Lessons from Doubting Thomas - Life of Christ Part 114

Now, how many rabid, I mean rabid Kansas City Chiefs fans do we have here today? Anybody? All right, one.

Well, one's good. I'll bet you you're not as rabid, though, as Steve Graver, this guy I'm going to tell you about. Steve Graver is a farmer, lives in Missouri.

He grows corn, soybeans, and wheat. But this past week, he went to an auction in Kansas City where a fellow who had fallen behind in his child support payments was going to auction off two season tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs. The deal was the tickets are only worth about $300 each, but if you got the tickets, you also got the right to leapfrog over thousands upon thousands of people on the waiting list for season tickets, and you could buy season tickets starting next year.

So you got that privilege. Anyway, he went, this guy Graver, and he bought the two tickets. You know how much he paid for them? $12,700 for the two tickets. Now, I should also mention to you that his wife was not with him. Does that surprise anybody?

She was not there. But anyway, would you pay that much for two tickets to any live sporting event? I mean, would you do that? I wouldn't do that. And you know why I wouldn't do that? You say, Alon, we know why. It's your jeans.

No, no, my jeans have nothing to do with it. The reason I wouldn't do that is because there's no instant replay when you go to a live event. And whenever I go to a live game, the same thing always happens.

I'm out somewhere going to the bathroom, buying something to eat, buying something to eat, or buying something to eat, and you hear the crowd just go roar, and you come running back in it, and everybody says, man, did you miss it? And there's no instant replay. See, at home I can go to the fridge, and if something great happens, I got instant replay.

And it's a lot cheaper. Well, anyway, we're going to talk today about a guy who was out of the room when something great happened, and he missed it. Don't you hate it when you miss something like that? And everybody's going, oh, oh, oh, you should have been here.

Don't you hate that? Well, we're going to talk today about a guy that had that happen to him named Thomas. You probably know him a little better by his nickname. What's his nickname? Doubting Thomas. That's right.

But I think that name, I think he got a raw deal with that name. We're going to talk about that a little bit, and then we're going to talk about how Jesus responded to him and, folks, what lessons there are for us there in terms of changing our life in the 20th century. So let's look, beginning here in John chapter 20, verse 24. Now, remember, the disciples had been in a locked room. Jesus had come right through the wall and appeared to them. They didn't believe it was him.

He said, hey, feel the scars that the nails made in my hands and in my feet if you don't believe it's me. And they did, and they believed. Now, look at verse 24. Now, Thomas, called Didymus, one of the 12, was not with the other disciples when Jesus came to them. So the other disciples, when he got back, said, hey, man, we have seen the Lord.

Can you believe this? He said, well, now, Lon, where was Thomas? Bible doesn't say. Maybe he was getting bagels for breakfast. I don't know where he was, but he wasn't there. And when he got back, they said to him, oh, oh, oh, did you miss it?

The Lord came while you were gone. Ah, look what Thomas said. He said, hey, let me tell you something, fellas, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and unless I put my finger where the nails were and unless I put my hand into his side where the spear was stuck, I will not believe it.

You got that guys? Now, Thomas was just this sort of person. He was just kind of a despondent, pessimistic sort of person. You know, most people would call today partly sunny.

He'd call it partly cloudy. I mean, just that sort of guy. If Jesus was Christopher Robin and Peter was Tigger, Thomas is Eeyore. Y'all understand what I'm saying to you?

Okay. And what he says here, he's not trying to be rebellious. He's not trying to be defiant. This guy was hurt. Man, he had put everything he had into believing in Jesus, everything he had in following Jesus. Now Jesus is dead and he's in a tomb.

And Thomas is totally, he feels like he's been slam dunked. And I think what he was trying to say is, look, fellas, I'd love to believe you, but I don't want my heart broken a second time. My heart's been broken once. I don't want it broken again.

And I'm from Missouri. You understand what I'm saying? And unless I see it and touch it for myself, I'm not believing in anything. Verse 26. A week later, you say, why did Jesus wait a week?

No clue. A week later, his disciples were in the house again. And Thomas was with them this time. And even though the doors were locked, Jesus came in and stood among them and said, peace be with you. Jesus gotten into this incredible habit of just passing through walls. Doesn't come through the door anymore.

He just goes through the wall. And here he is again, doing that. Thomas was there this time. And the Bible says he turned to Thomas. Now, hey, if you were Thomas, would you be getting a little tense about this point?

I would. He turned to Thomas and he said, hey, Thomas, come here a second, friend. See my hands here.

Put your finger in these nail holes and reach out your hand and put it in my side. And hey, Thomas, stop doubting and breathe. When I was reading this, I thought about this something very interesting here.

You know what it is? Isn't it interesting that Jesus never condemns Thomas for having questions? He didn't come into the room going, why Thomas you good for nothing. So and so you were with me for three years.

What kind of bummer you? No, no, no, no, no. He came into the room in a very loving and gentle manner. And Thomas had challenged him. Thomas was a sincere man with sincere doubts. And he had challenged the Lord and said, Lord, if you're really real, if the Lord is really real, I challenge him, show himself to me and then I'll believe. And Jesus said, Okay, we can arrange that. And Jesus did it. He said, Here I am, Thomas, just like you asked. Now go ahead and stick your hand in my side and believe. You know why Jesus went to the extra trouble to prove himself to Thomas?

It's very simple. It's because he loved him. Just like he loves you and me. If you're here this morning, and maybe you're one of those people who've got some real sincere doubts about whether Jesus is who he said he is, and whether this whole Christianity deal is for real, I got a challenge for you. Here's my challenge. My challenge is for you to do to God exactly what Thomas did. If you're really sincere, see, this guy was sincere, he meant it. You prove it to me, I'll give you my life, but you prove it to me first. If you're really sincere, tell God, God, I'm really sincere.

And here's the deal. You prove to me you're real. And you prove to me Jesus Christ is who he said he is. I mean business, God, I'll give you my life 100%. I'll surrender my life to you. And folks, then my advice to you start reading the New Testament, the Gospels and the New Testament and just give God some space to do the same thing for you he did for Thomas. You say, are you sure he will?

Absolutely certain. If you're sincere, God will take you up on the challenge. You say, how would he do it? How's he going to do it? How am I going to know?

I don't know. I mean, there's about as many ways for God to prove himself to people as there are people to prove himself to. But all I can promise you is he loves you just like he loves Thomas. If you mean business with God, God will prove himself to you.

Take me up on the challenge and see what you think. Well, what happened to Thomas verse 28 says in verse 28, that Thomas cried out and said, My Lord, and my God, and apparently he never even touched the scars. He didn't need to touch the scars. I mean, you could see him with your own eye, plain as day. And suddenly he exclaims, My God, suddenly he realizes this is not just a man of God. This is not just a prophet. This is God in the flesh who's just raised himself from the dead. And suddenly doubting Thomas becomes believing Thomas. But it didn't stop there, because he just didn't cry out, My God, he cried out, My Lord, and my God. Because you see, folks, if Jesus Christ really is who he says he is, if he's really God in the flesh, and everything else he claimed to be, then these two things come as a partnership. If he's God of the universe and owner of the world and Lord of everything in it, then he's Lord of you too. And you can't confess one part of this without the other part.

They come together. It's a partnership deal here. And so not only did he become believing Thomas, he became consecrated Thomas as well, saying the lordship of Christ is now the marching orders for my life. And you know, he meant business. Because later on, when the Lord of his life asked Thomas to go to India with the gospel to cross the Euphrates and be the first man to take the gospel east of the Euphrates, Thomas went, because this was his Lord asking him to do this. And he preached the gospel in India and tradition tells us that he went there, established churches, led people to Christ, ordained leaders. And it may surprise you to know that even today in India, there is a sizable Christian community in India today that traces its beginning all the way back to the Apostle Thomas, who came there in the first century.

Church tradition tells us that he was martyred, he died for his faith in India in 68 AD. And so you know, I think it's really too bad the name doubting Thomas has stuck to him all these years, because I don't think that's fair. I think really to be accurate, we ought to call this man formerly doubting Thomas, who went on to give his life in the service of Jesus Christ.

That's a little long for a nickname, but it's a little more accurate. Now, that's the end of our passage this morning. But it leads us to the most important question, a little Burman for you there. What's the most important question? Very good.

So what? All right, we got to take a survey. Here we go.

Everybody ready? How many Yankee fans do we have? Put them up.

A bunch of bums. All right. How many Braves fans do we have?

Put them up. All right. How many people could care less? Okay.

This could be a very short illustration, folks. Well, anyway, how about those Braves? You know, I've been a Braves fan since the 50s, and I have not had much to cheer about until just recently for many, many, many moons it was dry out there. But hey, can you believe that?

Nine-three-one to the Cardinals, and in the last three games of the National League Championship Series, they outscored them 32 to one. Is that incredible? I mean, I think we ought to change the name of the Cardinals to the Humminbirds.

What do you think? You know, some little pipsqueak little bird there. One lady came up and said, no, no, no, change it to the Dodos. They're extinct. All right.

Dodos will work. And you haven't seen anything yet. Wait till you see what I say about the Yankees after they lose. But anyway, listen, this is one of the most incredible performances in baseball history. And when I was reading the paper, the one phrase that kept being used over and over and over in the paper about the Braves' performance was this one. They took it to what? The next level. You ever hear that out there?

Man, I hear that in sports all the time. Oh, yeah, he took it to the next level. Now they never tell you what the next level is, but he took it to the next level or in business.

Oh, boy, that company with that offer, man, they took it to the next level, whatever that means. One of those nonsense phrases that doesn't mean a whole lot in our world. But, you know, I got to thinking in our personal walk with Jesus Christ, in our personal faith, I think that God wants us to take our faith to the next level as opposed to where Thomas's faith was. You see, Thomas had the kind of faith that said, you show me God and then I'll believe. Unless I see, unless I touch, I'm not believing.

And you know what? There's lots of times I'm right where Thomas was saying, well, God, you know, man, I don't understand this until I understand this. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Why are you doing this to me? I reserve the right to argue with you about this. I reserve the right for you and me to dispute and debate this a little bit. You know, I'm not so sure I'm really excited about this way this thing is going right here. Have you ever been there?

I have lots of time, still am. Well, did God accommodate himself to Thomas's level of faith? Yeah. Yeah. Does he accommodate himself to my level of faith?

Yes. But you see, I don't think God's heart is for us to stay at that level of faith. I think God's heart for Thomas and for you and for me is for us to take it to the next level.

You say, well, Lon, what level is that? Look at verse 29. Then Jesus said to him, Thomas, Thomas, because you have seen me, you believed.

That's good. But here's what's even better. Here's the next level.

Blessed are the people who have not seen me. And yet they're still willing to believe. See, folks, this is the higher level of faith where God wants us to get to. God wants us to have a faith that isn't based on having to see everything, having to understand everything, having to have God explain everything to us.

You say, well, then what is that kind of faith based on? Look at verse 30. Jesus did many other miraculous signs, John writes, in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But the things that are written in this book are written watch that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. You mean without ever seeing him, without ever touching him, without ever being in the same room with him?

Yeah. And that by believing you may have life in his name. Friends, the kind of faith God wants you and me to have is faith that is based not on seeing and touching and understanding everything, but that is based on the documentation of the Word of God, that is based upon us believing the promises God makes to us in the Bible.

In fact, verse 30 and 31 here say that this is the very reason God gave us the Bible was to give us a foundation upon which we could believe in Jesus Christ without having to see and touching. And you know what every great man and woman of God of faith that's ever lived, has lived on this higher level of faith. That's what made them great men and women of God.

Let's just take one for example. How about Abraham? Man, Abraham, you could use a number of situations out of his life to illustrate this. How about when God said to him, Hey, Abraham, I want you to leave your country, leave your homeland, leave your house, leave your relatives, leave your job, leave everything, and come follow me. Where are we going God?

Well, not going to tell you that right now. But just come on, I'll make your promise. I'll take care of it. Abraham didn't even know where to tell these people to forward his mail. But he went.

Why? Because he had a promise from God to hold on to. But there's one other situation in his life I'd really like to talk to you about. And that is if you remember when he was 100 years old, and his wife was 90 years old, Sarah, and God had been saying Sarah is going to have a baby Sarah is going to have a baby Sarah is going to have a baby. Now there are 190 and they haven't had a baby yet. And in Genesis 18, it says that Jesus Christ appeared to Abraham as a man one day along with two angels, the three of them came. And here's what it says Genesis 18, verse 10. And God said, Abraham, I will surely return to you about this time next year. And Sarah, your wife will have a son.

That's a promise from God, a promise from God. Now, do you know what Sarah did? What Sarah do?

She laughed. You know why? Ladies, if you're 90 years old, and somebody tells you you're going to get pregnant, it is either laugh or commit yourself as an inpatient. That's what it is. So laughing is better. But look at Abraham's response to the promise. Listen to Romans chapter four.

Here's what it says. It says Abraham did not consider his own body which was now dead since he was 100 years old, nor did he worry about the deadness of Sarah's womb. Do you understand what this is saying? Do you understand Abraham was 100 years old? His wife was 90. And God had made him a promise they were going to have a child.

But the Bible says he didn't look around and say, Oh, man, look at all the obstacles. Look at this. Look how old I am. Look at how old my wife is. I mean, we don't do this all that much anymore.

I mean, good grief. What's the deal here? How are we supposed to have a baby? How's this going to work? This isn't going to work. Abraham didn't do any of that.

Look what it says. It says Abraham didn't worry about that. But he grew strong in faith. Watch, being fully convinced that what God had promised God was also able to perform. Now, if you want a definition of faith, that's the best definition you'll ever get. Being fully convinced that what God had promised God was absolutely capable of performing.

That's faith. And can you see what made Abraham tick in his relationship with God? This was a man who didn't have to know everything, understand everything, have his curiosity satisfied about everything, have God explain everything to him. This is a man who the big issue to him was, what has God promised me? Because whatever God has promised me, it doesn't matter whether I understand it, it doesn't matter if I see how, it doesn't matter what the obstacles are. If God promised it to me, God is dependable and I am going to believe it and I'm going to start acting on it before it ever happens in time and space because I know the one who promised me is going to do it. This man went out at 100 years old and started buying baby furniture. This man went out at 100 years old and got a crib and bottles and formula and all kinds of other stuff and went out and bought a baseball glove for the boy.

Why? Because he said, it don't matter if I'm 100 and my wife is 90, if God said it, it's going to happen. That's faith. And dear friends, as Christians, God calls you and me, second Corinthians chapter five, to walk by faith, not by sight. What that means is God calls us to live the same way Abraham lived with our lives anchored, not on our circumstances, not to our situations in life, not to the obstacles we can see, but God wants our lives anchored to the promises of God that he makes us in the Bible. And as Christians, God has made us oodles of great promises. He's promised us, for example, that his presence, Hebrews 13 five, I will never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you. He's promised us his strength. Philippians 4 13, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. He's promised us his overruling power on the junk and the mess in our life. Romans 8 28, God will take even the crud in our life and he'll turn it into good if we'll trust him. He's made his promises about wisdom and guidance and protection and comfort. And listen to this sentence, because if you don't get anything else today, I want you to get this sentence.

Here it is. A life that is anchored to the promises of God is a life that can withstand anything the world throws at it. Let me repeat that a life that is anchored to the promises of God is a life that can withstand anything, anything the world throws at it.

If you don't believe that, let me tell you a story of a young man. Rob Gaskins, you're over there. Stand up. How old are you? Yell out nice and loud.

15. Thank you, Rob. Let's tell Rob we appreciate him doing that. All right, Rob.

Thanks. Now, you know what? When this guy I'm about to tell you about was 15 years old, like Rob Gaskins, something great happened in his life. His name was Adoniram Judson. He was born a little bit before Rob.

He was born in 1788. But when he was 15 years old, when he was a teenager, he was out in the woods praying about what God's will was for his life. And God spoke to him. And here's what he said. He wrote it in his journal. I'm quoting from his journal. He said that God said to me, Adoniram, you're going to go to the uttermost parts of the world and you're going to preach the gospel of my love. This is my promise that I'm giving you.

I'm going to send you forth like Paul as a witness to distant nations. And he said that was God's promise for him. When he graduated from college, and he was in his mid 20s, in 1815, he set out from New England to go to the uttermost parts of the world. And he went to Calcutta, India to join up with a fellow named William Carey, the father of modern missions, who was in Calcutta. The problem was, however, that the British owned India, and they didn't want any Americans in there. So they threw Judson out.

Carey could stay. He was British, but they threw Judson out. He said, was he discouraged? Was he upset?

Well, maybe a little bit. But he said, God, you made me a promise that you were going to take me to the uttermost parts of the world and you were going to use me to reach people. So he said, here's what I'm going to do.

And you know, he had his wife along and they'd just gotten married a few months before. He said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to get on this boat leaving Calcutta, sailing east. And he said, the first port that the boat stops at where they'll let me off to share Christ, I'm just going to assume that's where you sent me and that's where I'm getting off and I'm going to share Christ. Well, he got on his boat. They put out into the Bay of Bengal. They were out there three weeks without being able to make land because of a monsoon in the middle of this monsoon. His first son was born to his wife Anne while they were on board the ship in the middle of this monsoon. The child died within several days. They buried the child overboard at sea. And three weeks later, having been beaten up by this storm for three weeks, this little old ship kind of just limbered, beaten up into a squalid, dirty, filthy, uncivilized village called Rangoon, Burma.

And guess what? They let Adoniram off the boat and he began to preach. And Adoniram Judson spent 37 years in Burma. But it wasn't easy.

No, sir. He was arrested. He was beat up. He was almost killed a couple of times. One time he was put in jail that was so vile, he had to fight the rats to get this food. If you'd have put a dog in this jail, you'd have been sued by animal rights activists, folks.

That's how bad it is. And they chained him. That wasn't it. They chained him with his feet up on the wall and the only parts of his body touching the ground were his shoulders and his head. And you know how long they kept him in that position? Two years he stayed in that position. He ate in that position. He slept in that position. He went to the bathroom in that position.

He did everything in that position for two years. You know what he did while he laid there on his back? He translated the Bible into Burmese and he would hide the manuscript at night in his pillow so the guard wouldn't see it and take it from him. He labored in Burma for seven years without ever seeing one single person come to Christ.

Not one. All of his support from the United States dried up. People stopped sending him money. They said, this is a rat hole. We're pouring money down a rat hole. Nothing's going to happen out there. He wrote back to America asking for people to come and help him.

Not a single person ever came. He buried his first wife Anne in Burma. He buried all the children from his first marriage in Burma. He buried his second wife in Burma. He buried three of the children from his second marriage in Burma and when he died in 1850, they buried him off the coast of Burma.

You say, good news. How can anybody take that kind of treatment? How can anybody make it through all that? The answer, friends, is that this guy was anchored to something different than most people. You want to know what he was anchored to? Let him tell you himself.

He got a letter once from an American mission board. They were complaining and saying, hey, there's nothing going on there. There's no results in Burma. You know, you're going through all that suffering for nothing.

Why don't you come home? And the guy asked him in the letter, what do you really think the prospects are in Burma anyway? And Adoniram Judson wrote back one sentence to this mission board. Here's what he wrote back and I quote, the prospects are as bright as the promises of God. This guy wasn't anchored to his circumstances, friends. He wasn't anchored to the way things were going.

He wasn't anchored to the obstacles. He was anchored to the promises of God. And he thought the prospects were bright because the promises of God were still there.

How did it all end? Well, in 1850, when he died, Adoniram Judson had not only in 37 years translated the Bible into Burmese, the translation that is still used today, by the way, in Burma, but he had established 63 churches. He had personally led over 7,000 Burmese people to Jesus Christ himself. And one of those people he led to Christ was a guy from the Karen tribe, K-A-R-E-N, up in the highlands of Burma. In 1828, this man came to Rangoon, met Adoniram Judson.

He was there on business. Judson shared Christ with him, led him to Christ. He took the gospel back to his own people, the Karen people. And today, if you go to northern Burma to the Karen people, you will find there are over 800 self-supporting churches there. There are over 150,000 Christians there.

They have Christian elementary schools, they have Christian high schools where they teach the Bible, and they raise money and send out missionaries to the rest of Burma. And it all started with one guy, led to Christ in 1828, by Adoniram Judson. You know, my friends, every life's anchored to something. Your life, you're anchored to something. Most of us in our world are anchored to our circumstances. They go up, we go up.

They go down, we go down, and all around. But you see, God has something so much better than that for you and me, if we know Christ. He wants us to anchor to something that doesn't go up and down, doesn't change, that is more sure than the sun coming up tomorrow morning.

And that's the promises of God that he gives us in his Word. And if you know Jesus Christ, and someone were to ask you today, hey, how bright are your prospects, huh? I don't know about you, but hey, I can look at my circumstances and I can say, you know, I got some tough stuff going on in my life right now.

I got some real challenges. I mean, things look pretty bleak for me. My prospects don't look great. I'll tell you what, I bet your prospects don't look as bad as Adoniram Judson's.

I bet your prospects don't look so bad that you got to fight the rats for food and know that you're not laying on your back for two years, are you? He had pretty bleak prospects, but he was able to answer the question and say, hey, the prospects are as bright as the promises of God. And those are the same promises you've got. The issue is whether you and I are going to anchor to the promises of God, or whether we're going to anchor to our circumstances in this world. Remember what I said to you, a life that is anchored to the promises of God is a life that can withstand anything. And if you don't take anything else home today, but that that's what I want you to take home.

You say, well, Lon, give us something practical, something we can put handles on. I will. Let me tell you how you make this part of your life. See this book, read it, study it, learn the promises of God that are in it, memorize the promises of God that are in it, meditate on the promises of God that are in it, and make the decision to anchor your life to the promises of God that are in it. And my dear friends, it doesn't matter what the world throws at you, you'll be able to handle it with victory. Because God will always be true to you because he'll always be true to his promises.

Let's pray. I want you to take just a moment with our heads bowed and our eyes closed. And if you are like me, and far too often you find yourself anchored to circumstances. But the Word of God has challenged you today and you're willing to say, Lord, forgive me for that.

I want to change my mooring. I want to anchor to something eternal, to the promises of the Word of God. Then I'd like you to take a moment of silence that we're going to give you and let's do that together. Heavenly Father, as you know, this is a world that tosses us every which away, curveballs, all kinds of tragedies and things we didn't expect.

And when we're anchored to our circumstances, boy, it's pretty tough to keep our head above water. But I want to thank you that you have got something much better than that for us. And I want to pray that you would use the Word of God this morning to challenge our lives, to change the way we live. Thank you for the example of Abraham and the example of Adoniram Judson. And I pray, God, that you would work in our lives so that we would anchor to the promises of God just the way these men did. And Lord, we see how you honor their lives. It's not that they didn't have trouble.

It's not that they didn't get tossed around. But through it all, you honor their lives and they stayed stable because they were anchored to the eternal rock. And I pray, God, that you would do that for us.

Help us to switch anchor points if that's what we need to do. And thank you for giving us the Word of God. Thank you for giving us your promises so that even though we don't always see, even though we can't always touch, even though, Lord, it's not always plain what you're doing, we can still believe because we have the documentation of the Word of God to base our faith on. So use what we've talked about today, Lord, to make us people who are anchored so that the world cannot shake us. And do this for your glory, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.