Today on Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. Many of us never become convinced that Jesus is who he says he is because we don't want him to be who he says he is. Because what we want is, listen, not really a God. What we want is to look into the mirror, see a reflection of ourselves and label that as divine.
You want to look into the mirror and slap God on what you see. Many people who reject the resurrection like to think that their issue is an intellectual one. They say the evidence there just isn't enough evidence and what is there isn't convincing. So at the end of the day, they say they just can't believe in some ancient myth as fact. Well, today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer presents an alternative explanation for their unbelief.
He's arguing that unbelief doesn't actually stem from a lack of evidence. And as an example, he points to one of the most famous skeptics of all time, the apostle Thomas, who earned the unfortunate nickname Doubting Thomas. Do you have a little Thomas in you?
If you don't, chances are you know someone who does. Pastor J.D. is teaching from John chapter 20, verses 24 to 28. You see, what we often call a head problem is really a heart problem. We don't want to surrender our understanding or our wills, and so our mind turns off any evidence that contradicts what we want to be true. Or in fact, you might say it like this, the mind will never accept what the heart has already rejected. The mind will never accept what the heart has already rejected. When Thomas said, my Lord and my God, what he was saying is, I know that I may not understand why you're doing what you do, but I understand who you are and I will accept what I cannot understand based on what I can understand. You see, for those of you who struggle with that, I would just ask you this, have you ever considered the evidence for the resurrection?
It's pretty overwhelming if you consider it by itself. And like I said, when people choose not to believe it, it's almost always not because the evidence is weak, it's because they got some secondary reason why it can't be true. The evidence on its face is pretty convincing. I'll give you a handful of things that are usually said in response as to why it can't be true. The first one is what people call the hallucination theory. And that is the idea that the apostles didn't actually see Jesus, they just thought they saw Jesus because they missed him. That sometimes happens when somebody you love dies.
You've seen Sleepless in Seattle, right? You think you see the person that you miss and they talk to you and that's a hallucination. Well, the problem with that is 11 people at one time, twice, and you have a conversation that somebody else remembers you having, and that's like inception level hallucination, right? Marijuana was not even legal in Jerusalem at that point. It's just not that convincing to me. Another one is what we call the willful deception theory. And that is the idea that the apostles made up these claims to bolster their own authority so they could gain converts and gain power and prestige. Religious leaders do that sometimes now, don't they?
They do. Sometimes they'll claim miracle stories, just flip on any of these Christian broadcasting shows and you'll see them do it. Oh, I do a miracle, that means I'm right about everything. And so that's what the apostles did, is they made up the miracle theory of the miracle stories to try to bolster their own power and prestige.
That's a theory that gets put forward. But just think about it, is that what the apostles got for their confession of faith? They get power and prestige?
No. Paul said we're the off-scouring of the world. They preached that their kingdom was not of this world so that they and other people should give away their money. They taught people to give away their power. They taught them to endure suffering willingly and to forgive the people that they were doing it and not fight back because God would take care of it in the resurrection. The whole power and prestige thing didn't really work for them.
And if it wasn't true, then how would they have the power to keep doing it? I mean, I've explained this to you before, but it's like saying it went down like this. Imagine, you know, Peter, after the cross, he's sitting out there fishing with the disciples and they're all depressed and Peter's got his line in the water. He's like, I know, I know, we can redeem this whole thing. Let's say that that guy got crucified. Let's say he got resurrected. Let's say that he's God. But let's say that his kingdom is not of this world, so we'll teach everybody to give their money away and we'll teach them to suffer and to not fight back and to forgive the people who are doing it to him. And maybe if we're lucky, we can all die painful, humiliating deaths, tortured. Wouldn't that be awesome? And all the disciples are like, oh, that's awesome. Sign me up.
Sign me up. I just don't find that compelling that they willfully made up this stuff when it led to their poverty and their martyrdom if they didn't actually believe it was true. Or take James. I mentioned him a minute ago, Jesus' younger brother. James Josephus, the secular historian, tells us that James, Jesus' brother, would go on to become one of the leaders of the church.
And he would, so he would go on and become, he would write the book of James, obviously. What would it take you, how many of you men in here have an older brother, raise your hand. Put your hand up. What would it take you to convince you that your older brother is God? Or how about that? How about sinless? So be like, you could probably convince me my older brother was the devil incarnate, put here by God to afflict me.
I could buy that. But James, at some point in his life, is like, come to think of it, he never sinned. He never sinned and he's God. What would it take to convince you your older brother was God and to worship him as the sinless savior that was sent from heaven?
I'm telling you, it just, it's not gonna happen unless it's true. One of the most popular theories is that these things were legends that God added in later. In other words, that the original Jesus and the original disciples, they just thought that you should, you know, be kind to each other and recycle. And later, later, the church added in, little one by one, these stories about the resurrection and Jesus' supernatural claims and that all these variant Christian communities were out there and eventually, you know, the one that had the miracles with it stamped out the other ones.
That's a popular theory. The reason that that's not true or that it can't be true is while there were some variant Christianities that, you know, spread off just like there are today, the apostolic community, Peter, James, John, all the apostles, they were united in their belief that Jesus was God and that he'd been risen from the dead. The earliest Christian documents, for example, the book of Philippians is one of the earliest documents relating to the Christian movement anywhere, 57 AD. Paul in Philippians 2 quotes a hymn. You may never have recognized it that, but he quoted a popular song that the church was already singing and it was a song about Jesus' resurrection and deity.
You know, just like sometimes in the middle of a sermon, I'll quote a song and you all kind of know it, you kind of nod your head and sing it in your head because you, that's what Paul is doing and that song is already celebrating Jesus' deity and his resurrection, which means that was a widespread belief at the time that Paul wrote that letter in 57 AD. A communion, they celebrated communion. What does communion commemorate? The death of Jesus. Now, why would you celebrate the death of your leader if something greater hadn't happened that redeemed that death? I mean, if you're, for example, a Martin Luther King fan, you don't celebrate the fact that he was shot, you mourn that. They celebrated his death because they saw his death as part of the resurrection. The fact that they worshiped on Sunday, that may not seem like a big deal to you, but Jews for 3,500 years had worshiped on Saturday. And so when they switched it to Sunday, that took something monumental and it was because they believed that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Even the skeptic Antony Flew concedes that the resurrection of Jesus was part of the story of the church from the very beginning. Here's one last theory of people here. This one sounds so ridiculous, but it's unbelievably common and popular. You'll recognize it. It doesn't get called the swoon theory anymore, but it goes by something else.
Basically, it's like this. It's that Jesus didn't really die on the cross. He just swooned and passed out. So they took him down and they buried him. And then in the cool of the grave, he revived. And then his disciples saw him, convinced he was resurrected. And then he took Mary Magdalene and ran off to France and married her and had kids and became a Merovingian or something like that. But that's the swoon theory.
Here's why that... I just can't even entertain that. Okay, so you're telling me that Jesus, after being crucified, lays in a grave for three days without food or water and then revives and has the strength to move a three-ton stone, conquer a Roman garrison, by the way, by himself, then convince his disciples he's the Lord of life and resurrected from the dead?
I mean, no offense. I'm just not buying that. The evidence for the resurrection is actually unbelievably strong. When people don't believe it, it's almost always because of some secondary reason that biases them against the evidence. Anne Rice, who was a skeptic, set out to study the resurrection. And after studying it, she says, I just became convinced there was no other explanation for what happened than the resurrection from the dead.
And she made this statement that I've always found very interesting. She said this, in my study of the resurrection, I sensed something else. Many of these skeptical scholars, scholars who apparently devoted their life to New Testament scholarship, watch, dislike Jesus Christ, which is evidently why they denied his resurrection. It wasn't that the evidence is not convincing. It's that the heart is conditioned not to believe it. On the surface, the evidence is overwhelming. And again, when people don't believe, it's usually for some other reason.
So my challenge to you is this. If you doubt, you need to at least be honest with yourself about the reason that you're doubting. Why is it, why is it that you don't want to believe? What other question is there that keeps you from considering the evidence for the resurrection? Because I'm telling you, if you have the humility to recognize that there's going to be a lot of things about God that you're not going to understand, they're going to shatter your mind. If you have the humility to recognize that you're not always going to be able to explain everything, if you've got the humility to submit to his lordship, even when it goes against what you're thinking, and you are willing to follow him wherever he tells you to go, even when you find it difficult and offensive, I promise you, it won't be long before you see that the evidence for Jesus divinity and resurrection is overwhelming. But if you do not approach the question of Jesus with that sense of humility and submission, you will never know the truth about Jesus.
You want to know how I know that? Jesus actually made that statement in some other words in John 7, earlier in the book. Here's what John quotes Jesus is saying, look at this, John 7, 17, if anyone is to, if anyone's will is to do God's will, watch this, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority. Question, in that verse, what comes first? Belief or willingness to believe?
Look at it, in that verse, what comes first? Belief or willingness to believe? Willingness to believe. Many of us never become convinced that Jesus is who he says he is because we don't want him to be who he says he is. Because what we want is, listen, not really a God, what we want is to look into the mirror, see a reflection of ourselves and label that as divine.
You want to look into the mirror and slap God on what you see. So you don't want a God that contradicts what you want to be true. You don't want a God that challenges your morality. You don't want a God who will offend you. That's why you're always changing parts of the Bible you don't like and say, well, I just don't agree with that. You don't want a God, you have what I've explained before is a Stepford God.
Remember the movie Stepford Wives, where the guys don't really like their wives and so they create robots who act like their wives and do whatever they want them to do? That's what you want in God is you don't want a God who contradicts you, you want a God who just conforms to your preconceived prejudices. Which is why you'll never actually know the truth about God because in order to know the truth about God, you've got to have a heart posture of humility that is a willingness to submit to him whatever he says, whatever he tells you to do.
And when that willingness is there, you will come to see the truth about God. Jesus went on to explain John 7, verse 7, the world hates me because why? Why does it hate me? Because I testify about it that its works are evil. Why don't they see it? Why don't they see it? Because the evidence is not there? No, because their hearts are blinded. They have arrogant hearts, evil hearts. That's why when Jesus preached, he would often say this phrase, you've heard this if you've been around church, let him who has ears to hear, let him hear. You know what that means? The voice is already speaking.
The evidence is already there. The sound is being made. The question is, does your soul have the ears to hear it? And the way that your soul has ears to hear it is by being in a posture of humility that says, God, I'm going to accept what you say even when I cannot understand it because I believe that it was you who was resurrected from the dead and I will submit to you.
That is my posture before I am asking the question. Ours is not fundamentally a head problem. Ours is a heart problem. The mind will never accept what the heart refuses to. The mind will all reject what the heart will not accept. Jeremiah 29, I'll give you one more verse just to show you how pervasive this is in the Bible. When you search for me, God says, watch this, you will find me if, better circle that if, if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord.
I love that image. I'll let you find me. It reminds me of playing hide and seek with my five-year-old, my three-year-old.
They could not find me if I was laying on the couch. Hey, where are you? I have to, you know this, if you have kids, I have to let them know. Hey, over here.
About 30 seconds. Okay, hotter. Nope, not in the bathroom. Come out. If I wanted to not be found, they would not find me. I let them find me. God says, listen, I'm not obligated to reveal myself to anybody because you're sinful.
If I am going to let you find me, it's because your heart gets in the posture that it is supposed to be in. And when you seek me with all your heart and all your soul and there is a humility, you will find me. You'll come to know that this is the truth. Willingness to submit to God precedes knowledge of God. You know, if you're into philosophy, postmodern philosophy has basically taught us this in another way.
If you're into guys like Foucault and Derrida and Richard Rorty, all they've done is restated what Jesus said 2,000 years ago. And that is that the mind will never accept what the heart already rejects. Let him who has ears to hear, let him hear. Because those who do not have the posture of hearing, those who do not have ears to hear will never hear. Because the shortcoming is not in the evidence.
The shortcoming is in the rebellious posture of our hearts that doesn't want to submit to a God that will not always explain himself to us or submit to a God who tells us to do things that we don't want to do. I'll give you one final observation here. It was not just the fact of Christ's resurrection that changed Thomas forever.
Listen, this is so important. It was feeling the wounds of Christ's resurrection that changed Thomas forever. What was it like, do you think, listen, to actually feel and touch the wounds of Jesus? You know, I told you that Thomas not only believed in Jesus for the rest of his life, Thomas would die for Jesus.
You want to know why? Because in feeling the wounds, Thomas understood that there was a God who had loved and cared about him so much that even when Thomas would not believe, even when Thomas doubted, that God would never give up on him, that that God would take the penalty of Thomas's sin and Thomas's sin for him into his own body. And Thomas felt those wounds, and Thomas kept feeling those wounds for the rest of his life so that when Thomas stood on a hill in what is now Chennai, India, and Thomas prayed for God to deliver him from the people that were trying to kill him, and God did not answer, and Thomas was martyred there on that hill, Thomas did not go to his grave doubting because he knew that Jesus' wounds had been given so that Thomas could live with him forever. And when Thomas could not understand what God was doing, Thomas understood what God's heart was like because Thomas had felt the wounds, and Thomas was willing to be wounded for Jesus because Thomas knew that God had been wounded for him. Have you ever felt the wounds of Jesus? Because I am telling you, you will never escape doubts until you have learned to feel in your soul the wounds that were put there for you. Other people may have let you down. The wounds of Jesus showed you that he never will.
Other leaders, leaders, other religious leaders may disappoint you. You may have been abused by a father. You may have been abused by a pastor or a priest. The wounds of Jesus show you that he never will because he was abused for you. He was tortured and abused so that you could be reconciled to him forever. And so when you have felt the wounds of Jesus, when you walk through the dark days that you will walk through, you will not doubt that God is with you because you will have felt the wounds that Thomas felt. Those wounds show me that when I cannot understand everything that God is doing in the world, I can trust him because there is no one who loves the world like God does. And when I can't see or understand what he's doing, I can understand what he has showed me about his heart and those wounds.
Have you seen or felt the wounds of Jesus for you? Let me land this plane with a psalm that is one of my favorites. I have it memorized. I quote it to myself all the time.
I discovered this a few years ago. David wrote this psalm, Psalm 131. He says this, he says, oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up.
My eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things that are too great or too wonderful for me, but I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord.
Trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Let me tell you what that psalm means. David came to a point where he understood, listen, that there was some knowledge and some answers that he may never may never quite grasp.
It's too wonderful. That word in Hebrew means it's too high for him. And in the moment where, listen, in the moment where the knowledge is too high for him, what he does, he explains in verse two, he comes into the intimate presence of God. He curls up in the presence of God like a weaned child with his mother. Let me admit to you, for you dudes, I know you don't connect with that analogy. I don't either, all right?
But just understand what it's trying to say there. I have a three-year-old son. When he has questions, when he's confused, when he's hurt, a lot of times he doesn't get explanation, but you know what's just fine for him? He curls up in the arms of my wife. He doesn't do that with dad yet.
I'm not sure why, but hopefully we'll get there one day. But he's, he just is like, I just want to be close. What the psalmist is saying is that there's a time when you're not going to understand, and what you should do is curl up in the wounds of Jesus. Press into the wounds.
You ever think about this? Why, in Jesus's resurrected body, why did God leave the wounds? I mean, if he raised Jesus from the dead, couldn't he have, like, cleaned up the scars?
Yeah, he could have. You know why he did it? Because you are never supposed to relate to God anymore without feeling the wounds. You don't hold Jesus's hand. You don't walk with God without tracing the wounds, without putting your hand in the side. I never understand God apart from these wounds any longer, because those wounds tell me that he will never leave me or forsake me. Those wounds tell me that no condemnation remains for me any longer. Those wounds tell me that when I can't understand why he didn't do what I thought he should do, when I can't understand where things are going or how it's working out, I understand that he was wounded for me. I understand that this is the measure of his love for me. I understand that I can trust him, that he will be mine forever, that I'm his child, he's my God, and I can curl up in those wounds. You see, the answer to questions, the answer to questions too incomprehensible to understand is a love too wonderful to exhaust. The answer sometimes to questions too incomprehensible to understand is a love that is too wonderful to exhaust. So bring your doubts to him, honestly.
He's not scared of them. I mean, God's not in heaven when you're doubting, going, oh my gosh, do I exist? You know, did I actually raise from the dead?
I better go check the tomb and see if my body's still there. Did I write that? He's not scared of those. But he's got a question back for you, and the question is, do you have the humility? Listen, do you have the humility to admit you might not understand everything? Do you have the humility and the willingness to follow him where he tells you to go, even when it contradicts you? That's his question back for you. Are you willing to accept what you cannot understand based on what you can understand? Because if not, you'll never know. You'll never know.
He hides himself. Willingness to believe precedes knowledge of God. If you'll humble your heart, I think you'll find, like I have found, that he's true.
You know what my personal working definition for faith is? Listen, it's the unexplainable meeting the undeniable. The unexplainable meeting the undeniable.
I heard that years ago, and it just stuck with me. It means that there's a lot of things I can't explain, but what I can't deny is that Jesus Christ is the son of God who was raised from the dead. And so I say, my Lord and my God, I accept what I cannot understand based on what I can't understand.
Have you ever felt the wounds of Jesus? And have you ever said to him, my Lord and my God, your Lord, your God, I'll follow you. I'll trust you. I'll do what you say. You can say that to him now.
It really is that simple. A prayer of confession and submission can lead to a life of trust and certainty. To hear this message from pastor J.D.
Greer again, or to share it with a friend or neighbor, visit jdgreer.com. We're here to equip and encourage you to go into your own community and reach people with the gospel wherever you are. Pastor J.D., sometimes we think of the gospel as a one-time event that occurs at conversion, but that's a really shallow view, isn't it?
Yeah, Molly, this is a theme we talk about a lot here at Summit Life. The gospel is not just our ticket to heaven. The gospel is an entirely new basis for how we relate to God, to ourselves, and to others. You experience the power of the gospel in your life, not just by learning a bunch of new things about Christianity, widening the circumference of your knowledge, but by going deep into the knowledge of who God is and what he's actually offered to you in this incredible grace that he's shown in the gospel, the love that he demonstrated.
We want you on this program, we want you to not just know gospel doctrine, we want you to taste the sweetness of the gospel. And so one of the things we've produced to help you with that is a new 20-day devotional and I've attempted to make it clear in that devotional in a day-by-day format what God has done for us and then just the wonder of who he is that will take you deeper into the wonder of the gospel. The devotional book is called simply What is the Gospel?
and you can get yours today at jdgrier.com. I would love to be able to give you this as an assistance to helping you rediscover the wonder of the gospel. And whether you sign up for monthly giving as a gospel partner or you make a generous one-time donation, we'll send you Pastor JD's new 20-day devotional as our way of saying thanks. It features a short devotional plus a prayer prompt for each day with space to write your response. Ask for your copy of the What is the Gospel? 20-day devotional when you become a gospel partner or when you make a one-time donation.
Call 866-335-5220 or go online to jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vitovich inviting you to join us tomorrow as we continue our series called Can't Believe. Pastor JD will explain how God can redeem even our greatest failures. Anyone need to hear that today? I know I do. We'll see you Friday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.
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