Eyewitness News, looking at touching truth today. As we begin, I wanna ask you a, a serious question. Have you ever been mad at God? I don’t have a, a cute story or a nice anecdote to kind of grab your attention, but I just hope we can get real. And think about this question because in this sermon I’m gonna ask you to believe something that really is impossible, but God asks us to believe We’re in the series that we’re in called Eyewitness News, looking at eyewitness accounts of people who said they saw a man who had been publicly killed, but now is alive. His name’s Jesus. And really to believe that it really is incredible beyond credulity. Unbelievable. And yet your Christian faith rises or falls on the veracity, the reality. Did Jesus rise from the dead? While I think it can be easy for us in a church service like this to kind of say that we do or feel that we believe Jesus is alive, there are moments in the life of many most Christians when doubt creeps in maybe even a season of darkness and doubt, where life ambushes you and despair and fear crowd out our faith. So I’ll ask again. You know, don’t answer out loud, but have you ever been mad at God or so sad? Not mad, but sad because life is so hard and you’re wondering where he is. You begin to doubt that he knows or cares or even exists. How does this happen in the life of a Christian? This ping ponging back and forth.
Between faith and doubt? Well, I think there’s at least a couple reasons. First, because what we’re asked to believe is truly incredible, not in this superpower kinda way. It’s in like beyond belief, the dead coming back to life. I mean, the closest we get is the best the world can offer, which is just zombies. Okay. That’s pathetic what the Bible lays out. Is dead to life in a glorified, even better body. That’s what the Christian faith believes, but it’s unnatural. It’s out of the ordinary. It’s certainly unexpected. So just the in credibility of resurrection. Can have us move from faith to doubt, but I think life’s circumstances also can press hard on us to begin the doubt that God cares, or to even be doubt that he exists, or at the very least, that we can’t or won’t believe in God who seems distant or absent or uncaring. I came upon this movie recently released from Angel Studios. It’s called Homestead. And if, if you’ve seen it and wanna see it, just a little bit of a spoiler here, but it’s set in this kind of battered post apocalyptic world. A nuclear bomb had been detonated over LA and it sets off a whole series of events. That, that it’d actually kinda be the, the worst case nightmare for any prepper out there. But food is scarce. Enemies circle around morale crumbles, and hope fades. And there’s a scene later in the show. It’s a, it’s a tense conversation between, um, a trauma therapist who’s pregnant during this time of chaos. Whose husband was killed because of the events, and she’s talking with a young man who found young love in this post apocalyptic time. A girl whose family’s quite religious, he says, and he ends up asking the therapist, well just watch the clip. Here we go. Find that that is what she needs.

Religion is super important to her and her family. Jack, I don’t even know if I believe in God. It doesn’t matter. She needs you to believe in God or Mom needs you to believe in God. It doesn’t matter. You are not sure. Nobody’s sure. What about you? What do you believe in? Do you believe in God? I don’t believe in God. Okay. No, I don’t, but I wish I could because then who would know that there was someone up there taking us and that we’re not alone down here and that Tom still exists somewhere and that my kids are gonna grow up happy and healthy, not. And destruction. And if there is a God, I am absolutely furious at him. Look, guess we need him. I need him. My kids need him. You need him. This whole place needs him. So where is he? How do you find me? Maybe you just look up in the sky. Ask.

You ever been there? Furious at God? Life crumbles, hope fades, anger, despair, set in a test result comes back malignant. The divorce papers read, dissolved. A pink slip ends up on your desk on a Friday afternoon. I mean, these and all kinds of other time stopping encounters happen in life. It’s not just a screenplay, but real life events that can ambush our sense of security. Dash Hope and critically Challenger Faith, and Suddenly Safe Church cliches. Can feel hollow and inside you brace yourself up. And it’s like, God, if you, if you’re real, you better show up because right now I need you, but I can’t see you anywhere. Have you ever been there? Well, if you have, take heart, because listen, the Bible never scolds honest doubt. It records it. There’s Elijah in the Old Testament underneath the broom tree. Read the psalms. There’s David in Psalm 13, crying out How long, Lord, will you forget me forever? You see, there’s even prayers for doubters in the scriptures. ’cause you see doubt, it doesn’t need to be a doorway. I mean, it doesn’t need to be a dead end. It can lead through a doorway. To a journey of faith. If you listen for God’s voice today, we’re considering an eyewitness account of someone seeing the resurrected Jesus. But it was a journey of doubt to get there. This disciple named Thomas, I mean his world had been crushed. He walked this dark pathway of trauma and loss seeing. Jesus who had followed closely for three years be cruelly killed. And it led to a, a belligerent disbelief in the Jesus he had known. And in Thomas, we have a journey of faith to doubt, to faith again. And I pray that our time in God’s word here in these minutes. That God would speak directly to your heart and life. I’m gonna read from John chapter 20, these verses about Thomas, beginning at verse 24. Now, Thomas, also known as Demis, one of the 12 was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord. But he said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into a side, I will not believe a week later, his disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. Though 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. See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. Thomas said to him, my Lord and my God. Then Jesus told him, because you’ve seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed the gospel of our Lord. Let me pray for us as we continue. Lord God, your, your word is alive and living and active, and by the Holy Spirit’s power now. May we hear it? May we see Jesus and believe in him and receive your everlasting life. In Jesus name I pray, amen. Here in the middle of this message, let me just give you a blessing, dear Friends, grace to you and peace from God, our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Touching truth. You know, I think there are times that doubt can feel safer than faith. In our text, Thomas, he wasn’t in that room that first Easter evening when Jesus appeared to the others. We don’t know where he was. Scriptures doesn’t say, but we know this. The moment that hope walked in for others, Thomas missed it. So when the others tell him, we’ve seen the Lord, he just fires right back. Yeah. Right. Sure. Unless, hey, unless I see it, I will not. Believe literally in the Greek he’s, it’s, he says, I will absolutely never believe so. In other words, Thomas just slams the door and he locks it with the deadbolt. Now, before we criticize him, so quickly try to climb into his sandals for a little bit. His world had been rocked and it imploded. The rabbi who had healed lepers, stilled storms, raised Lazarus. Have been publicly humiliated and executed like a criminal. Let’s get the notes up on the screen. Can we Second? Fear was tangible the same. Authorities could now find them and haul those disciples off. Next, John tells us the doors were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders. And third trauma hijacked reason. Psychologists today tell us that unresolved grief and trauma narrows our capacity to trust, so that cynicism Thomas had, it’s just a wounded hearts survival strategy. You know, there’s a couple ways that we can respond when life gets hard, how we can respond. One is just to get mad. It’s fight or flight. We get mad at God. That’s our fight. We lash out. How could you let this happen? Like the woman on the screen clip said and anger it, it feels safer than surrender. Or instead of fight, there’s flight. We get sad and we withdraw. We retreat into ourselves, we bottle up the pain. We quit praying. We stop gathering with other Christians. Why? Because it just hurts too much to hold onto hope. And Thomas, he kinda leans into that fight response, show me or just forget it guys. But notice. Despite his blunt honesty, he keeps himself connected to the Christian community. He’s still with the disciples a week later, and I think sometimes the most courageous thing a believer can do when your faith begins to feel thin is just simply to stay in the room. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 11, now, faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance. I. About what we do not see. Easy to read in the church service. Far harder to live it, but you see faith, it’s not the absence of doubt. Rather it’s moving toward Jesus with your questions. So yes, doubt, it can feel safer than faith until Jesus walks through our locked doors. In our text, we fast forwarded a week and same house, same locked doors, but this time Thomas is there. Maybe the others begged him saying, Hey, come on brothers, give, give community just one more shot. Maybe the, the scriptures, the Sabbath readings were tugging at his heart. Whatever the reason Thomas is there and that decision, it changes everything for him.

John writes in our text, though the doors were locked. Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. No creaking of hinges or rattling of a latch. Just suddenly, Jesus is there, present, and the first word out of his mouth, peace. Shalom, the fullness of wellbeing. With Jesus before answers. There’s a blessing. Before correction, there’s comfort, and then Jesus turns his gaze. Upon Thomas, and he doesn’t utter some sarcastic reply like I might have been inclined to like, you know, really? Thomas, come on, it’s me. But rather, he just kind of graciously quotes Thomas in his own demands, word for word. Put your finger here, see my hands. Reach out your hand, put it into my side. And then the other shoe drops. Stop doubting and believe. There’s this great picture that Caravaggio painted of this moment when Jesus displays his wounds that are simultaneously proof of death and proof of his victory in the ancient world, scars for a warrior. They validated his courage and Jesus scars, validate both his suffering. And his triumph. It’s as if he says, Thomas, the evidence you’re demanding. It’s right here. It’s been beating at the center of my heart all along. And Thomas, he just erupts my Lord and my God. Five brief words, maybe the most striking christological confession in the gospels in, in the Greek language structure. It literally translates. The Lord of me and the God of me. In other words, for Thomas, doubt doesn’t just melt, it transforms into worship. And what does Jesus’ appearance tell us today? It tells us that Jesus is relentless in pursuing doubters. He waited a whole week, but then walks through walls to reach one wounded heart. He does that, then he does that today. Second, Jesus welcomes scrutiny, but he commands surrender. Jesus says, touch my wounds. Then stop doubting and believe in other words, investigation. It’s invited, perpetual indecision is not. And third physical resurrection matters. Your faith and mine as Christians, it rises or falls on an empty tomb and a scar bearing savior. The Apostle Paul says in one Corinthians, if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. You see the resurrection? It’s not a metaphor. It has to be real. But think now about your own locked doors. What doors are bolted in your life? Ashamed. So deep. You think Christ would never stoop that low. A secret addiction barricaded behind self-loathing, intellectual objections. You fear if you express them. You’d get labeled the doubter in a Bible study with Christian friends. If so, whatever it might be, whatever your locked door might be, take heart because our risen Jesus specializes in walking through locked doors and opening them.

He carries peace in his voice and proof in his hands, and he will meet you where you are at, and yet he loves you too much to leave you there. For Indeed, doubt can feel safer than faith until Jesus walks through our locked doors and then faith propels us into a living hope. Our Jesus says, because you have seen me, you’ve believed that’s the Thomas.
Blessed are those who have not seen. And yet believed this beatitude, this statement of blessing Jesus makes it reaches out of the pages of scripture across more than 20 centuries. It’s as if Jesus peers over Thomas’s shoulder and he sees all the disciples there in Mesa and Phoenix, and Gilbert and the Valley, and indeed to the ends of the earth, sees all who will trust him without physical sight. In fact, Jesus sees you. John the Apostle who authored our text explains why he recorded this scene. He says, Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. You see belief, it births life. Eternal life, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The apostle Peter fleshes out what sharm and red for us earlier. Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he’s given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of TR trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed, a living hope. Hey, how do you know that you’re living into this living hope? Here’s a few different ways. First, it’s confession. The Bible says, if you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So yes, Christianity, it’s personal, but it’s never private. We are a saved community in and we are a declaring and confessing community. Second mark of living hope is courage. I mean, notice how this locked door disciple becomes a fearless witness. Church tradition tells us that Thomas brought the gospel all the way to India where he was killed for the message he was bringing of Jesus. The skeptic became a missionary, and he had courage to bear testimony to the resurrected Jesus. Third mark that you’re living in, this new hope is compassion. I. Resurrection people become wound tenders. We enter hospital corridors, grief stricken living rooms and cubicles, humming with anxiety where we whisper what we heard from Jesus. Peace. Peace be with you. This past week I got to meet with a woman from our church in her home who’s dying. She knows her days are numbered. They really are. She’s gonna go home soon. And what we talked about was her passing from this life into the next, almost the whole visit, and we did so with peace and assurance and even joy. Not a death wish, a life wish one forever, everlasting life. So my question for you today. What is it that sustains this hope when the ground in your life shakes? The apostle Paul answers this in Romans eight. I’m convinced that neither life nor death, and then he goes with a whole other listening of things, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. It’s true Jesus grip. It outlasts every tremor or quake in your own life and soul. So what might be some ways God is inviting you to trust him this week? First, name your door. Do it. Write it down. Write down where doubt or fear has you locked in and locked up. And be specific in our life Notes that are in the pulse. There’s copies of ’em out on the at the welcome desk. A few of our Bible studies and small groups use them. That’s one of the exercises this week. Name your door. Second, invite Jesus to enter. Have you settled it in your own heart that you believe Jesus is alive? I. From the dead and coming again. If not, why not now?

Why not today? Today might be the day of salvation for you where you pray. Lord, you, you may come into my life anytime anyhow. I’m listening. I’m ready. I believe. Maybe you, you just need to stay in the room. Maybe you’re not ready to leave your doubts behind you yet that that’s okay. God’s patient. But like Thomas, keep gathering with other believers because faith is often rekindled in community. Long before you get the answers you’re seeking or finally extend peace to another. Who might be one person that you could call or, or email or text or visit and give them a word of peace from Jesus Christ. My mother passed from this Life in the Paradise over 13 years ago, and our text concludes with my mom’s favorite verse. I wanna share it with you. John writes, these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. So if you’re worry, if you’re burdened, if you’re troubled by headlines or a diagnosis, or bank statements, whatever it might be, Jesus invites you to move from doubt, to worship, to faith, and ultimately to rest because his invitation still stands. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I’m gentle and humble and heart, and you’ll find rest for your souls because Jesus lives anxiety, doubt that’s not your final destination. Faith is, and in Jesus’ name, there is life now, today and forever. And so today our resurrected savior stands among us, scars visible, arms open, and he says, peace be with you. Stop doubting and believe. So will you like Thomas respond, my Lord and my God. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, help us to bring you our doubts and fears. Thank you for dying for us, paying for our sin and rising again. Thank you for not leaving us, but hang in, in there with us and pursuing us. We believe in you, Jesus, my Lord and my God. So come through every locked door in our life. Forgive us, fill us with your spirit, and lead us into living hope. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.