One More Skeptic | John 20:24-29 | Justin Leitch

Well, good morning, King's Church. Good morning, Sunset Park Baptist Church. We are so grateful to be worshiping together with you. As Connor said, I'll say it again, we could not be more grateful for your church's hospitality to us. About four or five months ago, we were a new church plant just getting started.

We were praying about where we might be able to meet and gather. We reached out to a number of different places and God opened this door. And your generosity and your sacrifice has allowed us to do the ministry that God has called us to do. So we're so grateful for Pastor Hugh and his willingness to work with us. In a lot of ways.

We feel like we're living in our parents basement as a church and we are just grateful to have a place to get started, to get going, to get our feet under us. We are not unaware of the sacrifices and comforts that you all give up for us to meet here and to worship here consistently. And we could not be more grateful for that opportunity to partner with you. So again, Sunset park, we're incredibly grateful to be here and it's a joy to worship together with you. This Sunday morning.

Let me just pray and thank God for what he's doing through our churches together, and then we'll jump in with our message for today. Father, in your wisdom, you decided that this would be where King's Church would find itself to start and to get going. And we thank you that you have connected us with a group, a body of faithful believers who are motivated by the mission of God and desire to see the gospel go forward and will be willing to open their doors to people using the facility a lot to advance the gospel. God, I thank you that you have brought this partnership together. I thank you that you have made a place for us to start and to worship.

And God, we ask that you would bless both of these churches. God, I pray that you would bless Sunset park to know you more deeply and walk with you intimately. I pray that they would see people come to faith and grow in discipleship. And we pray the same thing for King's Church and God. We pray that your gospel would move in power, would advance.

The scriptures would run forward here in this neighborhood and all throughout Wilmington to the ends of the earth. Now, God, we are grateful to be here this morning. Morning. And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Have you ever watched a toddler that's learning to swim jump into the pool? Have you ever seen that before? The cold snap outside has me thinking quite a bit about the Boat and the water and the pool and the beach. I don't know if you are like that, but if you've been around a toddler jumping into the pool, you see some hesitation and nervousness going on some of the time.

I mean, some of them just jump right in. They don't know how to swim. You gotta be really careful with those. But others are a little bit more concerned or a little bit more uncertain, right? They're nervous about jumping into their dad's arms in the pool.

Cause they can't swim and they're getting used to this whole new situation. So why would my kids be worried about jumping in the pool into my arms? I've picked them up every day for their entire lives. They've watched their siblings jump in and they see that I can do it. What makes them get nervous and hesitant on the edge of the pool?

Well, I think what's happening in that moment in my kids little hearts and minds is a crisis of faith. Right? And that's what we're gonna talk about today from John chapter 20. We're gonna be talking about crises of faith. Another way that you can say that is we're gonna be talking about doubt.

In John chapter 20, we see one of the apostles, one of Jesus inner circle struggle with doubt, with a crisis of faith. And if we're honest, we have so many questions about doubt. What if I have doubts? Am I saved if I have doubts? Can God still love me if I struggle with big questions about who he is in the Bible?

Right. What do I do when I feel stuck with doubts that I cannot seem to get a satisfying answer to? That's what we're looking at today In John chapter 20, we're going to see Jesus interact with one more skeptic, one more doubter, one more person who has real and significant questions about who he is and what he has done. But before we get started In John chapter 20, I want to make a few comments about skepticism and doubt just before we get going. Because one of the things that many of us kids who grew up in the church have accidentally picked up is this idea.

It's that questions when it comes to faith are bad. Or you may be looking at Christianity from the outside, like not as a believer, skeptical of what's going on. And you just assume that we live in the land of fairy tale and myth and we're not too concerned about truth. But here's the headline I want to give to you as we get started about doubting Thomas today. The truth is not afraid of your Questions or the truth is not afraid of your questions.

As followers of Jesus, we believe he is the truth. And the book that he has given us, the Bible, is truth. So we're not afraid of engaging with questions, even serious, significant, meaningful questions, because we are confident that the word of God, the Bible, will stand the test whatever we throw at it. Right? It has stood the test for thousands of years of skeptics of all different shapes, colors and creeds throwing dark.

And it has proven time and again to stand the test of time. It's still standing strong. The truth is not afraid of our questions. They're good to ask even more than that. And you might find this interesting.

Some healthy doubt and even a little dose of healthy skepticism is actually very important for your faith. You might find that a little bit surprising, but I'll tell you today it is important to have a little bit of doubt. If you don't have any doubt or skepticism, you're just going to get overrun by false teaching. In fact, another word for doubt or skepticism in the Bible, the healthy version of it is discernment. All right?

Discernment, discernment, doubt and skepticism, they work the same way in our spiritual lives that antibodies work in our physical bodies. I'm not a doctor, so hopefully you just hang with this. I'm not sure how true this is, but you'll get the point. Antibodies, right, they recognize the false thing and then trigger the response of the body to fight against it in the same way. We need to have some discernment, some skepticism, some doubt, as we are engaging with ideas that are presented to us, even when they're ideas presented by people that would call themselves Christians, that very well may be Christians.

But if you have no doubt or skepticism, if you have no discernment, you'll end up getting your theology from a two minute TikTok video that is compelling sounding on its face, but is actually false, untrue and unhelpful. All right? Doubt, in fact, is a really good thing. If you are feeling doubtful towards God, if you are skeptical of the teachings of scriptures, whether you are a Christian or not, this could be the seed of God planting the spiritual gift of discernment in you. This could be the seed of deep and robust faith that's not just taken as a blind leap, but is investigated and understood and you find trustworthy footing on the word of God.

All right, so here's my request for our time today as we're talking about skepticism and doubt within our faith. All right, if you have questions, if you're Skeptical about Jesus. If you're skeptical about church, this is my request for you. It's that would you, in this next 30 minutes or so, would you be willing to doubt your doubts? Would you be willing to, over these next 30 minutes, be a little bit skeptical of your skepticism toward the Bible?

Would you be willing to hear this teaching from the Bible and to reevaluate what you think about the world? I'm not saying don't ask questions. I'd love to talk more after the service. But my request for you is that no matter what brought you in here, no matter where your heart and posture are toward the Bible, I'm asking you that you would be willing to hear the truth from God's word and reorient what you think according to it. All right, so here's where we're going today.

We're gonna walk through these five or six verses, the story of Thomas Doubt. And then we're gonna land with four ways from the passage that you can engage your doubts with God. So let's start in verse 24, chapter 20. It says this. Now, Thomas, one of the 12 called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.

All right, so some context for this story. We're right at the end of the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John. You can think about it like one of the four parallel biographies of Jesus life, where John recorded the life and ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. At this point in the story, we're after Jesus death, we're after Jesus resurrection.

And he came to the apostles while they're in a room, and he showed them his hands and his scars. He let them see that it was really true, that he had risen from the dead. But here's the kicker. We see in that verse, Thomas wasn't there. Talk about a real you had to be there moment that he missed out on.

All right, a little bit about Thomas. All right, we know Thomas very famously as doubting Thomas, but there is so much more to him. All right, Thomas was one of the inner circle, a disciple of Jesus, one of the 12 that spent the previous three years with Jesus. And he wasn't just part of the inner circle. All right, Thomas was all in for Jesus back In John chapter 11, when the tension against Jesus is rising, the animosity is at a crescendo, and the disciples and Jesus know that the religious leaders are out to kill Jesus.

At that moment, Jesus says, hey, we're actually gonna pack our bags, we're gonna leave safety, and we're gonna go back to the center of opposition towards me. Jesus tells the disciples that. And Thomas is the one that speaks up for the disciples. This is what he Sundays in John 11:16. He says, Let us also go, that we may die with him.

You see, there was a point when Thomas was all in for Jesus, but he saw Jesus murdered on a cross and he hasn't seen him resurrected yet. So whenever he gets back from what he was doing, Jesus has come and gone. And the rest of the disciples fill him in on what he missed. Look at verse 25. Says 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. All right, Thomas friends got to see and touch Jesus scars. They got to speak with him. And then they came and told Thomas that this rumor that Jesus resurrected from the dead, it's no longer a rumor, but it's his closest friends reporting what they have seen and what they have touched. But what is Thomas response?

All right. Thomas response is not to trust his group of friends. Thomas response is solidified and hardened doubt and skepticism. He says, no one will be able to convince me. He's very clear.

He's specific about what it will take for him to believe in Jesus. Right? He says, I need to see and touch Jesus myself or I will never believe. And I was asked this question. I wonder if you have ever been in this place with Jesus before.

Maybe you've been there, maybe you're there right now. I think probably at one point or another, all of us will have different questions, doubts or skepticisms that rise in us will be in that place. Right? Thomas was in this place because he saw the man that he left everything to follow for three years. He left everything behind that he had so much hope in for the future he saw.

That man quickly tried and then executed on a cross. It seemed like all hope was gone. That experience shook the foundation of his faith. And he said, unless I see those scars, I am not falling for this story again. Maybe for you, you're in that place because you have the perception that Christians are hypocrites.

I will not believe unless I see a miracle, unless I see those scars. Maybe you're in that place because a tragedy has struck your family and now a dark, relentless cloud is over everything in your life. I won't believe in a God who would allow that un. I touched the scars. Maybe you've been hurt by the church, a pastor failed you you were taken advantage of.

People talk trash behind your back and you will say, I will never believe in those people's God unless a miracle happens, unless I touch the scars. Maybe some of the moral teachings of the Bible around sex or whatever else offend you and you say, I will never believe those crazy things unless I touch the scars. Maybe you want to be all in with Jesus, you genuinely want to be all in. But there's these nagging questions about the truth of the Bible or about your relationship with him that are just doub, that keep you from experience the fullness of life that he has for you. I want to believe.

I just can't find peace. I desperately need to see and to touch the scars. But I don't know what it is for you. I don't know what it has been. I don't know what it will be.

But I do know that the vast majority of us at one time or another will experience a crisis of faith like Thomas. We all have doubts, we all have questions. And this story is put in the Bible to help us work through it. Let's keep going. Look at verse 26.

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. At this point in the story, Jesus just seems to be doing magic tricks, right? It makes a point to say the doors were locked and he came through the wall. And it's not lost on me that that miracle is mentioned in the message on doubt and skepticism.

So let's just talk about miracles straight up now, all right? A miracle is when God suspends his laws of creation to reveal himself. That's what a miracle is. As Christians, we believe that God works miracles in crazy and amazing ways. We believe that God spoke the entire cosmos into existence from nothing with the Word.

We believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. We believe in miracles. As Christians, we believe there is a realm of the supernatural that is distinct from what we can see, feel and touch. We believe in miracles. But you may be in here today and you may say, this is one of my problems with Christianity.

I just can't believe in the miraculous. But here's the thing about miracles, all right? Every single worldview and system describes the world with a leap of faith. This is Christians, and this is secular people. We all describe the world with a leap of faith.

There's a pastor, author, evangelist in the UK named Glenn Shrivener, and he says this, all right? Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, a miracle Materialists or atheists believe in the virgin birth of the cosmos. Choose your miracle. So do Christians believe in miracles? Yes, of course.

But so do atheists. The question is, which miracle will you choose? Let's look at the evidence that Jesus gives Thomas to believe. 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. When Jesus returns back in the midst of the group of the disciples, Jesus engages with Thomas specifically and he goes back to Thomas and he gives Thomas exactly what Thomas wanted in the earlier verses, word for word. Or you can go back and check them. Jesus. What this shows us is that Jesus was listening to Thomas even when Thomas thought he was alone in his doubts.

While Thomas was struggling and wondering who God was and how this crucifixion could be true and how crazy it was that God would resurrect Jesus from the dead. When Thomas was stuck in those doubts and could not believe, Jesus heard him, Jesus pursued him. Jesus came back after one more skeptic, Jesus who went to the cross to give his life for Thomas so that Thomas could be forgiven his sins. That Jesus did not just go to the cross and rise again, but Jesus came back to Thomas to show him his hands and his side so that Thomas could know that the message of the gospel, the death on the cross, the resurrection from the grave, is not just a metaphor of love or a symbol of how love might look, but it is a historical, physical reality that Jesus Christ rose from the grave. Alright, this is what Christians believe.

This is what we believe, that Jesus, the eternal God, took on flesh and was born as a baby. He lived a life that we couldn't live because we sin. And he went to the cross and died the death that we deserve to die. Then he rose from the grave in the resurrection, putting the stamp of approval, God's fingerprints on everything that Jesus said and taught. Right?

Jesus went back to Thomas because the historical reality of the physical resurrection is the ground of the Christian faith. Thomas came back to confirm. Jesus came back to Thomas to confirm for him and for you and for me, that the resurrection is true, the Gospel is true. The most unbelievable story that the world has ever known is historically and physically true. All right, verse 28.

Thomas answered him. His response when Jesus came back is simple. My Lord and my God. All right. The last time that Thomas saw Jesus, Jesus was bleeding out on a Roman cross.

He was taking his last breath. He was dying. But this time, Jesus came back to give Thomas what he needed. And now doubting Thomas, the one we remember as doubting Thomas, is recorded as giving the clearest statement of the identity of Jesus in the entire Bible. The clearest statement of the reality of the resurrection in the entire Bible comes from doubting Thomas.

He says he is a God, he is God, Jesus is God and he is alive. Thomas had full conviction that Jesus rose from the dead because he touched his scars, touched his hand, he saw and talked to him after he rose again, verse 29. So Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Here you just have to appreciate the Bible because here Jesus goes directly to the elephant in the room, doesn't he?

It's like, hey, that's great for Thomas, right? If Jesus came down and I could touch his scars, I would believe too. So it's awesome that Thomas has that. But what about me? Like, what about my doubts?

What about the certainty that I could have? Of course Thomas would believe. If Jesus did that for me, I would believe too. And here in this verse, Jesus acknowledges that. And Jesus tells us that we are blessed, those are blessed if they believe without seeing.

And he didn't leave us in the dark to do this. But God gave us a book. God gave us the Bible. You see, Thomas had scars in front of him and we have the scars reliably recorded by the Holy Spirit led apostles. All right, we have the Bible.

The Bible that we have in our hands is God's word. And it contains everything we know or everything. We need to have full confidence, conviction and assurance. Just like Thomas that Jesus went to the cross for us, we can have full, full certainty just like Thomas. But here's the key question.

We're going to spend some time here. Here's the key question. How do we know that we can trust what this book says? All right, this Bible that you hold in your lap, how can you know with certainty the same certainty that Thomas had when he touched the scars? How can you know that that book holds the word of truth?

Let's start with a couple misconceptions about the Bible. Here are questions I get all the time. First, as many people would say, wasn't it written too long after the fact for us to trust what the Bible says generations after? So legend could have grown up and they're retelling stories about Jesus. But the reality is, historically and in the Bible, that the New Testament was circulated while eyewitnesses were still alive to debunk those myths.

All right, So a legend couldn't have arisen. It's why all throughout the New Testament, authors are referring people to go back and to talk to eyewitnesses. If you look at 1 Corinthians 15:6, Paul says there were 500 people that Jesus appeared to. Most of them are still alive. He's footnoting in his letter, hey, this is not a myth.

This is not made up. Jesus came to people, so go and talk to them. So it wasn't written too long after the fact. The eyewitnesses were the ones that wrote it. Second, a question that comes up is, hasn't the Bible been corrupted over time?

Like a game of telephone, throughout generations, it's been corrupted over time. Many people think that kings were corrupt and altered the words of Scripture to put their subjects under control and to make it say what they wanted it to say. But that's just not historically true. We possess over 25,000 ancient copies of the Bible across thousands of years. And when we compare really, really old copies of the Bible to really, really recent copies of the Bible, we see incredible consistency and coherence and very few changes.

Changes that are just grammatical errors of copying. Over time, we get to verify that the text is 99.5% accurate to the original documents. They have not been altered over time. History shows us that. Another question that comes up is, if the humans wrote the Bible, won't it be full of human error?

Won't the Bible be full of human error if the humans are the ones who wrote the Bible? The Bible teaches us that God inspired and this is how the Bible worked out. All right, a perfect God wrote a totally true Bible using imperfect people as his instruments. All right, perfect God wrote a totally true Bible using imperfect people as his instruments. If God can create the cosmos, God can protect the book.

I know there's so many more questions. I'd love to talk more about this. And we don't just need to stay in the realm of history, though we see those facts about history, we also look to the Bible and we see a book that has God's divine fingerprints all over it. What do I mean? I mean that when we read the Bible, we find in it a book that could only be written by God, that could not be put together by people.

A couple reasons I say that. First one is the prophecies. Now, there are prophecies in the Bible, What's a prophecy? It's future telling. There are hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament that tell the future in some way about what is to come, and every one of them has come to pass just as one was predicted.

Right? Only God can do that. In fact, dozens of these prophecies in the Old Testament talk specifically about the Messiah. Right? The Old Testament people looking forward to the coming Messiah and painting a picture of what he would be like so they would know when he came.

Right? That's what these prophecies are doing. And really, at this point, if prophecies are being fulfilled, people skeptical of the Bible have one of two options to engage with that reality, right? One option is to say that people went back into the old texts after Jesus came and rewrite those old texts to match who Jesus was. Right?

Altering the old copies to make it look like Jesus fulfilled the prophecies. But like I said, we have copies on copies on copies, and we see that there was not alteration throughout time. So that doesn't work. It's not intellectually honest, according to history. But second, you could say if it's not that they were changed, you could say it was just a lecture, it was a lucky guess.

There's billions of people around the world, and of course, there was someone who was going to be close enough to these prophecies to fit them and then kind of point to be the Messiah. There's billions of people that could fit this. Maybe it was just a lucky guess. Now, there was a Christian mathematician who wrote a paper to take this head on. And what he found was that he wanted to figure out the odds of just one person from fulfilling all these prophecies by coincidence.

And using just eight of the prophecies, not the dozens of prophecies about Jesus, but just using eight of the prophecies. This mathematician determined that the odds of a random person fulfilling just eight of the hundreds would be one in 10 to the 17th power. A big number. So it's a big number. What in the world does that mean?

So just imagine if we took this whole building here, right off Sunset park, this whole building, and we buried it two feet deep with silver dollars. We buried two feet deep all throughout the whole building with silver dollars. And then we take one of those silver dollars, we color it red on both sides, and we toss it somewhere random throughout the building. Imagine we're doing that. Then we take Chris, our worship leader, and we put a blindfold on him, and we give him 10 minutes to wander his way around the building blindfolded.

At the end, he gets to pick up one coin and see if that's the red one. All right? So, I mean, it would just never happen. That would be impossible to predict that. But here's the reality of 1 times 10 to the 17th power.

It is not the odds of just filling up this building with all of its nooks and crannies and closets everywhere with two feet deep of coins. This odds are the same as filling up the entire state of Texas two feet deep with coins and one person randomly finding the right one. All right, Jesus. It is not historically honest to say that Jesus could be reverse engineered. And it is not mathematically possible to be a coincidence.

What does this mean? It means that the God who knows the end from the beginning wrote this Bible and put these prophecies and fulfillments in it so we could have unshakable confidence that this is the word of God. So that when we read the scriptures, we can say, with Thomas, I have touched his scars, I have felt his hands, and I know that he went to the cross and rose again for me, God's fingerprints are all over the Bible. One more way that God's fingerprints are all over the Bible. It's the incredible internal consistency of the Scriptures.

I mean, get this. The Bible was written over thousands of years on multiple continents, with multiple different languages and about 40 different human authors. All right? That's what was written for a couple of thousand years that we have in the Bible today. And there is remarkable internal consistency, right?

I have a problem. I have problems just like remembering what I'm referring to at the end of my message from the beginning. And that's what they are dealing with. Look at this graphic. We got a graphic that shows the internal consistency of the Bible.

This graphic shows every place in the Bible that refers to another place in the Bible. All the way on the far left of the bottom, that's Genesis, chapter one. Each chapter length shows the number of verses in that chapter. And the end here is Revelation. And these are all of the remarks.

Remarkable, consistent references from the Bible to itself. All right, now if that is a mastermind playwright like Lin Manuel Miranda in Hamilton or something, or Taylor Swift with her Easter eggs everywhere, that'd be impressive. One person just to keep track of all of it. But this is 40 different authors, multiple languages, multiple continents over thousands of years. So there's one of two things that we have to do with this.

There's really two questions. What's, what's more likely? Option one is that 40 authors with no technology, no chatgpt across thousands of years kept all of this straight. Or option two, there is one author guiding the whole process and he is shouting to us that this is his word. And when we read it, we can know that we're touching his scars, we're feeling his hands.

All right, God's fingerprints are all over the Bible. But we don't just need to look at history. We don't just need to see the fingerprints, but we can also look at the original witnesses. Who were the apostles who wrote this book down? Were they trustworthy?

The most compelling evidence for the truthfulness of the Bible isn't just historical data. It's actually a pile of bodies. See, the apostles weren't just authors. They were eyewitnesses to the most incredible events that history has ever seen. And they bled and died for what they saw.

When people are promoting a religious lie, usually they're after one of a few things, right? Controlled sex or money, if you're propagating a lie. But the apostles who wrote the Bible did not gain anything. In fact, they lost everything. Every one of the apostles died the death of a martyr because they would not recant their faith to the end.

And they wrote it all down in the Bible so we could know it's true. Chuck Colson, President Nixon's hatchet man during the Watergate scandal, famously said this. He said, I know the resurrection is a fact. And Watergate proved it to me. How?

Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead. Then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured if that weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world and they couldn't keep alive for three weeks.

You're telling me 12 apostles could keep alive for 40 years? Absolutely impossible. And what about Thomas? How did Thomas's life end up? Well, church history tells us that he would make his way to modern day India and was killed there for preaching the gospel of Jesus.

Thomas at one point was a doubter, but he ended as a martyr. He went to the grave. He went to the grave for telling others what he had seen and not being willing to turn back. Verse 29. Again, Jesus said to him, you've believed because you've seen me.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed Thomas, he had the scars in front of him and we have the scars reliably recorded by the Holy Spirit led apostle. We've got the Bible. In this encounter between doubting Thomas and Jesus, here's what I want you to take away. Now here's what I want you to take away. We have talked about over the past few weeks, how God's heart is for one more.

We saw Jesus teach it in Luke 15. God's heart is for one more sheep that went astray, one more coin that was lost, one more son that went to the far country. Right? Then we looked at Nicodemus. God's heart is for one more religiously lost.

Then we looked at the woman at the well. God's heart is for one more sinful person. Last week, Pastor Connor taught and we saw that God's heart is for one more person who's been overlooked or forgotten. And today what we see in this passage is that God's heart is for one more skeptic. Jesus came back for Thomas and Jesus wants to come back for you too.

Whether you're a Christian, a true Christian, that's just struggling with doubt. Jesus wants to come back for you and help you, you to know the truth of his word. Or if you're just confused about what faith is all about, you're here because a friend invited you or I don't know why Jesus wants to come back for you. All right. The hope that we have today is that Jesus, Jesus met Thomas in his doubt.

And Jesus wants to meet you in your doubts too. There's an interesting note about the timeline in this story. Look back real quick at verse 26. It says eight days later. Eight days later.

There was a week between Thomas statement of doubt and skepticism. When the apostles, his friends, told him what had happened. There was a week, eight days, a little more than a week between his doubt. And when Jesus came back and interacted to him, interacted with him. Think about what this week would have been like for Thomas.

His friends are all waking up every day celebrating the reality of the resurrection, that Jesus, they gave up everything for him and he actually isn't dead, but rose again. But he can't believe it. They're waking up with joy and he's waking up with a pit in his stomach. If you've ever struggled with doubts or skepticism, you've really wanted to believe. You know how disconcerting and foundational shaking it is to have deep questions about the faith and the truth you've built your life on.

That was the week for Thomas. So why did Jesus let Thomas sit in his doubt for eight days? We know Jesus can walk through walls. The doors were locked. He walked right in.

It was not a scheduling conflict. And maybe right now you're on day four and you're asking the same question as Thomas. Jesus, I want to believe in you. I've given my life to you. But right now I am stuck in skepticism and doubt.

Why won't you come to me and answer my questions that can be sure again? I can be confident that you're true, that you love me, and that you know me. Maybe right now you are on day four. You've got doubts. You want them answered.

You're unsettled. You don't know what to do. Jesus, why won't you give me the answer right? It feels like you're stuck in the middle of a long, quiet week, waiting for God to come engage the questions that you have. So as we wrap here, I just want to give you four quick ways from this passage on how you can stay grounded while you are in your week of waiting.

How can you stay grounded in your week of waiting? First one you need to trust God's timing. You need to trust God's timing. Just like Thomas had to wait, you may need to wait too. These seasons can be incredibly difficult.

Like I just shared, when it feels like the foundation of your faith is shaking under you, life can feel all different sorts of ways. It can be disconcerting. And you may have no idea why God doesn't rescue you from the crisis of but the Bible does tell you this. Everything God does, his timing, and everything he does in your life is full of incredible and specific purpose. All right?

Whether you know that purpose or not, everything that God does in your life, even in a season of uncertainty, doubt, and waiting, everything that God does is full of incredible and specific purpose. Our lives are in a lot of ways like a tapestry. In a tapestry, you weave on a tapestry, on the front of it, you have this beautiful picture that all makes sense. But if you look at the back, it's just a bunch of uncut threads kind of pulled through to make the picture on the other side. The reality of our lives and our seasons of waiting is that we as finite humans, we look at our lives on the backside of the tapestry.

It's a mess. It's disorganized. We don't know how all of the threads pull together. But God, he looks at the other side of the of the tapestry. He sees what he is creating.

I think we've got a picture of what a tapestry looks like here. The mess is what we see. Uncertain of how it all works out. But God is weaving something beautiful on the other side. One of the promises that we see in Thomas's life, the truths we see in Thomas's life, is that God is weaving something beautiful even in the waiting.

All right, how Did God use Thomas's waiting? I'm sure in a million ways. But one very specific way that God used Thomas's waiting is to encourage every one of us. Right? God brought Thomas through a period of waiting so that this story could be in the Bible and could encourage millions of people through thousands of years that in the midst of their doubt, Jesus has a heart to come after them.

I don't know what God is doing in your season of waiting. Maybe he's teaching you to persevere in prayer. Maybe he's teaching you to trust him and enjoy him, even when the feelings are kind of gone and you're frustrated. Maybe he's preparing you for a ministry to encourage and build up believers who struggle with a similar thing in the future. I don't know what God is doing in your season of waiting.

But what we do know, according to the Scriptures, is that God is weaving a tapestry and it has an incredible and a specific purpose. Whether you know it now or forever. This is one thing you have to do to stay grounded during your week of waiting. Trust God's timing. All right?

Trust God's timing. Second, stick around. All right? Stick around. Thomas was discouraged in isolation, right?

He wasn't there when Jesus showed up to everyone else. But you know what? He didn't leave. He didn't run away. He didn't go deconstruct down the YouTube rabbit hole.

He stuck around. There was something about the heart of God that he knew, even though he was so skeptical and doubtful. He said, Jesus has the words of life. I don't know what is going on right now. I can, I cannot believe unless I touch the scars, but I'm not leaving.

I am holding out hope that Jesus will show up. He brought his questions and doubts to believers. He stuck around. And if you want to take a step toward Jesus in the midst of your doubts, I just encourage you to get around some Christians, right? Get around some followers of Jesus.

Don't be isolated like Thomas was to start. Definitely don't go down the TikTok rabbit hole. But here's what I'll tell you, alright? If you come to church maybe for 12 weeks in a row, pretty big commitment in our culture, our moment. 12 weeks is a lot.

But if you come to church for 12 weeks in a row, I believe that a ton of your questions will be answered. I mean, each week we just open up the Bible, we read a passage, we teach things out of it. If you've been around here for a while, you know, we do not pull punches like what God's Word says, we are going to share. If you have doubts and if you have questions, I want you to come for the next 12 weeks and just say, God, I want to hear from your word. I want to learn a little bit more.

I want to understand more about what the Bible teaches. Come for 12 weeks, and I think it will be hard for you to leave with questions unanswered or at least questions unengaged. You won't be able to leave without that. If you want to go an extra level, don't just come to church, but get involved with a community group. Come to the Weekender, get plugged into relationship.

Don't just hear information on Sundays, but actually get with a group of people and talk about your questions. You might be like, but if I bring questions to the Christian people, they're gonna look down on me. Here's what I'm telling you. The truth is not afraid of your questions. We are not afraid of your questions.

We are not insecure about the Scriptures and what they are able to do. We might disagree on what they say, but we're gonna be respectful and have meaningful conversations about the truth of the Bible. You're not gonna spin us off into some kind of frenzy because you have real, meaningful, significant questions about the truth of the Bible and what's going on in the world. If you come to church over these next 12 weeks or so, if you get plugged into a community group, it'll honestly be kind of hard for you not to trust in Jesus after those 12 weeks are done, those few months are done. So stick around like Thomas.

Stick around. All right, third way to stay grounded during your week of waiting. Third is read the Bible. All right, Read the Bible. After eight days, when Jesus came back, he said, spoke to Thomas, he showed Thomas the scars and then spoke a specific word to Thomas.

Jesus heard Thomas's questions and he addressed them. He knew Thomas's doubts, and he revealed himself to Thomas so that Thomas could know him in a special, unique, personal way. And like we talked about, Jesus was there for Thomas. The scars were right in front of him. We have the Word of God in front of us.

The Bible. So in your season of waiting and doubting, read the Word of God. He wrote you a book, right? Read it and read it and read it. Store it up in your heart, store it up in your mind.

And through this book, God will speak to you. That's why on your seats today, we've got these cards that have a little Bible reading plan of four weeks through the Book of Mark, one of the best things that you can do is just get in a daily habit of reading the Bible. There's a little method on how to read the Bible at the bottom of it so you're not just skimming through, but actually engaging with what God might be speaking to you as he applies the objective truth of His Word to your reality and to your heart. So take that with you. Make the commitment that over these next four weeks, you'll read through the book of Mark.

On the other side, there's a guide to talk with people about to read the Bible and to talk together. Maybe you have more questions and reading on your own is a little confusing right now. Grab a friend, whoever brought you, and say, hey, could we grab a meal after this, after more questions? Maybe we could meet up for coffee this week and read one of these seven stories of hope and dive into it a little bit deeper. All right.

In your week of waiting, one way that you can stand on firm ground is to read the Bible, search for answers to your questions in the Scriptures. The fourth one is just belief. Very simple. At the end of this story, Thomas believed Jesus invited him to believe, and Thomas fell at his feet and said, my Lord and my God. The invitation of Jesus is not just to investigate forever all of these truth claims, but it is to trust Jesus.

It's to trust him, it's to believe, it's to take a step of faith. And trusting Jesus is a lot like the toddler standing on the edge of the pool building up the courage to jump into his father's arms, right? What's keeping my kids from jumping into my arms in that crisis of faith is not the intellectual knowledge, right? They don't need to understand the buoyancy of the water and the physics of jumping and the mechanics of catching and all these things. They don't need to understand that in order to jump into my arms.

What they do need to understand is my heart for them, right? I'm their dad, I love them. I'm going to catch them. They've seen me come through time and again in the same way. You might not have every single one of your answers, every single one of your questions answered today.

You might not know the mechanics and the buoyancy and the physics of all the business questions of life and the suffering that you're facing and some of the. The technical questions that you have about faith and about Jesus. You might not have all of the answers, but what you do have is a clear description of the heart of God. So the invitation of Jesus is not just to investigate forever and to intellectually work, work your way into a relationship with him. The invitation of Jesus at one point or another is to say, God, I believe there's answers.

I believe you have them. I believe you're the source of truth. I also believe I'm too finite to ever get to all those answers, so I might not ever have them all worked out. But I do see your heart. I see that, Jesus, you went to the cross even though you were innocent and you took the penalty for my sin so that I could be forgiven and have new life.

So even though I don't answer all the questions and I can't answer all these questions right now, I still have big questions. I trust your heart, God, and I'll follow you, right? This is the invitation of Jesus. It's to move from doubting and skepticism as an objection to trusting God and following him. And it's submitting it to his heart and trusting that there are answers, even if you don't know all of them.

And some of you, this morning, today, you need to jump. Now, you've been standing on the edge. You've been investigating God for a long time. You're like my little kids, kind of wobbling over the edge, unsure. And you need to look to the cross, see God's incredible love for you, and say, God, I see that you're a good shepherd, Jesus.

You laid your life down for the sheep. You did not come to steal, kill and destroy, but you proved your love for us once and for all on the cross. You shed your blood so that you could prove your love to me once and for all. I trust you. I have questions, God.

I want to work through them. But I trust you and I will follow. It's time to jump into the arms of your father. Here's all it means to become a follower of Jesus. There's no magical prayer to pray.

Jesus is just all about the following. Jesus is all about the posture of your heart. And really, it's helpful just to think through the ABCs of what it means to be a Christian. ABCs? Admit, Believe and confess.

Right. Admit that you are a sinner and need the forgiveness of Jesus. This is what it means to become a Christian. Admit that. Believe that Jesus is who he said he was, the Son of God, and did what he said he did.

He died on the cross that was prepared for you for the forgiveness of your sins. And he rose again. Admit, believe, confess. Romans 10, 9. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

You will be saved. Admit your sin. Believe in Jesus. Confess with your mouth. Jump off the edge of the pool into the arms of your father.

I want to invite all of you now to take a moment to bow your head, close your eyes for a moment of just personal reflection and prayer. Every eye closed, every head bowed. And here's the question I want you to pray about and consider with Jesus right now. What is your next step with Jesus today? Right?

Do you need to talk with someone about a nagging doubt that is coming after you? Do you need to come and receive prayer? Do that while we'll worship here in a moment. If you need to become a Christian today, if you need to jump, do it. Pray.

Admit, believe, confess. Thank him. Praise him for salvation. Commit yourself to him. If you're not ready to take the step of salvation, I just encourage you to take a step.

Do you need someone to. To read the Bible with? Do you have questions? Do you need prayer? Take just a few moments to ask God for help and take a step.

I just want to give you a moment to reflect with the Holy Spirit and what God is putting on your heart.

If there's a step that you need to take today with Jesus in any, in any way, but especially with your dad's going to become a Christian, there's. There's a connect card on the. In the pew there in front of you. And this is my request. If you need to take a step with Jesus, if you need to follow up with someone, if you want to take any next step, I want you to fill out that connect card, put your name, your information on it right in there.

What that next step is, drop it in the offering bucket at the end of the service because we want to follow up and we want to help you take some next steps of discipleship. I'll just talk to you real quick. If you follow Jesus for the first time today, all right, if that's you, you have to do this, all right? You are a little sapling in your faith, and we want to come around you and strengthen you and encourage you and help you grow. So write down here, here's the promise.

Drop that in your information, what your next step is. Here's the promise. We will follow up with you to help you take some next steps and to help you grow. And we will not be overbearing or weird. Okay?

So drop that in the offering bucket when it comes around. Write that on the card here in a few or right now, write it on the card and drop in the offering bucket in a few minutes. We would love the privilege and honor of following up with you. Whatever that next step is, whether you're ready to follow Jesus or you just need some help investigating some questions, go ahead and write that on the card and drop that in the offering bucket here in a few minutes. When that comes around, let me pray for us and then we're going to worship.

Father, we're thankful that you give us the word. We're thankful that you pursue skeptics and doubters like us. We thank you that no matter what we face in uncertainty, Jesus, your scars are clear, the resurrection is true. We have your word that we can stand on God. I pray that you would fill us with faith, fill us with trust that your heart is holy and it's loving.

God, give us confidence to stand on the Word, to trust its promises and to live according to it. God, I pray that you would move in our hearts, lead us to worship and gratitude for what Christ has done. And your gracious, your gracious response to a skeptic and a doubter. God reminded of your love and mercy to us. Thank you for the cross.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, now I want to invite you to stand. We're going to respond in worship.

If you want to pray with anyone, we'll have our staff, our pastors up here. We'd love to pray with you for anything that's going on. So as we worship, come down front, receive prayer.