The Point and Purpose (Thomas should doubt his doubts)
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INTRO – I’m a skeptic! I just don’t believe everything right away. Especially with the amount of emails I receive. Pay Pal, Bank of America – I know that people are evil, and are trying to get something from me – Just this week, they stole my email address, and used it to spam the world – I received thousands of emails from spam filters saying that my mail did not connect with people, so they missed out on my offer for watches, Cialis, and Brittany Spears photographs. So can we blame Thomas for having his suspicions about the stories he heard about the resurrection of Jesus? 19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." FAMPAGE 1. The First Day = The impact of the Christian faith upon the world 2. Fear Factor = locked in a room, hiding out, seeking protection, fearing Jews 3. The peace of Christ (3x’s) km= Of course this is an apologetic for the real and corporeal resurrection of the body of Jesus – you can’t touch a ghost, or a spirit, or a force – they place his hands in his body. Jesus needed to do this because there is another episode in the book of Acts when all the disciples thought that Peter had been executed, and when a servant girl hears Peter’s voice at the door, and then reports it, what did the people say conclude thinking that Peter was dead? She must have heard his Angel… Interesting. You don’t hear or see dead people, the default belief is NOT life from the dead, but maybe some spiritual manifestation of the person from another reality. This is not the case with Jesus – you can touch him! I’m just also happy to connect it to Revelation, chapter 5 because in this heavenly court room, we find John being very sad about some confusion in the heavenlies, but the solution was the appearance of a lamb who was Christ and this Lamb has power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" The 2nd for Courage 4. “la,bete pneu/ma a[gion” “Freedom for the captives…” = Reading Consider what Jesus has sent them to do. They are not going out just to be good story tellers, set up gigs at coffee shops and public libraries. They are going to announce freedom for the captives. The spirit of the Lord was upon him to announce this good news, and now the followers of Christ must do the same – and that means, addressing a absolute reality, but an unpopular thought – the world is held under the bondage of sin and death – everything sinks into the hopelessness and unfulfillment of sin and death. It is the great enemy of all humankind and is the curse of God upon disobedience – sin and death – and Jesus has conquered them both! And his followers are now here to proclaim that Christ came to end the reign of sin and death! He has made us his representatives, his ambassadors – In our relationships with people, do we dare mention these ultimate topics? Who wants too? Mention sin and death and you sound like a prude and a morbid party pooper! NO, it’s way easier to come at it from a different angle -- let’s talk about self esteem, and successful living, and purpose for living, and the principles for having your best life now! We can walk that path but what still awaits every single life no matter how blessed and self-actualized it is? Sin and death! Now I’m not against creative means to help people listen to the very hard and sensitive truths of Jesus’ teaching, our culture needs this on occasion – but consider this scene. Jesus appears to give his disciples hope and assurance. With joy they embrace him, he breaths on them and gives them the holy spirit and the next thing he says IS… go write a creative book? Maybe he did, that’s why we have the gospels. And the title of all the gospels is this, “How to be free from sin and death” subtitle – The Christian church has the way, the truth, and the life! We could speak for hours on how sin destroys and kills everything – we can speak for hours on how the power of death rules over every relationship of the created order. But not now. Because each Sunday we participate in a sacrament that acknowledges sin and death. Both the Lord’s Table and Baptism acknowledge the reality of sin and death and our need to be freed from their influence and power – and equally, and most important – those same sacraments demonstrate how we are set free from the curse of sin and death because Christ took that curse upon himself, he buried it in the tomb, and he rose again to give us life, and that life is accompanied by his presence with us by his Holy Spirit so that we can speak very plainly as to how sins may be forgiven. Now naturally, I DON’T FORGIVE people’s sins; but as a minister of Christ, I can proclaim that sins are forgiven and that death has no power over the one who confesses their need of Christ and that freedom in his resurrected life is truly their possession – by word, and by sacrament. And that’s why we are old school here, we will confront ourselves with the cost of sin and it’s consequences, and equally so we will acknowledge the forgiveness of sin and the freedom from every curse we posses in Christ! So now there is Thomas! 5. Where’s Thomas? Making sense! SO Thomas IS believing in something even though We call him, Doubting Thomas, But Thomas’s doubts are based on a whole host of competing belief’s that are helping him to make sense of what he has just been through the past 3 years! Thomas doubts his friends because of the following reasons: Of course, Thomas does not have the Spirit of Christ breathed upon him, so what else would he think? He will think about every other possible reality – even that the disciples were visited by an imposter alien and fooled them all. After all, Thomas had a twin – maybe Jesus does too! And Jesus’ secret twin who was left in Egypt Egypt 6. h`me,raj ovktw. = 8 days later, there is a new beginning… 7. The Point: Proper profession 8. The Purpose: Believing unto life The whole High Point Is Jesus God? The gospel of John wants you to believe this! Is Jesus God? John 1 = Jesus is the eternal word of God who spoke the world into existence – he became flesh and dwelt among us – Jesus is God John 8 = Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." Jesus takes the divine name upon himself, saying that he existed even before Abraham was born - - Jesus is God In John 10 = Jesus said, “I and the Father are one." This is so blasphemous to the Jews that they want to pick up stones to kill him. They are more fired up than a Danish boycott. Jesus says, why are you going to kill me? And they reply, ”because you, being a man, make yourself God." = Jesus said it, they understood it – Jesus is God. And now in John 20 – we finally have a skeptic, who can glimpse at a resurrected man and say, You are the Lord of me, you are the God of me! == Jesus is God. 20:29 – Jesus said that those who do not see him, yet believe will be more blessed. Why? Because they will have the testimony of God’s spirit with them, and even though they will not see Jesus physically in some type of vision – they will see how all their doubts cannot override who Jesus truly is – the historic and miraculous God-man who became flesh and dwelt among us to become our substitute and sacrificial lamb for our sin. He died a death for us, and he rose for us, and an empty tomb and his resurrection appearances and ascension by eye witnesses reinforce the spirits testimony to our very souls = Jesus is God! John concludes this section in 30, 31 by telling us that Jesus did so much more to prove his true nature and mission. But what he wrote, he wrote for a specific purpose – that if you believe that Jesus is lord and God, you will have eternal life in his name. But before you believe that, you are going to have to doubt some other beliefs that you might have. For example, Rick Warren said this, and this makes sense to me. I don’t understand all the mechanics of an internal combustion engine. In fact it’s hard for me to believe that someone figured it out so that at every cylinder, the right amount of air, gas, heat, and pressure can propel a two thousand pound vehicle – and even though I don’t understand every aspect of how an engine works – I don’t doubt anymore that a car will take me where I want it to go (Dodge).. In the same way, there will always be unanswered questions, and lingering doubts, but the promise is backed by the resurrection that Jesus can deliver us from sin and death and give us all new life. If we can profess that and believe it – then we have truly met the savior.
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