Who Do You Trust?
Tom Shrader examines the disciples' encounter with the resurrected Jesus in John 20, focusing on their transformation from fear to rejoicing when Jesus appears with His nail-pierced hands and wounded side. He explores Thomas's doubt and eventual declaration of faith, emphasizing that the resurrection is God's antidote to human fear. Shrader challenges believers to engage the world as Christ's ambassadors rather than retreat into Christian isolation, demonstrating love that seeks to give rather than receive.
“The antidote to fear is always Him, it's always Christ.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life
Recorded: 2008
Duration: 43 min
Themes: fear, joy, doubt, faith, resurrection, transformation, witnessing, love, struggling with doubt, overcoming fear, new believer, feeling isolated, needing courage, pastor, evangelist, seeking purpose
Scripture: John 20:19-31, John 20:5-6, John 20:8, John 20:30-31, John 17, John 14, John 11, John 13, Genesis 2:25, Genesis 3, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Theological Themes: resurrection power, post-resurrection appearances, christology, divine nature, apostolic witness, biblical authority, gospel truth, eternal life
Full Transcript
Introduction: Nearing the End of Our Study
Welcome to session 11 of our 12-session series, so we're getting close to the end. Today you can open your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 20. We covered the first half of this chapter last week, and when I left off at verse 18, I said we would pick up exactly right here next week. That's our intention.
We've started every week by turning to this chapter and looking at John's stated purpose for writing. It's there in verses 30 and 31. He said Jesus did other signs that he did not record in this book, but these have been hand-selected so that we might read these, hear these, and believe. There's the operative word—that's the operative word in this Gospel: believe. Believe that Jesus is the Son of God, He's the Messiah, He's the one that's come, He's the one to deliver. Believe that He is the Son of God, and then in believing that, you would have eternal life.
That means eternal life not only in terms of when I die and where I'll spend eternity, but it changes the whole dynamic of life on this planet, life on this earth. It changes the way we live. We've said it a billion times: what I believe must affect how I behave. It's really simple. If I call Him master, then by implication I'm slave—what does the master want me to do? If He's my Lord, if He's my Savior, well that begins to affect how I live each and every day of my life.
Last Week's Foundation: The Empty Tomb
What we saw last week, building up to this, is the story of that first Easter morning. While Jesus and the angels are our major players in this story, the three that we really focused on were Peter, Mary, and John himself. John speaks of these events in an autobiographical way. John is coming to us as an embedded reporter. He's given us a firsthand eyewitness account of these events, so he's speaking with a great deal of authority in this area.
Mary last week had this experience where she comes in and looks into the tomb, sees angels and doesn't seem bothered by it, turns around and sees Jesus, and He is thought to be the gardener. Then a moment later she realizes He is Savior. What happened in that moment? How did Jesus go from gardener to Savior? We'll talk more about that today.
A key word for us last week, which ties in to this belief, is back in verses 5, 6, and 8. The two are running together and John runs ahead of Peter. He stoops and saw the linen wrappings that were lying there. Peter also came to the tomb and entered and saw the linen wrappings. Then you'll see in verse 8 that John came into the tomb. He entered, he saw and believed.
The Difference Between Seeing and Perceiving
In English, there's no difference in those three words—it's just "saw." So we put our own definition into and around it. Those first words in the Greek are different than the third one. In the Greek it means to go in and to look. It could be anything from a glance to a gaze—the idea of looking in. It's a physical perception of something that's taken place.
I can stand out on this incredible patio and say I see the sunrise. I can see the clouds, the sun coming up, the mountains. That's the idea of the word used in verses 5 and 6. In verse 8, the word that's used is different. It means see as in to perceive. You're working with somebody doing a math problem and all of a sudden the other person says, "Oh I see it." It doesn't mean that person sees the equation you've placed on the board. It means that person perceives it. "I get it" might be another term we would use.
John has this moment in verse 8 where he says, "I get it. I see it. I understand it. It makes sense to me. I get it." As a result of that, he believed. It's interesting that he adds right after it that they don't fully understand all the scripture as it's being unfolded around them. But John has this moment.
We have these interesting discussions about when the disciples really became believers—when they were really converted, as we would use that term. That's probably fairly hard to nail down. We're going to see on a couple of occasions that probably somewhere around the events we look at today are going to get us pretty close to it.
It's not only John, then it's Mary who essentially has the same experience. She goes in and sees these angels, then she sees Jesus, thinks He's a gardener, and then she sees Jesus and perceives Him as the master, the teacher, the Savior. She sees Him in a whole different light.
The Evening Appearance: From Fear to Joy
We pick up the story today exactly where we left off. John chapter 20, verse 19: "So when the evening on the day of the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' And when He said this, He showed them both His hands and His side, and the disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord."
Interesting scene. Again it takes place on the first day of the week, and we said really from that point we saw last week on that resurrection morning that the first day of the week becomes the day of celebration. That's that move to Sunday.
The disciples are gathered together. What we're going to discover today is that there are ten of them. Judas is gone and Thomas is not there. There's ten of them gathered together and the doors are shut. It's more than just the doors closed—like these doors here, they're locked. The doors are shut and locked.
We understand why they're shut and locked. It's not just for general security against a burglar. They are afraid of the Jews. They're afraid that now they've killed Jesus, now they're going to come after them.
the guys most closely associated with them. If you thought of Jesus, you thought of the twelve. These would be His guys and their fear is that there is this fever that perhaps is spreading. Let's go and let's just wipe out this whole Jesus thing before it ever takes root. Let's just nail it down now.
So they are there and they are afraid. Jesus appears to them and it's interesting. He comes and He says, "Peace be with you." And then He shows them His hands and His side. And then they saw and they rejoiced.
Jesus Brings Peace to Our Sin-Ravaged Lives
The application to us here is gigantic. Jesus comes and He says, "Peace be to you." I was talking about this last week in church. These are the words that we need to hear so deeply.
Sin has so contaminated us that we live in a life that's continually overrun by anxiety, fear, frustration, anger. You fill in the blanks. The intensity level varies, but essentially all of that is a result of sin. All of that is a result of a world that is not as it's supposed to be. All of that flows from Genesis 3.
Jesus comes along and says, "Peace." When Jesus says "shalom," that word has with it a whole meaning, maybe beyond what we give it. It has with it the whole idea of a holistic approach, of something that's more complete than just hang in there. It's the idea of restoring in my life things as they should be. That's a big powerful word. And that's the word that we need.
We Are Fearful Hiders by Nature
In essence, He's saying, "Do not be afraid." Those are all semi-coupled together. So Jesus understands that. Why? Well, when we were in the garden, when Adam's in the garden representing us and he sinned, the first thing happens—and it's really interesting.
Genesis chapter 2 verse 25 ends with Adam and Eve in the garden. They're naked and unashamed. There's an innocence there. Six verses later, they've eaten the fruit and immediately they realize they were naked. There's guilt. They start to cover themselves. They grab fig leaves and they run and they hide, so much so that when God now comes and says, "Where are you?" they say, "We're hidden."
First instance of abnormal behavior in all of the human race and it flows from sin. And then He said, "Why did you hide?" And Adam says, "Because we heard you and we were afraid." There's our problem. That's who we are. We are fearful hiders. Hiders of one another, hiders from each other, hiders from God Himself.
The Antidote to Fear is the Resurrected Christ
God comes along now and says in the New Testament when Jesus comes—the most frequent prohibition He gives us says, "Do not be afraid." How can I be that? Well, it's to be made whole again. How does that happen? Do you see it here? He said, "Look at my hands, look at my side." What am I looking at? A resurrected Christ. The empty tomb. There's the antidote.
So it's amazing here. Look at this. In verse 19, they're afraid. In verse 20, they're rejoicing. How do you go from fear to rejoicing? One way. The cross. The empty tomb. The resurrected Christ.
He shows them these nail prints and the spear in His side. He shows them that. And when He does, He's saying, "Listen, this is real. This is who I am. This is the resurrection. This is the promise. I am the resurrection. I am the life. This is where you find life. This is where you find wholeness. This is where you find peace. Not in anything or anyone else."
We Constantly Pursue Peace in the Wrong Places
And yet, life for us—you, me, us—life for us is a constant pursuit of things other than Christ that will give us peace. So we go from thing to thing to thing, person to person to person, job to job to job, girl to girl to girl, guy to guy to guy, relationship to relationship to relationship. I mean, you can just make the list. Sport to sport to sport, food to food to food. It's a constant search to find that thing, that peace, that wholeness that I'm going to find only in Christ.
So here would be the point, and this is pretty amazing in 15 minutes to get there, but here would be the point if you're here today. If you're here today and you're fearful, the antidote to that, the thing that turns fear into joy is the resurrection. It's believing Jesus is who He was. Who He said He was. We are who He says we are. And the antidote to this, to our fear, when Jesus says, "Do not be afraid," the reason He says it is the antidote to fear is always Him. It's always Christ.
There Are Legitimate Fears for Those Who Don't Know Christ
Now, there are legitimate fears. If you don't know Christ, you should be afraid. If you're here and you're not a Christian, you should be terrified.
I remember teaching one time down—it used to be called the Plaza Club, but it was down on the, I don't even know what they call the building anymore. It was the Oxford Tower and it was like the 29th floor. And I'm up there teaching one time and I'm talking about this general idea, but I'm trying to also make the point to say there also is a rational fear, a fear of death because you understand you're going to fall into the hands of a God who will judge you.
So I said, "We're on the 29th floor. If you don't know Christ, do you understand when we're done, you're going to go out and get in a little metal box that's hanging by a little metal wire and that thing's going to plummet you 29 floors down into the ground. If that thing snaps, that wire is the only thing that's standing between you and facing a holy wrathful God." And I say it not to manipulate you. I just say it to tell you sometime in your life you're going to face this. That's a powerful truth.
Our Mission in a Scary Time
Well, the story unfolds. Jesus said peace to them. They saw. So Jesus said to them, "Peace be with you." Look at verse 21: "As the Father has sent me, I also send you." Here's a commissioning occurrence that's very similar to what He prayed the night before in John chapter 17. Remember what He prayed? "Father, as you sent me into the world, I send them into the world." That's our mission.
So let me step back now. We live at a very scary time. Take away the economic part of all of this. Take away the economic judgment and just the uncertainty that revolves around all of that. We live just in a scary time. Let's say for those, especially if you're a little bit older
Like I am, if you're a little bit older, you see things just radically shifting around you. And you have a sense that it's not for the better. All change is not bad at all. I'm a big change guy. I really do love change. But not all change is good either.
We just ran a whole campaign when the winning candidate campaigned on change. And I'm not sure anybody ever stopped or very many stopped to say, change to what? What is it you want to change us to? And that would have been a poignant comment for the other guy to make, but who knows what he was doing. But they go, change to what? Change to this? Change to a government that's running almost all businesses now, taking things over? Is this the change you wanted? This is a systemic change of the economic system in the United States of America.
There's a whole bunch of other changes that are in place. They just announced last week that in 2007, you had more babies born in America than at any year in the history of the country. 40% of them out of wedlock. Now, there's a huge, you want to talk about economic change, there's a huge economic impact in that. There's a huge moral change that takes place there. And you can go on and on and on.
The Circle the Wagons Mentality
Here's the problem with Christians in a changed environment like that. We tend to get a circle the wagons mentality. So all of a sudden, we tend to take the word Christian and turn it into an adjective rather than a noun. So all of a sudden, because the world's so scary, we develop Christian music, Christian radio, Christian comics, Christian bookstores. Christian becomes an adjective. It was never designed to be an adjective. It's a noun. That's who you are. You're a Christian. You're a Christ follower. You're a little Jesus. That's what you're designed to be.
The mentality is we get closer and closer and closer. We get the walls tighter and tighter and tighter. And rather than do what God left us to do, which was to go and infiltrate the world, rather than do that, we sit with each other, pass around the same books and then criticize most of them. And the world gets smaller and smaller and smaller for us. So pretty soon, there's only a handful of us that have the truth standing in the middle.
That's not at all what God called us to do. He called us to fully engage the world around us.
Called to Infiltrate the Marketplace
The majority of you, when you leave here, are not leaving here. I'm looking around, and Mark's not here today. Frank's not here. He'll be there at noon. I'm willing to bet that the majority of you are getting ready to either go to work or to go back into your equivalent of the marketplace, whether it be your neighborhood or your health club or whatever endeavors you're involved in. That's what God designed you to do, to go back into those and to be salt and to be light in the midst of that.
Let me really hammer this. The world should be a better place because you live in it. So are we in Phoenix now or Paradise Valley? Okay, so we're in PV. If you're a follower of Christ, Paradise Valley should be a better place because you live here.
A friend of mine was just in Africa and they were meeting with some people in this small village filled with all sorts of medical problems and health problems and pure water, all those things. And for years now, they've been spending money and sending people into this village. And the chairman of the village, the king, the mayor, the tribal council said to him, we are a better place because of you. Well, that's the same thing that the town council of Paradise Valley should be saying about you. It's the same thing they should be saying in Gilbert. It's the same thing they should be saying in the whole world.
That's why you're here. This world should be a better place because you're in it. And God's being glorified in the midst of it. God's being glorified in the environment of it.
Receiving the Holy Spirit
And when He said this, He breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now, verse 22 and verse 23, we could probably spend a ton of time on it. We're not going to spend much time on either one of them.
Is this normative what happens in verse 22 here? No, there's the power. We know that the Holy Spirit is still about 40 days away from coming upon them as we experience it now. So is this, because I've turned on TV and seen guys blowing the Holy Spirit into guys. And so I've heard terms of the idea of a baptism of the Holy Spirit, meaning there's this second thing that takes place.
When somebody says to me, have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit? I say to them, yes, I'm a Christian. Because when I come to Christ in repentance and faith, I'm baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now we understand that there's a vibrancy that takes place. Sometimes I'm more filled with Him than others. I have an unbreakable union with Him. Sometimes that union is more vibrant than at other times, but the vibrancy of that is dependent upon me and my sin, not upon God.
The Authority to Forgive Sins
So they received the Spirit. And then He says, and again, this could be confusing. He says this, if you forgive sins of any, their sins have been forgiven of them. And if you retain sins of any, their sins have been retained. So you can go that in a variety of ways.
The Catholic church would go back and say, if you trace our family tree, we could go all the way back to this and say, this is the power that the priest has to forgive sin. I don't think that's what's going on here. I think He's saying, as you begin to share this truth, as you begin to proclaim this gospel, as you begin to talk about the empty tomb and the nail pierced hands and the side that's been pierced. As you begin to do that and people believe, you can tell them that forgiveness of sin is in that resurrected tomb, it's in that resurrection of Christ, it's not in a person giving me absolution. I've sinned against God, really only God can forgive me.
Thomas the Maverick
We get to something that is just as wonderful that happens here for us. It's a tidbit that's given in verse 20: "Thomas, one of the 12, named Didymus, was not there when Jesus came." We don't know why, it doesn't tell us there is a reason here that he's gone. We know that Thomas is kind of a bit of a maverick, a bit of a free spirit.
If you remember back in John chapter 11, Jesus was saying we're going to go back to Jerusalem. The other guys are saying don't go, because they said they're going to kill you. And Thomas is the one who was saying, literally, let's just go and die with Him. Thomas is a bit of a free spirit. Thomas is a bit of the one who's asking periodically—I don't know if he's asking dumb questions, I don't think so. I just think he's asking questions that the others are thinking about, but Thomas is the one who asked them.
So in John 14, when Jesus said you know where I'm going, it's Thomas who said we don't know where you're going, we don't have a clue. Tell us where you're going, we don't know, what do you mean? Well, for whatever reason, it may be that Thomas just needed to get away. It could have been he's on a mission, could have been that he went out to get food. It may be that there's a little bit of bravery in this—they're hiding away and Thomas is still doing commerce or moving around. I don't know, gathering his thoughts together, whatever it is, he's alone.
The Danger of Doubt in Isolation
He comes back. When he comes back, he realizes—well, he doesn't realize anything. The disciples then say to him, "We've seen the Lord." And Thomas says, "Unless I see the hand imprints of the nails and put my finger in the place of His side, put my hand into His side, I will not believe."
Now, I want to take just a small trip, and this is a bit of a dangerous trip because it could be misunderstood. But I want to talk just a little bit about the danger of being alone. There is a wonderful time and place where I commune with God, where I get away and gather my thoughts. There is a huge value to meditation. And when I say meditation, I mean getting away, thinking about the word of God, contemplating who He is, meditating, thinking about Him, letting God speak to you, letting God begin to push impressions upon you, to be alone with Him. That's really valuable.
It's dangerous if you're in the process—let's go down a different road. Let's say Thomas isn't doing that. Let's say Thomas is filled with a little bit of remorse here. Let's say Thomas is filled with a little bit of guilt. Maybe there's a little self-pity that's come into this, too. If Thomas is going, "Hey, we gave up everything for three years, and this is what happened to this thing?" When you're in that mode, being alone is really dangerous.
The Crocodile Illustration
I'm watching a show on the Discovery Channel one night, and there's these crocodiles, and there's this river. There's a whole herd of zebras, and the zebras are trying to get from one bank of the river to the other, and the crocodiles are in the middle. So I'm really intrigued in this whole thing. I'm watching this thing pretty closely, and all of a sudden, almost like on cue, all of the zebras take off for the other side of the river.
I thought, well, this will be really interesting, because I would, if I was a crocodile, and they're just coming this way, I'd just plant myself right in the middle of this thing, and almost just numerically run into a zebra. They're all running. I would get right in the middle of it. I'd sit right there, bam, and I'd get them.
That is not what the crocodiles did. When the zebras started, the crocodiles were hanging out on the edges. What would inevitably happen—the zebras who were on the edges, there would always be one who would drift just a little bit away. The minute he did, a crocodile would come in and separate him from the balance of the herd. The other crocodiles would surround him. One would grab his head, one would grab his hind, and then they'd just twist until they broke him in half.
That was so interesting to me, because it was so contrary to how I would think I'd go get a zebra. But they look for the one that's over—when you're alone by yourself.
The Rich Man's Self-Counsel
Remember the rich man? He's got all this money, and then he has a bumper crop. And then he starts to think it through. And he said, "I then said to myself"—so I'm my own counselor. "Self, here's what you'll do. Build bigger barns. Eat, drink, and be merry." And Jesus said to him, "You fool."
There is something about being alone that's extraordinarily beneficial. There's also a danger in being alone. As you begin to try to make decisions, significant decisions, as you try to figure out life, as you try to process some different things, do you get that? All I want to do is make that point. That's a real dangerous position to be.
When We Pull Away in Hard Times
My experience is, for most followers of Christ, when a difficult time comes, we tend to move away. So I'll be walking through a mall, and I'll see somebody, and they may look familiar to me, they may not, and they'll say, "So-and-so, I go to your thing." So they mean this, and I'm all right with that. "I haven't been there in a while." And I don't get—just so you know, I don't get paid by the head. So it doesn't matter. We don't keep score, we don't keep track, we don't take attendance.
Oftentimes what comes next is a story of personal challenge, maybe sin, maybe hardship. At a time where a person needed, not necessarily just a group like this, but needed other people, the very thing the guy did was pull away. It seems like there's something instinctive, and I think it goes back to Genesis 3. The minute there's a hard time, we want to hide, because we don't want anybody to know we have a hard time. We don't want anybody to know we have challenges.
Thomas's Isolation and Resistance
So cool that you don't even want anybody to know you're human. So you pull away, you get in isolation, and either you just get eaten by crocodiles, or you end up being broken down so God can put you together again in a whole new way. But it is a big deal. Thomas is alone, and they say to him, "We saw the Lord," and Thomas resists.
Now, I'm going to candidate for a second for Thomas' courage. This is not just ten guys who are confronting him. These are the ten disciples. This is Peter, James, and John. These are the guys who become the pillar of the early church. And they're coming in mass with no dissenting voice. With no one saying, "Well, maybe we didn't." No, all ten of them. All ten of them in mass are saying to him, "We saw Him, He was here," and Thomas said, "There is no way I'll believe it, unless it happens exactly this way. Put my finger in the holes in His hands, probably more appropriately in His wrists, and put my hand in His side."
The Eight Days of Peer Pressure
What I love in verse 26 is after eight days, the disciples are inside again. Thomas is with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut and locked, and says again, essentially the same thing: "Peace be with you." Again, it's not in the scripture, so I'll go ahead and I know I'm outside of it, but I want to talk about human nature.
I'm telling you, for eight days, as Thomas is hanging with these guys, they're all saying, "Thomas, it really happened. Thomas, we really saw Him." You know that if it's not with the whole group, let's say he just grabs Andrew and he says, "Let's play racquetball." So they're just going and they're playing racquetball, and they're sitting there, and they're having a little drink of water, it's a little break. You know Thomas is going, "Really?" And Andrew's going, "Thomas, there's no way." And you talk about peer pressure, do you see that?
You could flip this into a positive picture, really. You can see his ability to resist peer pressure. He won't say he understood when he didn't. He won't say he believed when he didn't. He was courageous, he was sincere, but he was wrong.
The Importance of Truth
It's so important to understand that. You can be courageous and sincere and stand up against peer pressure and be wrong. Again, in a world that's lost any sense of truth and absolute truth, these words really smack against this, because the world's going to come and challenge with "You can be whatever you want to be. You believe truth as you understand it to be."
So do you see the positive side of Thomas there? You see that strength, that moral courage really. But he missed it. He didn't get it right. Why? Well, he had not yet seen. But that's all about to change right now. Jesus comes, the doors are shut and locked, and Jesus appears in the room.
A Fascinating Guest Speaker
Let me digress one second. I've been doing this study for almost 20 years now, which is an amazing thing to me, and over the years we've had some interesting studies and periodically some interesting guests. Many years ago now we had a guy. I got a call from a friend of mine in California saying, "There's a guy by the name of Hugh Ross who's going to be over, and I think it'd be helpful if you had Hugh speak to the group." So he couldn't go to all the studies but he could go to some of them, so I agreed to that.
So he came to the study out in Mesa, and when I met him he was an enormously unimpressive figure. He was whatever, mellow, he was just very unimpressive. So I got him all situated and I introduced him, and he got up. Now I'm not—this is not an exaggeration at all—we had a podium there, not a music stand. He grabbed the podium and he said, "Ever since I was seven years old I've wanted to be an astrophysicist." Well, I immediately had a kindred spirit because I've always—no, I'm teasing. I said to the guy next to me, "What's an astrophysicist?" And he said, "I think he invented astroturf."
Hugh does this thing. Well, rather than people disengaged, we couldn't get him out of the room. We stop at 7:45 or close to it. By the time I'm teaching at 7:30, everybody's looking. Now it's 7:45, now it's eight, now it's 8:15. Nobody's leaving. So I get up and say, "Listen guys, we're way past time, you can go if you want," and Hugh just keeps talking. Now it's nine, 9:30, ten o'clock. The room is probably two-thirds full. We're at ten o'clock, we're at 10:15, we're at 10:30, and they come and say, "You guys are going to have to leave because we got to turn the room."
I'm watching and Hugh's answering these questions—amazing. Like this guy. Finally I'm just going, "Gosh, there must be something." So some guy said, "Well, you know, you quoted so-and-so, but he just wrote a book, and on page 422 of that book he said this, which seems to contradict what you've said." And Ross said to him, "Yes, but on page 472 he wrote this, which would support—" I'm going, "You've got to be kidding."
The Question About Jesus and Locked Doors
So it was all done, and I said to him, "You know, I'm paying for this, so let me ask two questions. Number one, what don't you know? And number two, if you're going to drive to Yuma, what would you think about?" And so he just said, "I'd have to think about it," and that was—he blew it off.
Well, every time I read this passage I think of that morning, because one of the questions was this: "How did Jesus in John 20 get through those shut, locked doors?" So my answer, of course, is, "Well, He's got a resurrection body. I don't know. He just did it. Why are we wasting any time on this?"
Ross says, "For this reason: He could move through those doors because of the molecular structure of the door and because of Jesus and who He is. You and I operate in three dimensions. God operates in 11 dimensions." And then I drifted off into sleep after that. I mean, I just remember—okay, so I'm just telling you Jesus is operating here in the 11th dimension. I don't know, and He gets through the door and He says the same thing: "Peace be with you."
And then He turns to Thomas, and I've kind of plunged myself into this.
He turns to Thomas, and I've got to believe He says, "Reach here with your finger and see My hands. Reach here your hand and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believe." And Thomas answered, "My Lord and my God!" And Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, you believe. Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe." He's saying you had this extraordinary advantage and you had this experience.
Well, what happened to Thomas? What happened to Thomas in this moment? Here's what I want you to see - it's the same thing that happened to Mary in the garden when Jesus went from gardener to Savior. God opened his eyes and allowed him to see that amazing truth.
Thomas's Experience and Our Faith
You and I are not going to encounter the sight of the resurrected Christ like Thomas did, not in all likelihood. We're not going to have that advantage, if it is an advantage, of seeing Him and reaching out. Though I got the feeling Thomas never really followed through with his end of the bargain. Thomas said, "This is really what I want," and then ultimately says, "Well, maybe I didn't want that. I want to see. I want to believe."
What happens there? We can go back to the tomb of Lazarus, because remember Lazarus rises from the dead and many believed at that point, but not all of them. There's an amazing theological truth that is taking place here, and it's what John talks about in verses 30 and 31. It was his whole objective in writing - that we would see these miracles, we would hear these stories. And when I say story, I don't mean fable; I mean accurate account of historical events. We would hear those and God's Spirit would use those to move our hearts to a radical change in our life. He would begin to affect and change how we believe, and that manifests itself now in how we live.
The Central Question: Do You Believe?
Let's wind it down with a question: Do you believe? Have you become a follower of Christ? Have you reached that point in your life where you understand that you're a sinner and that God's view of sin is radically different than ours? God says if you break a law, you break the law. There's a sense in which I'm guilty of the whole law at this point. I cannot be any more guilty, really, before God. That's who I am. And my remedy to this, my peace to this, the Shalom part of this, is Jesus who says, "Peace to you." If you know Me, you know Him.
But that's not the end of the story. John says in verse 31, "I want you to believe and have eternal life." And we've spent a ton of our time talking about the fact that eternal life begins today. Eternal life begins now. Eternal life begins with our understanding of who He is, and now we go and live like it. We become literally Christ to the world - Christ followers, small Jesuses, His hands, His feet, the works.
Salvation by Grace Through Faith
We could go back and talk about what we just talked about, which is really salvation by grace through faith. We could go back to Ephesians chapter 2 and see that connection. We're not saved by faith; we're saved by grace. The vehicle is faith. So you believe. You would say, "Well, I'm saved because I believe," and I would say, "Well, why did you believe?" And the answer is because God gave you the ability to believe.
But God doesn't disconnect that from verse 10 of Ephesians 2, which says you are now His workmanship. You're prepared for good works that He's prepared beforehand for you to walk in them, to go into, to be an ambassador for Christ to a lost and dying world. That's a huge call. The call that was placed on the disciples is the same call that's been placed on you.
Ordinary People Called to Extraordinary Purpose
These are ordinary guys. I don't know how we can get any impression but that, as we read through the scriptures, they are very ordinary guys - tax collectors, fishermen, ordinary guys just like you who have received now the power, the same Spirit that you received. So Jesus says to you and me now, "You go into that world just like I came into this world."
The mark of that is that people are going to see in your life this quality. This is the thing that's going to distinguish you from everyone else - they're going to see in your life love. That's what Jesus said back in John 13: "I give you a new commandment: love one another. This is how the world will know that you are My disciples - that you love one another."
The Distinguishing Mark of Love
He could have said a lot of things at that point. He could have said, "This is how the world is going to know that you are My disciples: because you get together every Thursday morning and endure a lesson. This is how the world knows that you are My disciples: because you have a great quiet time, because you share your faith, because you pray regularly, because you're a good husband or a good father, or if you are a good single person as God describes a single person to be." He doesn't say that. He said, "They'll know you're My disciples if you love one another."
Why? Because if I love one another, all those things are going to take place. If I'm in the sense of loving, there will be prayer, there will be all these things that take place.
What Love Actually Looks Like
Well, what does it mean to love? Let's end with this, because this is what you hear so often when you go to a wedding. And my fear is it gets attached to a husband-wife relationship exclusively, but it's much more than this. Love is patient. Love is kind. Positively. Negatively, it's not jealous. It doesn't brag. It's not arrogant. It doesn't act unbecoming. It doesn't seek its own. It doesn't provoke. It doesn't take into account a wrong suffered. It rejoices in truth.
Here you go. Here's the summary: Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love hopes all things. Love endures all things. Now if you were to take - I think there's 15 characteristics there - if you were to take them, you could boil it down to the characteristics in the middle: it doesn't seek its own. How are you a lover? You don't seek your own. So as you move...
into every relationship that God brings into your life—business, social, church, family, friends, whatever it is—the key ingredient in that relationship is to not be in there to see what you're going to get out of it. It's absolutely contrary to the way we live.
You go to a party tonight, and you meet somebody, and this guy says, "Hey, I've got this new thing. I've figured out this new thing. This down market has provided us a great opportunity here and a great opportunity economically." All you're thinking about from that point on is, how do I endear myself to that guy to figure out what that opportunity is? You're not thinking about ministering to that guy one lick, are you? You're seeking your own.
Every Moment, Every Relationship
Every minute of every day at every time in our life we're either ministering to somebody or manipulating them at every time. I'm either coming into this relationship to see what I can get out of them or to see what I can give to them. It's just the way it is.
He says here's what's contrary to everything else: I'm coming into a relationship and all I want to do is to see how I can get in that relationship and just give and give and give and give and give. Why? Because I love Christ and Christ told me to live that way, the way He lived. That's a huge message, isn't it? There are a lot of things that are involved in that.
Looking Ahead
Well, we're not done. Even though we've reached the purpose statement, we're not done. We have one more week and we're going to look at chapter 21 when we gather next week.
Let's pray together. Father, thank You for this truth. It's an amazing truth. Let us move from fear to rejoicing and let us do it with an understanding of Your resurrection. We pray that to You in Christ's name. Amen.