unfortunate. Probably in the new heavens and the new earth, Jesus is going to give him a new name. But until then, he's sort of stuck with it. We all know him as Doubting Thomas. The main reason that it's an unfortunate name is because it doesn't actually capture well what was going on in Thomas's mind and heart at this point. Now, maybe you're expecting me to say, you know, we shouldn't be so mean to poor Doubting Thomas. We shouldn't call him doubting. Let's call him, you know, Empirical Thomas, or let's call him, you know, Carefully Questioning, Investigative Thomas. Let's call him Convinced by Reasonable Evidence Thomas, something like that. But no, that's not what I'm going to tell you. What I'm going to tell you is that doubting fails to fully capture the depth of what was going on in Thomas's heart. It was much worse than doubting. Because what was going on in Thomas's heart and soul and mind was not just doubt. It was hardened, rank unbelief. He was not just doubting. He didn't just have some reasonable doubts about what the other disciples were telling him. He was saying, I will never believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. It was rank and invincible unbelief. It was right in line, really, with Thomas' character throughout this entire book. So I don't know if you remember back, we've seen him a couple of times already. We're not given a whole lot about Thomas. I mean, here in verse 24, it says that he was obviously, he was one of the 12. He was called Didymos. which translates to the twin. So we don't know if that's just kind of a nickname, or maybe it's his surname Didymus, or maybe he was in fact a twin brother to a brother or a sister. We don't know. But he was called Didymus, which translates to twin. Better than doubting Thomas, right, Didymus? But that's all the passage tells us about him. And then he shows up two other times already that we've seen in the Gospels, both of them here in John. And so both times he shows up. You might remember, he just sort of shows himself to be this sort of unspiritual, droll kind of guy, if you've read the Chronicles of Narnia. He's like puddle-glum, this guy, right? Maybe a little sarcastic, definitely a lot pessimistic. And he seems to think of himself as this sort of cut-through-the-junk, get-to-the-point kind of guy. Just tell me straight up how it is, and don't give me any of this esoteric, religious, spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Just the facts. That's how he shows up in the story of John's Gospel in chapter 11, right? Jesus, he gathers his disciples around him, and he says to them, my dear friend Lazarus has died. You know, he was sick, but now he's fallen asleep, he's dead. And for your sake, he says, I'm glad that we didn't go while he was still alive, because we're gonna go now, and I'm gonna resurrect him from the dead, and you're gonna learn from that. That's the kind of subtext of the whole thing here. And Jesus says, so let's go, let's go towards Jerusalem to Bethany, you know, despite the danger, despite the fact that the Jewish rulers are after me and that's where they're headquartered. He says, let's go towards Jerusalem. And then you get Thomas right after this, John 11, verse 16, saying, let us also go that we may die with him And remember, that was not like this courageous pronouncement, let's go die with our king! This was a droll, pessimistic, cut-through-the-junk, sarcastic even, assessment of the situation. It's like, all right, fine. I guess we're just all gonna go with them and wind up on Roman crosses. He's pessimistic. Well, the second time that he shows up in John is in chapter 14. It's in the middle of this speech that Jesus is giving to his disciples on the night of the Last Supper, when he introduces the Lord's Supper. Jesus was preparing his disciples that night for the time when he's going to be away from them after his ascension into heaven. And at the beginning of chapter 14, one of the things that he tells them is that when he goes back to his father from where he came from, he's going to prepare a place for them to come and be with him. Because when all is said and done, King Jesus wants his people to be with him forever. And he makes this statement to them saying, you know, you know the way to get to the place that I'm going to prepare for you. And what he means, of course, is that the way to the Father's presence, the way to the Father's right hand, is through the suffering of the cross. That's what he means. In order to get to the glory, you've got to go through the suffering. Jesus was about to do that, and he's telling his disciples, you're gonna get there too, to the place that I'm gonna prepare for you, but the way to it is through the same kind of suffering that I'm about to endure. He says that, but then Thomas, He jumps in at that point, interrupts, and he isn't going to have any of this spiritual, religious, pie-in-the-sky mumbo-jumbo. He just butts in and says, Lord, we don't even know where you're going. How can we know the road to get there? And then Jesus answers him with that famous line. I am the road, right? I am the way and the truth and the life. The only way that you get to God the Father is through me. But you can see what Thomas is doing there with that question, right? We don't know where you're going. How are we supposed to know which road to take to get there if we don't even know what the destination is? He's just putting on his cut-through-the-junk attitude, kind of a sad attitude to take, really. I mean, everybody knew here that Jesus, he was talking about deep spiritual things. Everybody knew that Jesus wasn't just talking about some geographical destination somewhere in the Middle East and the road to get there. So what Thomas is doing, even here, is just refusing to look past the sort of just flat, concrete, empirical realities of this world in order to lift his eyes to spiritual things and realize, you know, that maybe, maybe there's something beyond this world and what we can see with our eyes. He's taking a cut-through-the-junk attitude, trying to act like that somehow is a virtue. I've known people like that. I've been a person like that, so I get it. I understand. I mean, there's a certain pride in being able to say, look, I don't put up with pie in the sky nonsense. I take the world as it is. I deal in concrete, scientific realities, and I don't want to hear any of that spiritual, metaphorical, religious, esoteric, fairy tale, mumbo jumbo. There's a certain pride in that, and I get it. And if you resonate a little bit with Thomas in all of this, then let me maybe just challenge you with a couple of thoughts that I think Thomas learned through the course of his life with Jesus. The first one, Do you have room for, in your heart, is it possible that the world as it really is has just a little bit more to it than what you can see on the surface? Is that a possibility? Is it possible that there are some realities, not metaphors, not fairy tales, not mumbo-jumbo, but actual realities, that they aren't just laying there on the surface? I think if you're honest with yourself, if you look back over your life, your heart, the entire human condition, You'll see that the answer to that question has got to be yes, there's more to this life. The world as it really is has got more going on than you might be giving it credit for. Here's a second thought. Is the resurrection of Jesus, is Jesus himself, is the gospel of Jesus Christ really a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo? Or is it one of those realities that shapes history? And what I would say and what I would challenge you with is that no, the resurrection of Jesus, it is not religious, spiritual mumbo jumbo at all. It really happened. And when we Christians, when we say that it happened, we mean that it happened in the same way that it happened that George Washington was the first president of the United States. We don't have video footage or photographs of the inauguration or anything like that. But we have eyewitness accounts and we think that there is enough evidence for us to say, yep, it looks like George Washington was in fact, historically speaking, not metaphorically, but really the President of the United States. There's enough evidence for that. And when we Christians say that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, we mean exactly the same thing. There is enough evidence, historically speaking, not metaphorically or spiritually, but historically, to say, yes, Jesus, the man, got up from the dead. And friend, if that is true, if the resurrection is something that really happened in history, then it's not religious pie-in-the-sky mumbo-jumbo. It's not just some story that people tell each other to encourage one another. It's real, and it shaped history, and it ought to shape your whole life. That's what Thomas eventually came to see. This wasn't just an inspiring story. It's real. But Thomas, he's not there at all at the beginning of the story, is he? I mean, at the beginning of this whole thing. In fact, when the story opens, Thomas is in this place of just hardcore unbelief. Look with me again at verses 24 and 25. 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, place my hand into his side, I will never believe. Now, let's look at it. What happens at first is pretty straightforward. John tells us that, you know, Thomas, he wasn't there with the disciples earlier when Jesus first appeared to them in the passage just prior to this one, and so they go and they tell him just straight up, hey, Thomas, good news! We have seen the Lord. You know, Mary was right. He's alive. And then Thomas answers, with this amazing statement. He repeats that phrase, mark of the nails, twice, right? Unless I see in his hands, mark of the nails, place my finger, mark of the nails, place my hand into his side, I will never believe. Now that's a really fascinating response, isn't it? And it is hardcore in his utter refusal to believe. So what is Thomas really saying here? If you look at what he says in verse 25, for one thing, you can see that he is He is insistent on pulling this news of a resurrected Jesus down into the very real, very physical, very solid realm of historical scientific reality. He has absolutely no interest in a metaphorical resurrection. He has absolutely no interest at all in an encouraging, inspiring story that's going to give him, you know, jacked up emotions that give him strength to live through the next week or something. He wants to know, did Jesus the man really rise up from the dead. Now that's important to see. It's critical, in fact, because it rules out any idea or notion that the disciples or were just victims of some kind of like wishful thinking or mass hallucination or that they just made up the whole thing, right, just came up with an idea of a spiritual, metaphorical resurrection of Jesus in order to encourage one another and start a new, you know, Jewish sect or a new religion or something like that. Thomas, he rules all of that out because he just was not at all interested in any kind of fake resurrection. That was not gonna cut it with Thomas. No, if he was gonna risk his life walking around saying and telling other people that Jesus Christ was alive, he was gonna have to be convinced that that was really, historically, concretely true, not just metaphorically so. He was gonna have to touch the nail scars. He was gonna have to touch the spear scar. metaphor just wasn't going to do it for him. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing, because we don't believe in a metaphorically resurrected Jesus. This is not just an inspiring story. When we say Jesus got up from the dead, we mean it. Nails, scars, and all. That's what Thomas demanded, and he was right in that sense to do so. But notice something else here in the way that Thomas says this. I want you to notice the particular way Thomas worded his demand here. There's a way that Thomas could have worded this demand that we could have been entirely sympathetic with, because he could have said something like this. Listen guys, thank you for telling me that you have seen the Lord. Thank you for telling me that. I remember that He told us that He would be crucified and on the third day would rise again. And guys, if I see the nail marks in His hands, if I touch the nail marks in His hands, if I touch the scar in His side, then I will believe. That's very different, isn't it, from what he actually says? What he says was this defiant, I mean, not even, unless I see, unless I touch, I will not believe, but rather I will never believe. You know, in both mathematics and in English grammar, two negatives cancel each other out, right? But not so in Greek. In Greek, a second not, just intensifies the first knot and it makes it all the more negative. And that's what Thomas says here. It's emphatic. I will never, ever, ever believe. You can see the difference, right? I mean, one is the language of being open to believing. If I could just see the evidence, then I'll believe. The other is shutting the door on belief altogether and basically demanding evidence that Thomas knows is never coming. Basically, he's putting something out there that he believes will never happen. It would be like me saying to someone, look, Unless you go to Neptune and bring me a piece of the rock that it's made of, I will never ever believe in Jesus. That's what he's doing. He's talking about hell freezing over, right? He's talking about something that he knows deep down is never going to happen. Well, what do we make of, how do we sort of analyze Thomas here? Do we think about, I mean, on the one hand, we've already talked about this, Thomas's hardcore unbelief, right, his just hard-nosed skepticism, his insistence on the physical being just super important because it shows us that the disciples, they were not just gullible pushovers, right? I mean, they didn't just immediately believe in the resurrection. None of them. They needed evidence. In fact, their first inclination, every single one of the eyewitnesses, their first inclination was to not believe. And that's important, right? These guys were not inclined to believe that Jesus was going to get up and rise from the dead. These guys were not just, you know, sad, broken-hearted saps who were just longing and hoping to believe in the resurrection on the slightest bit of evidence or suggestion. I mean, Thomas here was dead set against believing anything of the sort. So the idea that they ended up, this little group of disciples, think about it, the idea that they, these guys who are fearfully locked in this room together, the idea that they would end up turning the whole world upside down Based on a hoax, that's impossible. It's impossible, it just does not hold water. Some people in their hardened, hardcore unbelief try to cling to that as an explanation. Well, Thomas' whole world had to be turned upside down in order for him to believe in the resurrection. And yet, on the other hand, as useful as that is, as helpful as that is. This was not a good place for Thomas to be in, was it? This kind of hard-nosed skepticism, this pessimistic, I will never believe. It was not a good place for him to be in, especially not after spending three years following I mean, Thomas had heard Jesus's predictions of his death and resurrection on the third day. He had seen the miracles of Jesus, the walking on the water, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. He'd seen all the miracles, and yet his heart was sealed up tight to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Jesus actually would rise again, just as he had promised. He'd seen the nails go in. He'd seen the spear go in, the blood and the water flowed out. He'd seen the corpse come down off that Roman cross, and his heart had become sealed up tight against the idea of the resurrection. And Thomas, he isn't unique in that, is he? I mean, the fact is, the fact is your heart My heart, all of our hearts are sealed up tight against that possibility until God unseals them, right? Every one of us, but before the Lord opens our eyes to see spiritually, before he regenerates our hearts, makes us spiritually alive, We are, all of us, every single one of us, frozen in this kind of invincible, hardcore unbelief. And then God does the miracle of calling your dead soul to life. This is what the church theologians call the doctrine of total Depravity, total depravity. The doctrine of total depravity, it doesn't mean that we are all just as bad as we could possibly be. What it means is that our hearts and our minds and our wills are completely and totally closed up and frozen off from the truth to the truth, right? They are irreparably bent toward unbelief. as frozen against the truth as Thomas was here. And yet despite the kind of hopelessness of that doctrine of total depravity, there is another doctrine that we Christians hold to as well. And this one we call irresistible grace. irresistible grace, which is God's invincible, battering ram of love, right? It was just another way of saying that it's effectual. It is something that is effective every time it is given, every time. It is poured out by God. It accomplishes exactly what it is meant to accomplish. So irresistible grace is grace that when God chooses to show it to a person, always has the effect of bringing them to eternal life. It always melts the ice of unbelief off of that person's heart. It always brings the dead to life. It always opens up a person's eyes to the beauty and loveliness of Jesus Christ and brings them to faith and trust and dependence on him. It is God's redeeming love that acts like a battering ram against any obstacle that you have erected to God's truth. That's what irresistible grace is. And that's the kind of grace If you're a Christian here today, that's the kind of grace that God has already used in your life, because no matter what your experience was of being converted, coming to Christ in faith, you know, we're hearing these testimonies on these Second Wednesdays, and for some of you, you know, you have these dramatic conversion stories. Like, it is clear that on a particular at a particular time, God just blew the doors open on you with his battering ram of love, right? For others of you... It was way more gradual. You grew up as a child in a Christian home hearing the gospel all the time. You went to church with your parents and had a tremendous pastor who preached the gospel to you, and Sunday school teachers. You heard the gospel every Sunday, and the gospel felt to you less like a battering ram than it did like sort of a rising daybreak, right, a gradual sunrise. But whatever your testimony is, what I'm here to tell you is that none of us started out as kind of halfway there almost Christians. We all started out as dead in our trespasses and sins, as closed off to the truth, just as Thomas was. And it took a miracle, it took a miracle to bring spiritual life to you. Never forget that. Never ever think that you started out sort of halfway on the road to heaven. It's what Thomas experienced, just that battering ram kind of saving effectual love. It blew his heart open. Secondly, Jesus's scars, his scars, not just Thomas's unbelief, but Jesus's scars. So in verse 26, what happened here is that we basically, we fast forward a week past this first time that the disciples saw Jesus. So that was on the Sunday that Jesus was resurrected. And so now, eight days later, so this is the following Sunday. How does that work? That's the way that days were counted back then. They were counted not like we count days today, they were counted in an inclusive way. This is called inclusive counting. So Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, eight days. Inclusive counting. Same reason, by the way, that it said Jesus died on Friday, Good Friday, and rose from the dead after three days, three days later. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That's inclusive counting. It's a way that they counted. back in this day. Anyway, the disciples are gathered together again on this Lord's Day, but this time, first day of the week, and Thomas was there with them. So that's really the only difference here, right? The doors are locked again. These are still scared people. They've seen Jesus a week before, but they're not spirit-filled people with boldness like they're going to be after Pentecost. Jesus has promised that's coming. They don't have that now. They're terrified. They're scared. They're still locked up in the house because they're terrified of what the Jews are going to do to them if they find them. And then it happens. It happens really just like the last time, right? Same kind of language here. Jesus, the doors are locked. Jesus came and stood among them. And again, he gives the same greeting that he gave. It's now the third time that the risen Jesus has said to these men, peace be with you. Shalom. You know, Paul uses that word, the Greek word for shalom, which is erene. He uses it in every single one of his epistles in the New Testament. It's an important word. Because of Jesus Christ, we have peace with God. It means that all is well. But then look at what happens in the very next verse, verse 27. Jesus 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. It's just an extraordinary moment in the story, right? Several things are happening all at once here. So let's pull back some of the layers. For one thing, I wonder if you've ever noticed this in those words to Thomas. It's just a minor, this is not the point of the verse, but it's super important and interesting to observe. Jesus, he shows here in these words to Thomas that he does not have to be present physically to know what his people are saying and thinking. Do you notice that Thomas doesn't, lay down his evidentiary demand that he had made one week ago, yet Jesus knew it all. He knew. He knew Thomas' words. He knew his heart, too. And that's true today. Jesus, he knows his people. He knows our words. He knows every single one of our thoughts, every one of them. He knows our motives, He knows our attitudes, He sees our heart and knows everything. That's something that the Bible teaches all over the place, that Jesus, He sees it all. He knows the heart of His people, of every single person. That used to be, to me, that used to be very unsettling to me. until I realized and understood the gentle and lowly character of Jesus and his eternal affection for his own people. And so now, it's very, very comforting to me that he sees here and he knows everything. that my sovereign Lord peers into my soul and sees everything. It's comforting, because the fact is, sometimes you and I, as we go through this crazy, broken life, We don't even know what's going on in our own hearts and minds. There are times when we can feel down and there's absolutely no reason for us to feel down. Sometimes we can feel confused or we can feel discouraged or there's other times that we feel just kind of blah and dull or times when we're unable to really even pinpoint and name the emotion that we're feeling. We don't know our own minds very well. We don't know our own hearts. And yet Jesus does perfectly. He knows your mind better than you know your mind. And he knows your heart better than you know your heart. You know, when you get sad for no particular reason, he knows that, he sees that, and he understands that. When you're confused about your motives, or confused about the way that you're feeling, or interacting with other people and things, when you just feel off. Jesus knows that and he understands it. He knows your depression or your anxiety or your dullness all the way down to the bottom. And it makes total sense to him. which is comforting, because what it tells me is that that anxiety and depression and confusion and dullness, even though it may feel like it sometimes, it is not endless. It has a bottom, and Jesus knows where that bottom is. I don't know about you, but I find enormous comfort in that, just knowing that there is a bottom to it all, and Jesus is even present there. It's even comforting, really. It's comforting to realize that Jesus knows your blackest, darkest, worst. He knows your worst day, He knows your worst minute, He knows your worst action, your worst thought, your worst hour. He knows what you are capable of. He knows the evil that you are able to do and think and have done. And He loves you anyway. Would that be true of anybody else in your life? Would that be true of anyone else in your life? If your whole mind and heart and motives and every black, dark thing in you were just laid completely bare out in front of them to see with a big spotlight shining on it, showing the worst moments of your life, all of your worst failures, your shame, your sin, Would anybody in your life stick with you if they knew it all? Jesus does. He knows it all and he sticks with you and he loves you anyway. find comfort in that glorious truth. He sees it all, and he sets his eternal, saving affection on you anyway. I want you to see just another thing here. Jesus, he meets Thomas when he's confronting him in love. He meets him right at the excruciating point of his unbelief. Do you see that? He just goes right at it. takes him head-on. Even at the point that Thomas intended to be, you know, as far out of reach as Jupiter, he never thought anybody would take him up on that point of unbelief, yet Jesus just goes right at it. It's interesting to me that John, he doesn't tell us whether Thomas actually touched the scars. Ever notice that? I didn't notice that until this week. You know, I think the movie that we play in our minds when we read this passage, generally, it shows Jesus presenting his hands and his side to Thomas, and then Thomas reaches out and touches Jesus, right? and then he professes faith. But John doesn't actually say that. In fact, it kind of seems like Thomas didn't do that. I mean, his reaction there in the very next verse, it does not seem to me to have been the result of a kind of careful empirical examination of the wounds, right? I mean, it's not like he got out his magnifying glass. There's no break in the story where he then steps back and says, yep, sure enough, it looks like you're actually wounded where you're supposed to be, and it's looking like you're alive, and it worked out pretty well for you, so yep, now I believe. No, it seems more like just the very presence of Jesus and his inexhaustible knowledge of Thomas's heart and his simply offering to meet Thomas's challenge was all he needed, right? That was enough. So Thomas just cries out as soon as he's in the presence of Jesus, my Lord and my God. But he meets Thomas, he goes at Thomas, right at the point of his unbelief. You want to see the scars? Here they are. It's very very typical of Jesus. You read the gospel accounts, he tends to just run right at the very thing that a person is clinging to. He tends to run right at the very thing that is keeping somebody from trusting in him, for them putting their life in dependence in Jesus's saving hands. So for Thomas here, it was this hard-nosed, worldly-wise, evidence-demanding skepticism. Jesus just goes right for it. For Mary Magdalene, remember the thing that was keeping her from believing that Jesus was actually raised from the dead, even when he was standing right in front of her, was grief, right? She was in this just terrible storm of grief, and it just so overwhelmed her that she couldn't see Jesus, and Jesus just went right at that grief with a compassionate calling. Mary. for the rich young ruler in another place. It was his materialism, right? His bank account, his possessions were keeping him from trusting Jesus and following Jesus. And Jesus just went right at it. Take everything you have, sell it all, sell everything you've got, leave it all behind, come follow me. I wonder what that is for you. I wonder what you're clinging to that keeps you from really believing in and following after Jesus. Is it some sin that you love and just don't want to give up? Is it some sense of your own proud self-reliance that you're not going to humble yourself to depend on Jesus alone? What is it that keeps you from genuinely being saved, from genuinely being a Christian? That's a conversation that I know some of you need to have between your own soul and Jesus. But friend, let me tell you how it goes down. If he decides to show you his saving grace and to redeem you, guess where he's gonna launch his battering ram love assault right from the very beginning? At whatever thing it is that you care so much about that it is keeping you away from resting in Jesus for eternal salvation. That's where he'll launch it. And look, if that is happening right now in your heart, do you know what you need to do, like right now before this sermon is over? The thing that you need to do, if God is right now assaulting your heart like this, is surrender. Give up. Quit. Lay down the weapons. Open up the drawbridge and let him in. Stop trying to defend your little kingdom against the God of the universe. I mean, you know that if God is doing that in your heart right now, he is breaking open your heart not to cause you any pain, but to give you the joy of eternal life. Put your faith in him, believe in him, stop resisting, stop fighting. What's God doing in your heart? I want you to see another thing here, just here in verse 27. And that's just the plain but very extraordinary fact that the scars from the crucifixion on that Roman cross remain on Jesus's glorified, resurrected body. You ever to stop and just think about that? the scars from the cross remain on Jesus's resurrection glorified body. We've often wondered what that might mean for us and our resurrection bodies on the last day. I mean, does the fact that Jesus's scars still being there mean that we too are gonna carry our scars from this life into the world to come? I mean, I've got a big one right on my back from spinal surgery that I had over 30 years ago. Is that still going to be there when I get to the resurrection? What about the scars that aren't physical? Are those still going to be there when we get to the resurrection? Many of us have deep scars that you can't see. Well, we don't know. Maybe. But if they are, if they are, they're going to be transformed, right? All of those scars, they're going to be transformed gloriously into the trophies of God's goodness to us, right? All of those tragedies and hurts in our lives are going to be rewritten into stories of grace. But the Bible actually doesn't say anything about our own scars and what happens to them all, so we don't know. But what it does tell us is that Jesus's scars are still there. John, in the Apocalypse, in the Revelation, when he looks and he sees, he sees a lamb as if slain. He sees a scarred king. And I think maybe, just as I try to speculate about it a little bit, as I look at what the Bible tends to say overall, I think it may be that his scars may be the only scars left in all eternity, because they've swallowed up all the other scars. That's what I think is most likely. And also, Jesus's scars, they are his credentials to suffering people that he knows, right? And he cares about what we are experiencing. He's not aloof to it. There's a personal stake in it. And he's gonna bring it all to a crashing end one day. He is the head of our redeemed race. He's our brother, and he knows He knows our suffering. To have a king, to have the high king of heaven who has all authority over heaven and earth, to have a king who suffered on his way to his throne is to have a king who knows, a king who sympathizes, a king who truly cares. Well, here's the last thing briefly, number one, number three. Third thing, our responsibility, our responsibility. And in verse 28, of course, all of Thomas' hardened unbelief just crumbles. It melts. And he utters just this highest, most glorious profession of faith in all of the book, my Lord and my God. There's some other places in this gospel where people call Jesus Lord, and it's not always entirely clear, is it, if they're just using that title as a sign of respect towards Jesus, sort of like calling someone sir, or if they're equating Jesus with Yahweh, the Lord. Here, though, When Thomas says it like this, right, connected with the other phrase, my God, when he says my Lord and my God, you've got to give it the fullest weight of the divine name, what the Old Testament means when it calls God Lord. He is Yahweh of Israel. That's what Thomas means. And then that second term there, my God, that just brings John's whole gospel full circle, right? Remember the very first verse of this book, it said, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's the first thing that John wants you to know about Jesus. And here, finally, at the very end of the story, somebody gets that. Somebody sees that. This Israelite man confesses, you, Jesus of Nazareth, you are my Lord. You are my God. Just an extraordinary thing to say. Thomas is confessing. Jesus is, that he is the Word who was with God in the beginning and who was God and who became flesh and dwelt among us. Well, look at that last verse, verse 29. My ESV Bible has this as a question that Jesus said to Thomas, have you believed because you have seen me. I don't believe this is a question. There's no punctuation in the original Greek. There's nothing here to indicate that it's a question. Nothing contextually would lead us to take it as a question. And it's probably not meant to be taken as a question, but as a statement. Thomas. Because you have seen me, you have believed. That's probably what it is. He's stating that, yes, Thomas has seen the scars, and he's believed, and that is a good thing. I think sometimes we read this as though this were a criticism or a bad thing, as if there was a but, right, in between the two sentences. So you have believed, Thomas, because you have seen me, but, The ones who are really blessed are the ones who have not seen and yet have believed. I think that's how we can sometimes read it. But there is no disjunction there. There is no but in the English. There is no Allah in the Greek. There's no connecting word at all. It's just Jesus saying two things that are both good and that are both related to one another. You have seen my scars, and you have believed, and that is good. Those who have not seen and believed are blessed, and that's good. And so you see what he's saying there. Thomas, Thomas, you have seen now. You have seen and you have believed. And then immediately, Jesus's mind and heart goes out to you and to me. Blessed are those who have not seen, but who have believed through the witness of those who have seen." Every single one of us that are Christians, we came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ based upon the testimony of these who saw. These who saw him, that's how every single person who is a Christian became a Christian, believing the eyewitness testimony of those who saw the risen Jesus. So if you're not a Christian, do you know what your responsibility is today? Do you know what Jesus is saying here? He's saying, yeah, you're not gonna see, you're not gonna see my scars. You're not gonna see the scars. That was for those who were the eyewitnesses. Your responsibility, and blessed are you if you do it, is to believe when you haven't seen, but only when you have heard what Thomas is telling you, what John is telling you. And today, every single one of you have now heard. You've heard. One day you are going to see. You are going to see the scars. You are. One day you're going to see the scars on the body of the King of Kings. But on that day, it will be too late. Because on that day, when Jesus comes back, or when you stand before Him at the moment of your death, you will see the scars. But you'll see them either as one who has been redeemed by those scars and is looking forward now to eternity, or as one who is about to be eternally condemned. Because here, today, today is the day of salvation. And the way of salvation, the way that people become Christians today is by believing what Thomas is telling you, that Jesus is my Lord and my God. Let us pray. Our Lord Jesus, we praise you and we worship you and we honor you today as the one who is resurrected and reigning upon the throne of heaven and earth as Lord and God. All authority and power and might in the whole universe belong to you, Lord, and you have called each and every one of us to recognize you for who you are, to bow our hearts before you, to put our faith and our trust and our dependence in you. We pray that those of us who are Christians would do that anew this morning, that we would renew our faith in you, that we would renew our determination to follow hard after you until we face you in heaven. And Lord, we pray that if there are those who are not yet your people here today, Lord, we pray that you would use that battering ram of effectual grace to break their hearts of stone and to give them a heart of flesh so that they might see the beauty of their king and come to you in faith and confess him to be their Lord and their God. We pray all of this in your name, the name of Jesus. our Lord, our Savior, our Redeemer, and our God. Amen. Please stand together. I want to encourage you to spend