Sermon Cloud

EASTER 2009

John 20:24-31

Dynamic Easter worship for visitors... to make God good.

ME: Happy Easter (another Easter)
Purpose of life changes...
Teens→ people's approval
20's→ fun+experience life
30's→ career + marriage
40's→ family + kids
Great thinker, Leo Tolstoy, War + Peace, → fervent Christian, writings affected Gandhi and M.L.K Jr.
My question- that which at the age of 50 brought me to the verge of suicide- was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man... a question without an answer to which one cannot live. It was, "What will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?" It can also be expressed thus: Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? - Leo Tolstoy

God called you today that →Vss.30-31 You may believe and have "life in His name." (?)
• Eternal Life.
• FULLNESS of life now.
o HOW DO I HAVE FULNESS? YES MAN No worries, risk, , Look to the Resurrection!

GOD: WHAT PLACE DOES THE RESURRECTION HAVE IN Xn Life? (context of vss.30-31)

CENTRAL TO FAITH
Vs. 24 Now Thomas, one of the 12, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
• Believing was difficult for Thomas because he was not with them.
o John very selective in what he chooses to recount.
o Only 21-22 days in the life of Jesus are told from John: Unbelief to Great Faith
• Resurrection Theology is the CLIMAX of John's Theology

EXPLAINS: Thomas had to see the resurrection (→ an apostle (1 of 12)
• Vs.19-23 He can be a believer, but NOT an apostle. Apostles = eyewitnesses to resurrection.
• Thomas has knowledge + teachings; the event of the resurrection.
• Point: It's not just about what Jesus said and taught, but that He rose, here now, our life eternal.

CENTER TO LIFE
OTHERS: Explosion new worldview: Changes in culture, worldviews and beliefs take decades to form through discussion, practice, arguments, debates. After the death of Jesus the entire Christian community SUDDENLY adopted a new set of beliefs that were brand new and up until that point unthought of. This worldview sprang up FULL blown immediately after the death of Jesus. NO PROCESS, NO DEVELOPMENT. Sexual revolution... Political Correctness... Civil Rights Movmt.
• The poor, cross culture: Church first institution.
• To the death: Virtually ALL the apostles and early Christian leaders died for their faith. It's hard to believe that this kind of powerful self-sacrifice would out of delusion, hoax.

Vs.25 Effect of encounter :
• Jesus died as a Savior + Jesus rose as Lord.
• 28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"
Implications of the Resurrection (Worldview in conflict)
• Jesus has ultimate authority > physical + spiritual→ Live with eternity in mind
Doubting Thomas→ one who refuses to believe something without physical, personal evidence.
• Ancient Babylon (Iraq, today) → Persia (Iran) → India in 52 AD. Preaches, plants churches, and wins to Christ high caste Brahmins + others.
• Early 1600s, Portuguese → India + find a group of Christians, Mar Thoma Church, 1600 old.
• Travels to east India, preaching relentlessly + killed ~72 AD, near Madras. Thrown into a pit, pierced through with a spear.
• Unbelief →brings Gospel message to the ends of the earth in his generation.

Look to your Resurrection... NEIL and JAMES
• Believers→ missional.
• John 20:21 "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you."
o SKUBALOS

YOU:

Believing is NOT primarily through proofs, but ENCOUNTER.
28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"
• Jesus asks Seeing→Believing. Blessed
• Thomas does not touch the wounds.
• 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
GOSPEL←Patience, knowledge and wounds
Vs.27 "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe."
• Jesus was not told. He KNEW Thomas and shows up.
• He knows you and doubts.

Faith is prepared in community or the apostles
• Vs.25 "So the other disciples told him."
o PRESENT PROGRESSIVE.
• Cultivation involves tilling, sowing, harvesting.
• This is why Jesus is an abstraction to some of you.
• Especially hard to believe 2x/ year church... 3000 Acts.
o Seekers→ community and investigate.

LORD'S SUPPER
Reformed faith affirms that Christ is really present in the bread/ blood, that doesn't mean Christ is physically present.
Real presence of Christ came through the Holy Spirit.
• When we receive the elements, Christ pledges that we're receiving him and all the blessings of his cross and resurrection.
• We are truly eating and drinking salvation, forgiveness, and new life in Christ.
• Madonna: we are material beings in a material world. God stoops to us, as to children, communicating his grace and salvation through the material stuff of bread and wine.