Hope For The Skeptic

So, Easter Peeps, and we're looking at the different stories in the Bible of people who have encountered the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, technically, it's Easter people. We thought it'd be cute to call it Easter Peeps, and as we were inviting people to church, through our Peeps initiative and things like that. So, the first week, we actually looked at Mary Magdalene and her experience with the resurrected Christ, and how it's amazing that Mary the Magdalene, Mary the Magdalene, the one who was known as the Magdalene, was changed and transformed, and she was a Magdalene for Jesus. And Jesus used her to influence, to do amazing things, to support the ministry.

She's one of the most popular figureheads in the Bible. And then last week, we looked at disciples and how they were right in the middle of their situation, and Jesus shows up and changes everything. The resurrected Christ can change everything. He can help you find peace. He can help you find joy in the midst of those times where you feel like there's nothing, where you feel like you've worked hard and you've been through it all, and Jesus is right there to show you that it's all worth it, even in those moments when you're alone, when you're in a place.

You can go back and listen to those messages. This week, I'm going to talk about Thomas, the Apostle Thomas. And Thomas, in studying him, is probably or has become one of my favorite apostles. You think about doubting Thomas, but, you know, I had, I think, of course, Paul's in a class of his own. You know, he's like that almost close to God kind of character that everybody just loves.

And then my favorite is probably Peter because he messed up a lot. It was just nice to have a guy who just screwed up all the time and said the wrong things and and did the wrong things. And God, you know, Jesus always was gracious to him. And then you have John and everybody loves John, right? Everybody wants to be a John, you know, the person that was pretty much closest to Jesus and and one that whom Jesus loved and how John loved to say that often.

He wanted to remind us that he was the favorite disciple. But Thomas is kind of overlooked a lot. And I think it's worth looking at him and what God did in his life through Jesus Christ, how Jesus Christ spurred him along the things that God did in his life. And I want to start out with a statement. I've seen enough.

I'm sure many of you have used that. I've seen enough. How many of you have said, you know, you got a salesperson or whatever says, I've seen enough. Shut up and take my money. Right.

I got to have that. Right. I've seen enough. I've seen enough. And so let's just not talk about this anymore.

Let's make it happen. And if you'll turn with me to John 20 beginning with verse 24 and they'll pop up on the screen here. If you want to access the Bible app, I have some notes there. You can you select the event area in the Bible app and you'll find Salt Church live there. Click on that and you should be able to pull up these scripture verses.

And if you have your Bible, you can also turn to John 20 and begin reading with me in verse 24. And it says now Thomas called the twin. One of the twelve was not with them when Jesus came. And the other disciples therefore said to him, we have seen the Lord. So they're speaking to Thomas.

They're like, we have seen the Lord. So he said to them, unless I see in his hands the print of his nails and I put my finger into the print of his nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. I'm not going to believe. I choose not to believe. And I would believe that he can do that very much gelato on the screen for this city.

And the number one will believe. That nevereles and yet believe it will not happen in terms of celebrating. That never � Connaught. He jumped to his kids and listen. After eight days his disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them.

And Jesus came, and the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace to you. Remember last week we talked about the peace. Here we are continuing this. This is the second part of this, the story. And he said to Thomas, Reach your finger here, and look at my hands, and reach your hand here, and put it into my side.

Do not be unbelieving, but believing. And then he said to Thomas, Reach your finger, excuse me, jump down. And Thomas answered and said to him, and this is key right here, My Lord and my God. My Lord and my God. And Jesus said to him, I'm Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed.

But blessed are those who have not yet seen, but still believe, but still believe, yet have believed. And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. I've seen enough. I've seen enough.

It's easy to be a skeptic today. It's real easy, especially with everything at our fingertips. You have the internet, you have Alexa or Siri, you can just kind of call out the name of something or ask, is this true or false? And you have your phone at your fingertips. So you can find out truth at any time.

And every corner, there's a conspiracy going on, right? I mean, especially in this season, everybody's got conspiracies. Everybody's posting videos. I get videos sometimes, you know, through people, through Facebook, through social media, they're sending me emails. And I had one friend send me something that Trump was getting ready to sign the Insurrection Act, and it was happening at any time.

And I'm looking at it, and it's in this room with this guy who's a little chubby with a Jesus shirt on and a kind of an uncombed beard. And he's talking about, it's getting ready to happen. I have sources inside DC. It's getting ready. Get ready.

It's any week, any day now. It's going to happen. And my friend's believing this, like, Leon, you need to read this. You need to think about this. Like, this is getting ready to happen.

We're about to get ready because things are going to be so different. And I'm looking at it, and I'm like, who is this guy, and how does he have Washington Insiders? He looks like a friendly Jesus guy in a house on the couch, you know. And that needs to shave a little bit, you know, cut his beard up a little bit. But you get these things all the time.

And it's easy to be a cynic, right? It's easy to be cynical. It's easy to be a skeptic. It's easy to not believe something. In fact, sometimes you're with somebody, and if you're like me, you don't want to, like, embarrass people right in front of them and tell them just right in front of everybody abruptly that you're just dead wrong, okay?

And right in front of everybody and everything. So normally I wait. But you have people that you're talking to. Yeah, I wait and get abrupt with them on their own, you know. I offend them privately, and that's a little better, you know, in front of people that are public.

But a lot of times you have your phone, you know, kind of in your pocket. Now people are talking, is that true? And you're just talking, that's not true. So you just kind of nod politely. And that's usually how it goes, you know.

It's easy to be cynical. It's easy to be a skeptic. And why are people talking to you? Well, skeptics for those reasons. Number one, we have all the information we can possibly have at our fingertips.

And number two, we've been fooled a hundred times before. Why would we believe anything? Because of all the information that comes our way. And automatically, we become skeptical. Those commercials, you know, that come on TV.

How about those social media ads that you get where the guy's up there and he's ripped and cut and he's just like, I got this one secret. This one thing. And if you follow along with me right now, I will give you the secret of that one food. And I eat pizza. And he throws pizza up there.

I eat this. But the guy's like super ripped and stuff. And he's like bouncing around his kitchen. And he's like, this one thing. And then you stay with it.

And you're like, what is that one thing? And you spend about 30 minutes with him capturing your attention to get to that one thing. And then finally, when it gets to the point, I'm going to reveal it to you. If you go to my website and if you put in my email, and then when you put in the website, you go get his website, you put in the email, he goes on to say, if you pay $29.95, I will give you a whole, and it ends up just being a whole plan.

You know, like it's not even, you got fooled, you got gypped. So why would we not be cynical? Why would we not be skeptical about things? These make money quick schemes, or these good to be true things? If they're too good to be true, guys, they're probably too good to be true, okay?

They're promising you $20,000 a month to join this business. They're probably, it's probably, and you hardly have to work, maybe a couple hours a week. It may not be true. We've seen enough, right? We've seen enough.

We've seen enough to be skeptical. We've seen enough to say, I've seen enough, I'm not interested. I've seen enough, I'm not going that direction. I've seen enough, and when something real comes our way, it's really hard to know. Here's just some examples of some things, you know?

Like, when we're given a statement, is it true or not? Did you know that hot water will turn into ice faster than cold water? That's true. That's true. And, you know, South America in its entirety is east of Florida, so it technically could be called East America.

It's true. It's true. Got all these fun facts, you know? When the moon is directly over your head, do you know you weigh a little less than you normally do? Yeah?

When it's the gravitational pull? Is that a lie? No? It's true or false. It's true.

It's true. You've got all these things, and some of you are like, eh, that's not true. That's not right. Really? Some of you are going to your phones right now trying to figure it out, right?

Is this a fact? And some of you might come to me after service and say, well, it's technically not. I've actually had people pull me aside. Well, that figure you gave, it's not technically true. It's like sort of true, but not, and this and that, because we're skeptics.

We're skeptics. And in all of us, there's a little skeptic. And we start to talk with Thomas because Thomas was a skeptic. He was a doubter. He was famously known as a doubter, but that might be the wrong term for him.

In fact, a more accurate term for Thomas was unbelieving. In fact, that's what Jesus said. He didn't say, you doubt. He says, you're unbelieving. See, doubt, everybody doubts, right?

Everybody has doubts from time to time that we don't know, or we're not quite sure, or doubt is normal. We have doubts, but Thomas didn't believe. I don't believe it unless I see it. I don't believe it unless I put my fingers in the side of Jesus. He was choosing not to believe.

And when Jesus told him in that statement, don't be unbelieving, he wasn't telling Thomas, don't be undoubting. He was saying, don't hardly believe. Harden your heart to unbelief or belief. Don't harden your heart to belief. Choose to believe.

Choose to believe. But Thomas was there. And here's the thing, I believe in God and I don't believe in God are both acts of faith. I believe in God and I don't believe, it takes even more faith to believe that there isn't a God as much as it takes to believe there is a God, okay? So, Jesus is saying, don't harden your heart to this belief that I'm giving.

Don't be unbelieving. And Thomas was given the title, Doubter, and that's kind of unfair, you know? Because the one thing that Thomas did, he gets named and pinned for, he gets titled for. And thank God we don't have a God that does that, right? And poor Thomas, you know, he made a big mistake.

Yeah, it was a big one. You know, he basically missed out on the resurrected Jesus there for a period and didn't believe it. It was a big one. But forever he is tagged Doubting Thomas. And we have, and here's what I want to say, I think a better name for Thomas would be Thomas the Honest because he was definitely honest.

I want us to go back to the place where Jesus is talking about, I'm going somewhere to prepare a place for you and where I go, you will be also, and I'm going to make that way happen for you. And all the disciples are sitting around the circle and they're like, yeah, Jesus. Yep. Yep. That's, that's right.

Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thomas is over there like, no, no, no.

And he's like, like Jesus, um, I don't get that. See, because we have no idea where you're going and we have no idea how we're going to get there. We have no idea. And Jesus is probably like, really? The rest of y'all feel that way.

And we're like, uh, no, uh, yeah, yeah. We were just kidding. You know, we were just trying to make it seem like we knew what you were talking about, but we didn't, but, but Thomas was the very first one to say, to, to reach out and say, I don't get it. I don't understand it. Jesus.

He, he, he was, uh, he was an honest guy. Thomas was honest. He was also brave. Thomas was very brave. In fact, Jesus told the disciples that his best friend, Lazarus was sick and, uh, they, they were getting ready to leave to go.

And Jesus says, we're going to wait a little while. We're going to wait a little while. And then we're going to go. Of course, we learned that Lazarus passes away. Um, and, uh, and by the way, uh, there, there's an interesting thing there because, uh, often God chooses to wait before he delivers what he really wants to.

And the disciples didn't understand it. Martha didn't understand it. And, uh, and Thomas certainly didn't understand it either. I'm sure. So, so Jesus waits a few days and then Lazarus dies and he makes the decision.

We're going to go and we're going to, uh, see Lazarus. We're going to see the family. We're going to see Mary and Martha. And, uh, what was, uh, Thomas, uh, Thomas's statement in John 11, he says, then Thomas, who is called the twin said to his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die with him. Okay.

Cause they're, they're grumbling and stuff. Let us go. And we're going to die with them. I mean, and, and some people would, would, would, would, in one sense, uh, this sounds like Thomas is being sarcastic and, and, uh, he's being grumpy and it's showing his darker side. But, uh, some commentators and many commentators would say this, that in fact, one commentator wrote this, that, that he was a brave, brave person.

And, and when he said that he incited something within him that I am willing to go, uh, with my savior, I am willing to go. He was, he was serious and he was adamant in his heart that, that he would follow Jesus, even if it meant going out, uh, to, to. See that family because there were people after them, and it was a very dangerous period for Jesus and the disciples. One commentator said this, He feels as if he could not or cared not to survive his master's sacrifice to the fury of his enemies. It was that kind of affection which living only in the light of its object cannot contemplate and has no heart for life without it.

He had no heart for life without his Savior, without a purpose, without this man in his life. He was brave. He was willing to go to the cross with Jesus. Thomas was honest and Thomas was brave, but the reason he succumbed to doubt was for that very reason. Because when we're trying really hard to do the right things, when we're trying really hard, we're working hard, and Jesus doesn't deliver it the way we think that Jesus should deliver it, and when Jesus does things a little differently than the way we plan it, and we're like, well, I've been working so hard, and I've been working to do everything that you've called me to do, Lord, and still I'm not seeing the results.

And then when big crisis comes, we succumb. When we question God and his plan and his purposes and what he's doing, and when big crisis comes, when bad things come, when heavy things come, we succumb. But there's hope for the skeptic. There's hope for the person who's not quite sure. There's hope for the person who doesn't believe in God or has a hard time understanding who God is.

Because when we look to Thomas, we see somebody who was changed. When we look to Thomas, we see hope. And because Thomas had been disappointed many times and he wasn't willing to give in his heart again, at that moment when Jesus had died on the cross, he was not willing to go that route anymore. He was done. There is hope for him.

There was hope for him. And there is hope for you. So I want us to look at the text and I want to give you four things that we gather from the text. And the first thing is Thomas's absence and unbelief. We want to look at Thomas's absence and unbelief.

In fact, I would say this, Thomas's absence fueled unbelief. Thomas's absence fueled unbelief. The ten were gathered together on Sunday and Thomas was absent. In fact, the scripture says Thomas was not with them. They were gathered together to encourage each other.

They were gathered together like a pack of wolves in a room, encouraging each other, staying strong together, supporting each other, building each other up. And Thomas was not there. Thomas was absent from the people who wanted to hold him up, the people who wanted to encourage him, the people who wanted to be by his side, the people who wanted to lift him up. His absence created unbelief and he caved in unbelief. And more quickly and more easily because he was absent.

He was absent from the people he needed to be with the most. And can I say this? This is not the time to be absent. This is not the time to be a lone wolf. This is not the time in a season like this where we've dealt with so much absence and isolation and doing.

This is not a time. In fact, here's what the scripture says to this in the passion translation. This is not the time to pull away and neglect meeting together. As some have formed the habit of doing. In fact, we should come together even more frequently eager to encourage and urge each other onward.

So as we anticipate that day dawning because caught dawn is coming. Right? Amen. Dawn is coming and we are anticipating the day for that. Yeah, but Thomas did the exact opposite.

He... He took his confusion. He took his lack of understanding. And instead of bringing it to the gathering, he kept it to himself. And that caused unbelief.

But this is meant to be a place of questions. This is meant to be a place for skeptics. This is meant to be a place where we are going to deal with those things in life with the people. And we've wrongly thought that this place is a place where people polish their halos and have the right clothing on and do the right things. And then we miss out on being prayed for or receiving prayer or being a part of prayer or being part of the gatherings, because we think that we are not worthy of it.

But here's what Jesus does. And God used Jesus. You know, when God sees you, when God sees you, when God sees you, when God sees every one of you, he sees Jesus. Because your sin is hidden in Jesus. When Jesus gave his life on the cross, we don't have the capability of forgetting what God has the capability of doing.

And through Jesus, he has that power and capability to forget all of your sin. Because when he sees you, he sees Jesus. He sees a child of God through Jesus Christ. So John has missed out on the presence of God. He's missed out on, on Jesus showing up.

He missed out on really getting what he needed because he was absent. And then his pride got involved and, and, and they told him they saw Jesus, right? They told him, well, I just don't believe it. And that absence left led to unbelief. So we shouldn't be absent from each other for that very reason.

And I'm not, you know, small groups are good to be together, but I'm, I'm talking about bigger than that. Like when you come together, the reason, see, they were, they were together on Sunday. And there's something special about that because the Sabbath had already always been Saturday before them. And a lot of people asked the question, why Sunday? Because that was the day Jesus Christ resurrected.

And it was the day that set all the tone for everything that would happen in the future. It was, it set the tone for everything. Everything changed in that day. The celebration of the Sabbath was no longer needed because we had the Sabbath before us, who is Jesus Christ. And we celebrate him on this day, on Sunday, beginning the week, coming together, remembering the resurrection, and that there is new life, new life that began that day when Jesus rose from the dead.

And we walk forward in that new life, in that new purpose, in that New Testament gospel that we, that, that, that fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, that fulfilled the Old Testament books, that fulfilled all that language that we could not meet, we could not understand, we could not do, that all the pieces, all the objects that were placed together was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. God used his son, so, and placed his son in the middle, as we talked about last week, so that you could have hope, that you could have peace, that you could have promise, that you could have understanding, and that you could have a future, and that you could have eternity before you, waiting for you, and you can live eternity now. And that's why we live in the hope of resurrection, which is Sunday, that day that we celebrate Jesus. So that's why we come together. Sunday is a chance to celebrate the newness of creation, the newness that God brings, first day of the week.

Secondly, the disciples, although Thomas was absent and unbelieving, his disciples, or Jesus' disciples, the rest of them, were persistent and kind. They practiced persistence and kindness. They were persistently reaching out to him and continually being kind to him. The disciples say, we've seen the Lord, and Thomas is a mediator. The response is, I don't believe it, and I choose not to believe it, and I don't want to believe it.

Because nothing happened the way I thought it was supposed to happen in the first place, and I just don't want to believe it. And unless I stick my finger in his side, I will not believe it. Have you ever met those type of people? I do not believe it. I don't want to believe it.

I'm hardened to it. It's not going to happen. But what did the disciples do? Did they turn away and say, Okay, well, I'm just appalled. I cannot believe it.

They didn't say that. In fact, the original Greek suggests that they didn't give up on him. They kept telling him about what they saw. The Greek language is a continuing persistence of just reaching out to Thomas. In fact, J.

B. Phillips' translation says it like this. The other disciples kept on telling him, We have seen the Lord. They kept on telling him. How many of you have given up just one time telling somebody about the Lord?

Amen, right? Yeah. But the disciples didn't give up. The disciples kept being persistent. They kept calling on Thomas.

Thomas, we saw it. We saw it. It happened. Thomas, come and be with us. We saw it.

Come and be with us. Let's talk about it. But they were also kind. In fact, John 20, verse 26 says, Just over a week later, so this was a week later from the time that Thomas was absent, the disciples were indoors again and Thomas was with them. So Thomas was with them.

He was unbelieving, but he was with them. He was there with them. They invited him in. They cared for him. They included him in.

They didn't say, Thomas, you're out because you don't believe. We saw it. You didn't. You're out. You're acting like this.

You're acting a fool right now. We're not going to have any of this in the church, okay? We're not going to have this in this environment. You're this unbelieving heart, this unbelieving thing. I don't want to be, you know, it wasn't that way.

They were like, come on, come on, Thomas B. And let us be a safe place that skeptics can come in and have questions and have thoughts about things. I don't want us to ever be a church that doesn't allow people to really grapple with the issues of who God is and who Jesus is. And whether we want to be a place where people can belong before they believe, belong before they believe. And let's be that environment.

He was kind, and they were persistent. And some people are kind, but not persistent, right? They're kind, but they give up after the first time. And sometimes we can be persistent, but not kind, right? So it can work that way, too.

We're not very kind, and we're just persistent, and we just beat them until there's no end. But we need to be kind and persistent. Persistent and kind. They practice persistence and kind, which set the tone for Thomas' encounter with Jesus. So, Thomas' encounter and invitation.

He got a counter. That's our third point. Thomas had an encounter and an invitation. Thomas' encounter and invitation. He had an encounter because they were kind and persistent, and it brought him to a place where he could actually encounter the risen Jesus.

See, Jesus, and what's interesting is Jesus doesn't say, Jesus doesn't say, how could you, Thomas? When Thomas interacts with Jesus for the first time, he looks at Jesus, and Jesus is there. He doesn't say, how dare you, Thomas? After all I've done for you, Thomas. After all the things I've said, after all the things I've shown you, Jesus was not that way, but he said this, peace.

He said this one word, peace. The first word to the skeptic was, peace. Peace. And Jesus speaks peace and hope to the skeptic. inci Jesus speaks peace to those who don't quite understand yet.

Why? Because, number one, Thomas prioritized being there. Thomas made a decision that he was going to be there. He didn't believe, but he was there. And even in his anger and his lack of understanding, he still gave Jesus the time.

He still gave the disciples the time. And when we give him our time and open up our Bibles and we really consider Jesus, in fact, it says, if you seek me, you will find me. If you seek me with all of your heart. So my word for the skeptic today, if you seek him with all of your heart, you will find him. It's okay to be confused.

It's okay not to understand God completely. Nobody can understand the majesty of God. We'll never be able to understand how great and how big he is. But it's okay to say, I don't understand. It's okay.

But I can promise you this. If you open up, if you study, if you investigate, if you seek him with your heart, you will find him. I remember Josh McDowell, an apologist, a popular apologist sharing. He and Josh and Sean, his son, who is also an apologist and a teacher today and wrote many books about the evidence of Christ as deity and the evidence of God and whole books about that information. He remembers that moment.

He shares the story of his son at a ski lodge sitting across the table from him and saying, Dad, I don't believe. I just don't think I believe. I have a hard time with this. I've always followed God because of you, but I'm not sure that I believe this God that you and mom have always followed. And Josh didn't look across the table and say, Sean, how dare you?

Sean, I've raised you a certain way. Sean, I've showed you the Bible and I showed you the scripture. Sean, I've showed you how I've lived my life and evidence of that. He didn't do that, did he? He did this.

He says, that's great. That's great because it's okay not to understand because I don't want your faith to be based on your mom's faith or my faith. I want it to be your faith. I want you to discover Christ on your own. And if you seek him, he said this, and if you seek him, you will find him.

And I can promise you this, Sean, you can have all the confusion. You can have all the things going on in your head. But if you really investigate Jesus, if you really look, if you really dig into scripture, if you really put your heart into it, I can promise you this, you will find him. If you seek him, you will find him. So there's hope.

There's hope for an encounter with Jesus. And then there's the invitation. There was the encounter and there was the invitation. Jesus says, touch me. Right?

But that doesn't happen. It doesn't happen because in verse 29, it says, you believe not because you touched me, but you have seen me. See, Thomas walked in and Jesus is like, I know what you said. He's already prophetic. You know, he walks into a room and he already knows that Thomas has talked about it.

He says, don't you want to touch my hands and touch my side? But Thomas didn't respond that way, did he? Thomas's response was different. He just saw God. He saw God and he kneeled down, you know, and seeing was enough.

When Thomas had finally saw him, he didn't need to touch him because when people have an encounter and an invitation from Jesus to come to them, they don't have to see God. They only have to experience him and know him that his presence is there. And he is, he is the final say so. And in fact, it would have been enough just to hear his friends say that they had seen the risen Christ. He had.

He wasn't enough to believe all along. He just didn't know it because he had created objections based on who he thought God was. He had created a plan based on the way he thought God had to operate within that plan. He had a way of doing it, and he thought Jesus was late. He thought Jesus was wrong.

But here's the thing. God doesn't need our plans. God doesn't need our set of rules and our set of guidelines. We like to give God our set of guidelines, right? We like to say, God, why didn't you deliver here?

I did this, and I did that, and I served you for three years, and I actually even cast out demons in your name, and here I am. I'm going through this, God. My mother's sick. My child is hurt. Whatever it is, I don't understand.

And we like to do that. We like to put God in a box. We like to give God plans. But God doesn't need our advice because God is God, and he knows what's best. And at this moment, this is where Thomas came to.

This is where Thomas said, I get it. I've seen him. I don't have to touch your hands. I don't have to touch your wounds. I don't have to have even any evidence physically that you are alive because I've experienced you.

And then, finally, Thomas' declaration and demonstration happens. A declaration and demonstration. He declared, my Lord, my God. At that moment, he didn't touch Jesus. He didn't have to look at his wounds.

He just saw Jesus, and he kneeled and said, my Lord, my God, my Lord, and my God. And theologians say this. This amounts to one of the most powerful and concise declarations of deity in the Tyre New Testament. That same guy that we've nicknamed the doubter made the most concise and demonstrative statement in the history of mankind about the deity of Christ at that moment. One commentator said it like this.

My Lord meant Jesus was on the throne of his heart, and my God was Jesus was on the throne of the entire universe. That Jesus is that big, my Lord, and my God. And what he was saying, I don't need to check. I know it's you. I don't need to touch your wound.

I know it's you. I know that you are God. And after that came demonstration because Thomas would demonstrate that he was, in fact, fully submitted to Christ. History tells us that when he was filled with the Spirit in that room, when he experienced Christ, he would one day leave that place. As they met even in the upper room, he would be filled with the Spirit, but he was filled with so much more.

That that honesty and that bravery would go out and he began to preach to nations. In fact, some would say he went as far as China. China sharing the gospel of Christ, the doubter, the one who didn't believe. See, that's enough evidence. In fact, the John Fox Book of Martyrs said this, that he preached the gospel in Parthia in India.

And it says, where exciting the rage of the pagan priest, he was martyred by being thrust through with a spear. Spear. Spear. Spear. Thrust through with a spear.

Spear. On a hot and dry. By Indian Day, he would breathe his last breath, proclaiming Jesus as Lord. John 19, it says, Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and the other who were crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his leg or his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out.

See, when Jesus's heart was punctured, the soldiers didn't have to break his arms and legs because they knew that he was already dead. What they would do, they would break the arms and the legs of the prisoner that was hanging on the cross to make sure they were dead because what it would do is it would suffocate them because they would have to drop and it would close their passages and they would completely die. They would suffocate. But with Jesus, when they punched the spear in the side, I don't know why I keep saying sphere, but I mean, spear in the side and the water and blood fluid, they knew that he was dead. They knew that he was dead so they didn't have to.

So there was that spear. That was the wound. That was the wound that Thomas was asking to touch. And Thomas, as he was preaching honestly and bravely to a group of pagans, submitted completely with no doubts in his heart that he had seen the risen Christ, that he had believed. And what I have seen and what I have heard, I tell you so that you can have life.

And as they gripped their spears and screamed at him and thrust him with that spear into his side and the blood fell, he tells them, I can just imagine him there saying, I can't help but testify. I can't help but give my life for this. Because God loves you. And legend would have it when the very last words he'd say over and over again is, my Lord, my God, my Lord, my God, my Lord. And because of Thomas's power, because Thomas's bravery, because of Thomas, what happened to him, because of Mary Magdalene, because of Martha, and because of the change that's happened in the hearts of the people, we can believe too.

We don't need the risen Christ to stand before us because we have enough. The very changed life of Thomas is evidence enough that there is hope for everyone who believes. And Thomas's story tells us that there is no limit by where we start. Where we started. Where we've come from.

How far we've been away from Christ. How much dirt and how much muck we've had in our life. So don't wait until a crisis is over. Don't wait until the trust in him when things are better. Trust in him even in the midst of your doubt and midst in your unbelief.

And with all heads bowed and all eyes closed. Maybe there is someone here who is full of doubt. Happened. Way forward. To be continued.

Unbelief. And going through things in their heart. But you sense Jesus calling out to you. He's telling you, hey, you can touch my side, touch my wounds, touch my wounds, touch my hands. But I want to give you more than that.

Just by my very presence here, you can know that I live. And maybe your heart's being pulled. You're like, I don't know what's going on right now, but something's shaking inside of me. That's how the Holy Spirit works. He works in our hearts.

He works us that way. It's like a string pulling. And it doesn't matter where you've been or where you've come from. God is calling you. Jesus is calling you to him.

Because that wound in my side and that wound in my hands, the things that, that was for you. If that's you today, ready to make a decision for Jesus, you've never made a decision. Maybe, maybe you've walked away from Jesus. Maybe you've been away for a while. He's inviting you back home.

He wants you to come back. I've done this for you. So if you'll just pray this with me. Believe it in your heart. Jesus, I believe that you're the son of God that you died on the cross for my sin.

Today, I submit my life to you. I'm no longer a slave to fear because I'm going to be a child of yours. So come into my heart, come into my life and make me new. I want to be a new creation. I'm yours from this day forth, moving forward and never turning back.

In Jesus name. Amen. Can y'all give.