Who Do You Trust?
Tom Shrader examines the post-resurrection appearances in John 20, focusing on Christ's words of peace to the fearful disciples and Thomas's demand for proof. He emphasizes that salvation comes entirely by grace through faith as a gift from God, not through human effort or will. The teaching also addresses the Great Commission and warns against claiming to receive new revelation from God beyond Scripture.
“You were not saved by an act of your will. You were saved by an act of God's will.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life (2003)
Recorded: 2003
Duration: 42 min
Themes: faith, peace, doubt, grace, resurrection, salvation, trust, evidence, struggling with doubt, new believer, questioning faith, seeking proof, fearful Christian, pastor, bible teacher, skeptic
Scripture: John 20:19-31, Matthew 28:19-20, John 11:16, Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Peter, Mark 2:7, John 20:30-31
Theological Themes: soteriology, salvation by grace, post-resurrection appearances, biblical authority, sola fide, faith alone, christophany, great commission
Full Transcript
We are session 11 of the 12. Let me remind you that we will not meet that July 4th week. So it's the first Thursday in July. We will not meet. So just meet through there, take that break, and then we're going into August. I'm sitting down now, trying to figure out how far. We're going at least one week into August, and maybe two. We'll take a look at that, and actually coming back a little bit sooner in September. But we will not meet that first week of July. So just remember that, and if you come over anyway, just go and have some breakfast and charge it to the colonel. The colonel will pay for all the breakfasts.
The Resurrection: A Foundation of Evidence
Here we go. John chapter 20. If you'd open there, please. We are going to pick up exactly where we left off. Just by way of reminder, that is beginning in verse 19.
In verses 1 through 18, what we saw was the resurrection. We saw three major players—that's what we looked at last week. We're talking about evidence for the resurrection, and we said it is bountiful. We have eyewitness accounts from Mary, and from Peter, and from John. We have the testimony of really secular historians. We have all of the precautions and safeguards that God put into place.
I made the comment last week, and it's been pretty true, I think, that by and large, I'll have people who will want to talk about the faith, and they'll want to attack it, but they'll come at things like the virgin birth, or is Jesus the only way? Rarely do they attack the resurrection. I think the reason is, this baby, if you want to just look at the facts—I'm not saying you're going to believe them—if you just look at the facts, the facts for the resurrection are really overwhelming.
There have been, through history, many, many men who have set out to attack and disprove the Christian faith by taking apart the resurrection. The resurrection is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. If you destroy—make sure you get this—if you destroy the resurrection, you've destroyed Christianity. Many, many men have set out to do that, and in the process, become converted, and become some of the most powerful apologetic spokesmen for the Christian faith.
John's Progressive Understanding
Well, we saw the resurrection last week. We saw this eyewitness account. What we're going to talk about today is really a continuation of that.
In verse 5 of chapter 20, this is John. John looks in, and he sees the linen wrappings. In verse 8, it said, the other disciple, that would be John, who came to the tomb first, entered, and then he saw and believed.
Now, in the English, we have the same word, saw. In the Greek, we have two different words. That's oftentimes the case when we're studying something. We'll see that again next week when we look at the word love. When we talk about love, we have the English word love, and in the Greek, we have at least four possibilities. In the English, they all look the same, but there's four nuances that are there in the Greek.
These two words that we're looking at in the Greek—one means, it's the one in verse 5, to glance. He saw. He just looked quickly. He glanced. There it was. The other, the word that's used in verse 8, means to see with understanding. To see and to get it.
Addressing Intellectual Objections to Faith
You're dealing with people all the time as you're talking about your faith, who say, I'm just not able to believe. I'm just not there yet. I can't get by, and then they'll give you something. You fill in the blank.
Or you'll have people who say, and I'm sure they don't mean it, but so often it sounds so patronizing. They just say, I wish I could have faith like you. What they're really saying is, I wish I could just put my brain on hold like you've done to make this intellectual leap of suicide. That's what they're trying to say to you.
In fact, and I think it's important, I don't want to deny this idea that it takes some faith. It obviously does, because you can raise question after question. If you don't want to believe, I don't care what it is, if you don't want to believe, it really doesn't matter, because you're just going to come question after question. But remember that some of the greatest minds in the history of mankind have believed what we believe, that the Bible is the Word of God and that Jesus was the Son of God.
The greatest mind that America ever produced, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, not a Christian organization, the greatest mind that America ever produced was Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards would absolutely line up virtually on every point, certainly 90% of the points that we're making, and clearly on issues like the resurrection and the miracles and the things that we look at. So it's very, very important.
The Nature of Endless Questions
I don't know if the secret here is to not care too much. I don't know what it is, but in my discussions with people, I rarely have—I've had people say, oh, you must have a lot of discussions with unbelievers about this. Not really, because I don't get into long debates about it, because you either believe it or you don't. I'm up to answering questions, but then, can I have a follow-up please? And I'm saying, you know, this isn't a presidential press conference. You ask the question, I gave you an answer, now you want to go—See, you don't want an answer. You just want another question.
Our kids had one of those awful toys. Remember that toy that you had? It had the legs on it, and then it had these pegs, and you got a hammer, and you just pound these things, and you pound them and pound them and pound them and pound them and pound them and pound them, and it would just make this awful noise. Then you flip it over, and there's all the pegs again.
That's what I find discussions with a lot of these people are like. They bring these questions.
and you pound them and pound them and pound them, and then they just flip them over. I've got no problem with honest questions. Do we have any problem at all with honest questions? No. And we'll do the best we can to answer them. And a lot of times, the answer is, I don't know. But by the same token, I'm not interested in just sitting and having endless dialogue with this person who wants to ask question after question after question after question, and they're not really looking for answers. You're answering one question, they're trying to figure out the next one to ask. You understand, and I hope you do.
We'll make this point again at the end of the day. Every question that God wanted to provide you an answer is answered. Here's the deal. You've got a lot of questions that God says, you don't need those answers. So, that's the way it is. Now, if you don't like that, you're on some rabbit hunt, and you're going down this, and you're going to be in trails, you're going to be lost, you're going to be tied in your shorts in about four seconds, because you're going to be making up answers.
If it's not in here, then God says, either you don't need to know, or you're not smart enough to understand it. Can you remember that? He's God, and you aren't. He's infinite. You aren't. You've got a little pea-brained mind. I can't figure out, and we have now been in this house since December, and that light on the VCR is still flashing at me. If I can't figure that out, I don't think I can figure out the origins of evil. Give me a break.
Christ Appears to the Disciples
Here we go. Verse 19. So we're building on that same thought. Verse 19: "When therefore, it was evening on that day, it was the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were for the fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, Peace be with you." John 20, verse 19.
Just a couple of things. John makes the point it's the first day of the week. We saw that last week. And now see the shift of corporate worship is moving to Sunday. Sunday becomes the day when they get together. The Lord's Day. They celebrate, commemorate the resurrection of Christ.
These guys are gathered together. The door is locked. We don't have to guess why. They are afraid of the Jews. Here are the disciples. And there are ten of them. Ten why? Judas is gone. We're going to discover today. And Thomas isn't with them right now. These ten guys are gathered together.
If you can, as we've tried to encourage you to do over the last few weeks, if you can just allow your mind as though you're reading it for the first time, to just drink this in, and also try to place yourself in the setting these guys are in. They're in the room, in all likelihood, can't say 100%, but in all likelihood, they're in the same room that they gathered in for the Lord's Supper. They're gathered there. There's ten of them. They are there because they are afraid. The door is locked. They don't know what to expect. Jesus is gone. Now they've seen an empty tomb. Some days have passed since then.
The Peace of Christ
And Jesus arrives, and what does He say? Peace be with you. It is really strikingly similar in idea to what we looked at last week. Do not be afraid. That's interesting. Here are these guys at that moment who are behind these locked doors because they're afraid, and Jesus comes and says, peace be with you.
He said this before. My peace I leave you. Not peace as the world gives. My peace. For us, when we start to define things, one of the partial definitions we use for peace is not the absence of turmoil, but the presence of God. Do you understand that? These things that they are afraid of at this moment do not go away. It's not that all of a sudden the Jews change their position.
Listen, there's some scary, scary things out there in this world. There's some things that ought to scare you. They're scary. Jesus comes, and He doesn't take them away. He simply joins you in the midst of that difficulty. What a great truth that is.
I remember teaching this, and this will date it, is down at the Plaza Club. I remember the Plaza Club was on the top of whatever the building is at Central and Osborne. It was the 29th floor. And I was talking about do not be afraid. And I wanted to make the point, and let me make it here too, that if you are not a Christian, you should be afraid of everything.
You're about, this is my point at the end of the lunch, you're about to go in and get in a metal box that's hanging there by just some threads of steel cord that are holding you up, and you're going to plummet down 29 stories if that thing should break, or there's a problem. You don't just move quickly to your death, you move from here to hell. That's no bargain. You should be afraid. I'd be terrified to pull out here on Lincoln if I was you, didn't know Christ. I would sit here until God converted me if I was you. I would not leave this joint.
You see that? If you're a Christian, don't be afraid. Not because it isn't scary. It is a scary place. But He's with you. If you're not a Christian, you should be afraid of everything because one false move and you spend eternity in hell. And while you're here, think about that for a second. As a non-believer, this right here, right now, is as close to heaven as you're ever going to get. And all we hear about is that this is hell on earth. This is your heaven.
The Disciples' Response
So He says do not be afraid. And look at the change that takes place. "And when He said this, He showed them His hands and His side, and the disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord." There's a change that takes place. He shows them His hands. We need to be a little more specific here. Technically, probably His wrists. You have seen pictures of Jesus hanging on a cross, and often you'll see those nails driven through the hands. They were not driven through the hands. They'd be driven right here through the wrists.
of things. One, the hands would not support the body weight. They would just simply rip apart. So they needed this area to support the body. There was another reason. All these nerves run through here, and by putting a nail through there, you're just lighting those nerves on fire.
We've talked about it so many times, but I think it adds so much to it. By way of crucifixion, the typical way that they died or the cause of death was not bleeding or hunger. It was suffocation, remember? Remember when they prophesied of the Messiah? None of His bones would be broken. Remember when Jesus is hanging there and they break the legs of the thief on the left and the legs of the thief on the right? But they come to Jesus, they put the spear in the side, it comes out water and blood already separated, signifying He died, so they didn't break His legs.
The reason they break their legs is as long as they were powering their legs, they could push up. Once those legs were broken, they would fall forward and the weight would crush them. They couldn't breathe. They'd suffocate.
Jesus Shows His Scars to Prove His Identity
Now here's the point. The point is this, and it's important. Jesus comes and says, "Do not be afraid." He says, "Look here. Look at these holes. My hands. My side." And it says now they move and they rejoice. Why do you show them the hands and the side? I think so that they could understand that this was the same Jesus that was crucified. There was no difference here. That's who this really was. This isn't mass hysteria. This isn't hallucination.
There He is. We're going to see next week He sits with them. He eats with them. He talks with them. Spends time with them. There's a transformation that takes place. They go from these men filled with fear to these men filled with joy.
Christians Should Show Joy, Not Sadness
By the way, if I could, that's the same way it's supposed to be in your life. Some of the saddest looking people I know—I have no idea what they're like on the inside—some of the saddest looking people I know are Christians. They just look so unhappy. They look like they're carrying around the burden of the world. They just look so sad.
I have been—I used to get around to a lot of churches and teach in them and go and all this other stuff. And I've been in teaching settings. And oftentimes, they tend to be in smaller churches and I don't know why that is, where the people just look so sad and miserable. If you came in there for the first time expecting to find the Savior, you would think, well, these guys haven't seen Him either. That would be the first reaction you have. He's never been here.
I'm in one of the most pathetic places I've ever been one day teaching. And I've got the sheet that tells me what we're going to sing. And on there is joy. "I've got joy, joy, joy." And I thought, well, this will be fun. Because I haven't had anybody say hello. I've got the longest faces. We get to that and I thought, I just want to turn and watch them. And they're singing, "We've got joy, joy, joy, joy down in our heart. Down in our heart. Down in our heart." And I'm thinking, I wonder how far down in that heart you'd have to go to get a giggle. Just a giggle out of them.
Well, joy. The fruit of the Spirit. If Jesus is in your life, if He's your Lord and your Savior, the Holy Spirit lives in you, then we should see love, joy, peace, patience, and all that goes with it.
The Great Commission: More Than Just "Go"
Well, verse 21, he says, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you." Now, if you've got your Bibles, keep your finger right there. Turn to the left to Matthew's Gospel, the very end of Matthew's Gospel. And those of you who are sharp, biblically literate, know exactly where we're going. He says, listen, just as the Father sent me here on a mission, I'm sending you. Now, that would take us to Matthew 28, verse 19. And when we get there, we get the section of Scripture that's typically referred to as the Great Commission.
For years, I thought the Great Commission was 10% on raw land and 7% on finished product. But that's not the case. Here's the Great Commission. Now, when I say to you, let's play this exercise. We're going to burn a little time here, but let's do it. When I say to you the Great Commission, and you're just going to put in one word, what do you think of? Go. Yeah, that's what we think of. When we hear Great Commission, we think go.
So when we talk about the Great Commission, now see how this breaks down so fast in our thinking. When we talk about the Great Commission, we typically think of evangelism, and we think of go. What we immediately do is take ourselves off the hook. Because we're thinking, unless you've got a passport that's been stamped, and you're going somewhere where you need all sorts of shots and pills, you aren't part of the Great Commission.
"Go" Means Go Wherever You Are
It doesn't say where, it just says go. Now, go is part of it, but to sit here at a bar on Thursday morning is my go. You're about to leave here, and you're going to go to the campus, you're going to go to the club, you're going to go to the—wherever you go, that's your go. Now, what do you do when you go? Well, you go and you make disciples, and you baptize them.
So we think of evangelism. Oftentimes, we'll think of things like soul winning. Cold calling for Jesus. Knocking on doors. "Do you know Christ?" All these things. Here's what so many people miss in the Great Commission. The go means go wherever you are. It doesn't mean you need a passport and a visa.
The Forgotten Part: Teaching Disciples
What do you do? You make disciples and you baptize them, and everyone typically stops there. Verse 20. Verse 20 says, what do you do? You teach them. I've been in churches and in organizations that are great soul winning organizations. They'll see God bring somebody to Christ, and then they'll say, "Alright, that's done, let's go get a new one."
No. That person comes to Christ, and you don't make them a spiritual orphan. You don't say, "Gee, all of a sudden, they understand who Jesus is, and now they're in the kingdom. We're done."
with them. No, you baptize them. Let me add, by the way, that baptism is a command. If you're a follower of Christ, and you say, listen, I'm serious about this. And we see lots of people who come to Christ as adults. One of the marks of conversion, not causing conversion, but one of the results of it is a desire to obey Him, and in the process of obeying Him, should come baptism.
And so I ran into a lot of people who are Christians, became Christians as adults, and they say, well, I was baptized as a kid. Well, you get a baptismal mulligan here. That baptism as a kid doesn't count. That didn't mean anything. You didn't know anything. You didn't know what was going on. Baptism is a result of faith here. And if you haven't been baptized, you need to weigh that on. That should be a burden on you because you're being disobedient if you haven't been there.
So enough of that. Back to where we were. John 20, verse 21. He says this, I want you to go. I want you now. You've been called. Now you go. I was sent. Now I'm sending you.
The Disciples Receive the Holy Spirit
Verse 22. And when He said this, He breathed on them. They received the Holy Spirit. He says this. We could spend some time on verse 23. If you have one of those books that the hard sayings of Jesus, meaning the things that are often misunderstood, misinterpreted, this would be one of them. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.
Jesus is not saying now you have the ability to forgive sin, is He? I don't think so. Mark 2, verse 7 says this, Only God can forgive sin. Think about that. If He's saying to some mother who's got this derelict kid, that this mother can just say, oh, your sins are forgiven? No.
What He's saying is you have the truth here, and when you declare that truth, if you're saying according to this Gospel that sins are forgiven, they're forgiven, and if you're saying people aren't responding and they haven't heard that Gospel, or they reject that Gospel based on this teaching, the teaching of God, then their sins are retained. They'll be held against them. That's what He's saying there.
Thomas: The Absent Disciple
Verse 24, But Thomas, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. And the other disciples, therefore, were saying to him, We have seen the Lord. Stop there.
Thomas is not around. Why is Thomas not there? We don't know. We could guess. I think Thomas is again one of those guys, and cut me slack here, who gets a bad rap. It was Thomas back in John 11, verse 16 when Jesus was determined to go back to the very area that they'd just run Him out of town. It was Thomas who said, Let's go and die with Him. I think Thomas is serious.
It could be. Who knows? It could be that Thomas was so moved that Thomas just said, You know what? I've got to get away. Jesus is dead. He's gone. Remember we looked at this? We've invested three years of our life into this. What's going on? I just need to clear my head. I need to get away by myself.
The Danger of Isolation
Can I give you a little warning there? Be careful when you get away by yourself. When you get away by yourself, and it's just you and your thoughts working through your problems, you've got a fool for a counselor. That's just you out there. Do you need to get away? Sure. Do you need to get away and meditate? Sure. Do you need to get away and just spend time with the Lord? We saw Jesus do it. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about when you're trying to work things through in life, and life is so confusing, and you just can't figure out who you are. Life is coming and crashing all around you. The waves are just crashing, crashing, crashing, crashing, crashing. And you just need to get away. You just need to get away. You just need to get on a plane and go somewhere. And it's always somewhere. You have money problems, so you're going to get away, spend five grand to get away by yourself and sort out your thoughts. Very interesting concept.
So here you are. When you're away by yourself, you're vulnerable. I remember watching a show. This was a great show one night. And it was on alligators or crocodiles. I don't know the difference. And these zebras, and they're sitting there waiting. The zebra's on land over here, and he's got to go to land over there. And the only way through it is through the water, and the water is filled with these alligators.
And they're just sitting there. The alligators are just sitting there, because they know they're going from here to here. And I mean, all of a sudden, they got the camera, and these zebras start just flying over there. What happened wasn't what I expected. If I'm an alligator, I would have thought I'd just sit in the middle of the herd and catch one as they went by. That's not what they did. The ones that ran together, especially in the middle, were the safest.
What they would do, is they were on the outskirt, and as they were running, there'd always be one that'd get a little sidetracked. And once they got sidetracked, those alligators would circle them. And here's what they'd do. One would grab the head, one would grab the tail, and they'd just spin until they broke it in half. And then they'd eat it. It was really cool. It's a guy's illustration. But it was really cool.
And I just remember thinking, that just doesn't seem right. But I thought, what a great illustration for our life. When I'm moving, and this is what I see. Somebody will say, well, you know, I haven't been to your thing. I'll run into them at the bookstore. I haven't been to your thing in a while. Whatever. I don't get paid by the person. You understand that, don't you? I say, that's fine. I appreciate it.
And I'll say, you know, things have been tough, and things are going on. You know when you push, or you ask a question, I don't even have to ask questions. It's like I need to put on a collar and a screen. They just want to confess. And they'll start pouring out sin. And here's what happens. What
Thomas's Isolation and Conviction
What happens is, and you've probably seen it in your own life, you're in the middle of this Christian fellowship brotherhood thing. Now things get a little tough. You start to sin. All of a sudden, at the very time you need the brothers and sisters the most, you start going over here by yourself. And I'm telling you, you're like that zebra running out there, and you're just going to get spun and chewed up by your problems.
Thomas is by himself. Don't know why. He's not there. And I've got to tell you, I admire his courage. They said, "We saw the Lord." Now understand, can you get this? Peter, James, John, Matthew, Bartholomew, Nathaniel, they're all there. They said, Philip, "We saw the Lord." I hear all this about peer pressure, and you know, stand up. Here you go. Thomas stood up against this peer pressure.
And here's what he said: "Unless I put my hand in the nail prints, and my fingers in the side, I won't believe." Now he's wrong, right? We understand he's wrong. But do you see the courage that took of conviction? It also shows you, you can be very sincere and very courageous, and that does not mean you're right. So you've got to be careful here.
The Weight of Thomas's Doubt
He says, "I don't buy it. Dead guys don't rise." Whatever his thought process is. And again, this isn't just ten people that he met on the street. This is the big three—Peter, James, and John—and seven others, who each one are saying the same thing. There's no dissenting voice. That's extraordinary.
And Thomas must have been a guy that had some serious courage. He said, "Let me tell you something, boys. I don't buy it. And I'm not going to buy it. And the only way I will buy it, is if I can put my finger in the holes that are in the nails left, and my hand in the side. Then I'll believe." So that's the scene. Grab hold of that. There's the setting.
Jesus Returns
Verse 26: "After eight days, again, His disciples were inside. Thomas was with them. And Jesus came. The doors having been shut, and He stood in their midst."
Let me spend a second on this. Because every time I read this, I think of the same thing. Oh, my. I don't know how many years ago. Now, we were teaching down in one of the studies. I don't know that we did it in here. And Bob Shank called and said, "Listen, Hugh Ross is going to be over your way. You ought to have Hugh Ross in." I said, "Well, I don't know Hugh." And he said, "Well, he'd be very stimulating. Questions, answers, all this." So I said, "Fine."
A Story About Hugh Ross
So we got this guy, Hugh Ross. So I introduced him. I said, "Welcome, Hugh Ross." I am not exaggerating. Some of you know Hugh Ross. You know who he is? I call him Hugh to the 10th power. This guy is really smart.
He goes to the podium. He grabs it like this. And he said, "Since I was seven years old, my deepest desire and goal in life was to be an astrophysicist." Well, it took my breath away. At that time, I was probably about 40 years old. And it was the first time that I had met a kindred spirit like that. Where at seven, we just... I thought, "What has Shank done to me?"
So this guy starts. We do this Q&A. And literally, we're there three hours. They had to throw us out. I couldn't believe it. I mean, he was smart. I couldn't believe how smart our people were. And he's answering every question. And finally, a guy answers the question. He said, "Well, you know, you quoted so-and-so. And he just wrote this book. And on page 428, here's what he said. And that's certainly contrary to what you say." And I thought, "All right, he's got it." This is what Ross said: "But on page 458..."
So I wanted to participate. So at the end, I asked two questions. Here were my two questions. I said, "Dr. Ross, what don't you know?" And I said, "I'm serious. What are you not sure of?" And my second question is, "If you were going to drive from here to Yuma, what would you think about?" And he said, "Well, I'd have to think about that." And that was the end of it.
Dimensions and Disagreements
Well, the reason I think about him in here is because someone said, "How did Jesus move into the room?" And I'm thinking, "Miracle, let's go." Ross said, "Well, we live in three dimensions. Jesus operates in 11 dimensions." And I've got to just tell you, whatever was my response.
I'll give you something interesting about Hugh Ross. Because he says some stuff that's really powerful. And it's very interesting that a man that smart agrees with you. However, I will tell you this: Hugh Ross is an old earth guy. He would say that the earth has been around for millions and millions of years. And I would say, "Hugh, you're wrong."
Now, could he out-debate me on that? Absolutely. But I think the scripture is very clear. And I think the scripture demands a new earth. I really do. I think you have to say this earth is about 10,000 years old. By the way, don't start sending me books and emails, because I'm not going to read them. So just save it. I'm just telling you what I believe. I'll send you a book to read. Read this one. Read the first chapter and see how it reads.
The Confrontation
Here you go. So, Jesus is in the room. He closes the door. He says, "Peace be with you." And then He says to Thomas, can I say it to you again? Now, let your mind here understand this. Imagine this moment. You've been saying, "I want to put my finger in my hand and His side." Now, you're standing there, and there's the risen Lord.
He said, "Reach your finger here and see My hands, and reach your hand and put it in My side. And be not unbelieving, but believing." I cannot even begin to get my arms around that one. Just emotionally now. I understand what's going on. I know I'm saying that, but can you imagine that? Can you imagine that?
Because I'm guessing if it's been eight days, I'm guessing there wasn't just this one time where they said, "We've seen Him," and Thomas says, "I'm not going to believe it." I'm guessing that for every minute, if these guys are like the guys I hang around with, they're not going to let that go at the end of one comment, are they?
That's going to be eight days of arguing. They're going to argue back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. It doesn't matter what they do. Whether they're eating, whether they're playing golf, whether they're shopping, whether they're watching TV. One of those ten guys is going to say, "Thomas, how can you not believe this?" And somebody else is going to say, "Let it go. He doesn't get it." And Thomas is going to say, "Can't you believe that's what I do?" I'm sure they're humans.
Here's the moment. And Thomas says, "My Lord and my God." Remember what we said last week in verse 8? John sees and believes. Thomas at this moment sees and believes. It's a magnificent moment.
Thomas's Declaration and Jesus's Response
And then Jesus says this: "Because you've seen me, you've believed. Blessed are those who don't see me, and yet they believe." Peter picks up that same thought in 1 Peter 1:4 or 5, something like that. Same idea.
Have we seen the risen Christ? Well, no. If you tell me you have, I don't believe you. That was one of the criteria for apostles. We've got guys running around today calling themselves apostles, which is the inevitable result of bad teaching. Because if you're going to have signs and wonders and miracles and "thus saith the Lord" and all that stuff, that was reserved for the apostles, so these guys have to be apostles. Well, one of the criteria for apostles is you had to see the risen Lord. So when some guy calls himself apostle, ask him if he's seen the risen Jesus. And if he says, "Yes I have," then gather your things and run. Because he hasn't. He's just not.
How Thomas Was Saved
I want to stick a second on this. Thomas is saved. How was Thomas saved? Very important. The same way you are. By grace. That's what Ephesians 2:8-9 says, doesn't it? "For by grace you have been saved through faith."
Now very important. "By grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourself." What's not of yourself? Obviously the grace is not of yourself. The faith is not of yourself. In the original text, that word "that" or "this" - "this is not of yourself" - this refers not back to grace, but back to faith. You didn't generate the faith. I'm saved by grace through faith. That's not of yourself. It's a gift of God, so no one could boast.
The Gift of Faith
Let me be autobiographical here. For three or four years of my Christian life, maybe a little bit longer, I believed that I generated the faith. Now I understood that verse, at least to some setting. I'm saved by grace. But there's this faith. There's still something that I have to do. People say that all the time. "There's still something I have to do. I have to believe."
Now I didn't have much faith. I would have said I had a mustard seed of faith, but I'll tell you what, I was pretty proud of that mustard seed. I was pretty carried away with that mustard seed. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but my faith was strong enough, sharp enough, deep enough to believe.
That's not what this verse says. This verse says you were saved by grace. In grace. Unmerited favor. Unearned favor. I ask you a question rhetorically. What can you do to earn unearnable, unmerited favor? The answer by definition is nothing.
What did you do to be saved? You didn't do anything. That faith that you have is a gift from God. So you couldn't boast. See, salvation is from the Father. And we say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, amen, amen. Preach it, brother." But then when we start to preach it, you go, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I believe. What about this? What about this? What about this?" Well, what about the text?
God's Work of Salvation
We go to these churches we call Bible churches or Bible-believing churches, and then when we start to argue and debate these things, you bring on all these things that don't matter. What about the text? I'm saved by grace through faith.
If you are a Christian today, what happened to you? Well, it's the same thing that happened to Mary that we saw last week. She was talking to Jesus and all of a sudden He said, "Mary," and her eyes are open. It's the same thing that happened to John. He looks in one minute and he glances. He looks in another minute and he sees and believes. What took place? Same thing that happened in your life.
At a moment in time, the Creator God of the universe sent the Holy Spirit into your life and He caused you to be born again. This is a theme we come back to. And do we beat this drum? Yeah. Do we beat it singularly? No. We beat it when it's in the text.
This is important. You were not saved by an act of your will. You were saved by an act of God's will. There's a very big distinction there. God saved you. You didn't save yourself. You couldn't save yourself. You were saved by grace through faith.
John's Purpose Statement
And then He says this, and we close, with the verses that we've looked at now for 11 weeks. John 20:30: "Many other signs therefore were performed in the presence of the disciples. They're not written in the book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God by believing you have eternal life."
I'll give you a little interesting side note there. I've seen it on a couple of occasions. One night, Oral Roberts was on. You don't see Oral much anymore. Here's what he said, because I wrote it down when he said it, because I thought, this is powerful. Oral said this: "When I speak through the power of the Holy Spirit, I speak the words Jesus spoke but weren't written down." That's pretty scary.
I had a guy who was pumping out one of these books, and the book was, they go to this verse. Lots of guys will go to these verses, by the way. Just make sure you understand that. Lots of false teachers hang out here. Because what they'll do is come back and say, "Listen, there was a lot of other stuff, and God's given me that stuff."
Watch, and I hate to have you do this, but watch something like channel 21 for just a little bit. And just listen to them tonight. And I'm telling you, they're going to say, "God spoke to me. God told me."
I don't believe it! Do you hear an audible voice? No. But all of a sudden, we're just supposed to watch.
Look, I had a guy, we sat right in here and had breakfast one day, and he said, "I think God's told me to move to another city and take a job. What do you think?" I said, "Well, I think that I would be an idiot to say to you something contrary to what God's told you. God's told you to not commit adultery. You don't come to me and say, 'Well, what do you think?' Right? So God tells you to move, and you come to me and say, 'What do you think?' No, you must understand there's some difference here."
The Sufficiency of Scripture
Can I help you out here? These people aren't hearing from God. They aren't. God told you everything He wanted to tell you right here, my friend. You've got questions? Here's the answer. You've got questions that aren't answered here? You don't need to know them. That's faith.
It doesn't take any faith, I don't think, to have an answer to every question. And we've got to close because this is a little bit of a rabbit trail too. This is how far we've moved away in the body of Christ. Then when you say something, don't attack a brother. Well, what are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to do when some guy's saying, "God told me this," when "I speak, I speak the words that Jesus spoke but they weren't written down. In other words, they're the same as the red-lettered words in your Bible."
I don't believe that. Do you? And I find people don't even believe that practically because they will say, "God's told me to move, what do you think?" And they never say, "God told me not to commit adultery, what do you think?" They know there's a difference. They know it's not real.
The Work of God in Opening Eyes
The issue is this: has God opened your eyes to see this truth? We've got 11 weeks and really if you look at it, we've taken this idea of belief and all we've done is tweak it 11 times. Have you believed? Do you see that? Is God in the process of opening your eyes?
If He has, will you do this? Will you praise Him? Because He's the one who saved you. If you're a Christian today, it's because of God's work in your life. He did it. To you, through you, for you. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Pick up right there next week.
Father, thank You for this magnificent truth. Thank You for Your Son Jesus. Thank You for His death on the cross and the life that we find in Him and Him alone. God, we love You. We worship You. We praise You. Help us understand that idea of grace. We're not saved by a church that we've joined or ritual that we've been through or some sort of system that we follow. We're saved by grace. Now how do we know we have that grace? There's repentance and there's faith.
Father, let us be like these disciples who have moved from fearful people to joyous disciples. Put in our heart a love for You and a love for Your Word and a love for Your people. And we ask You to do that work in our life and we ask it in Christ's name, Amen. Have a great week. We'll see you next week.