April 3, 2016
All Scripture from 1984 NIV unless otherwise documented.
Introduction:
Last week we celebrated, for Christians, the most significant event in all of history, the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Since that first resurrection Sunday, countless millions have made a decision to follow Jesus. Each one of you who have made that commitment did so because someone else shared with you the love of Jesus through a personal relationship, whether they were a friend, a family member, or a trusted Sunday school teacher, a pastor or other. They shared with you the message of the gospel that they had also heard and believed, words recorded some two thousand years ago by men, according to Peter, who “spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1: 21) and words, according to Paul that were “God-breathed”. (2 Timothy 3: 16)
I’d like to ask this morning, how many of you started out as skeptics? In other words, how many of you had a lot of questions and maybe some doubts about Christianity? After all, there is no other religion in all the world that asks you to believe that their leader, if you will, was the son of God, and that that leader willingly offered himself up to death to pay the penalty of man’s sins, and there is no other religion that I am aware of that proclaims that their leader or prophet conquered death by rising from the dead. There are a host of other things that we read in the Bible that seem too incredible to believe and are difficult to wrap our heads around. And yet, here you are this morning, sitting in church, singing praises to God, lifting up prayers to Him in hope and expectation that He will answer them, and worshipping the one whom I proclaim to be the Christ, the one who has forgiven your sin and offers you the hope of eternal life.
In John 20 we read of three different post resurrection appearances of Jesus to those who were his disciples. In each case, his followers began from a point of disbelief and moved to a point of belief. I apologize for not including verses 10 – 18 in the text that is printed in your bulletin, but after going back over this chapter, I decided it important to mention that passage as well.
The first appearance was to Mary Magdalene. If you read all of the gospel accounts of the resurrection you will find that there were several other women with Mary, but for John’s purpose, he only mentions the encounter with Mary Magdalene. In verses 13 – 15 you get the understanding that Mary did not recognize Jesus, she thought he was the gardener. Bear in mind that not only was she not expecting to see Jesus alive, the last time she saw him he had been severely beaten, and now Jesus has a totally different appearance. Not until Jesus says her name does she recognize him. What was it about his saying her name? Maybe the way he said it was familiar. Maybe the Holy Spirit opened her eyes to faith. I don’t know what it was that moved her from unbelief in the resurrection to belief, but the fact is that she did believe, and she was overjoyed.
Jesus instructed Mary to go and tell his disciples and the good news. She did, and what was their response? Luke 24: 11 says: “But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.” Peter and John ran to the tomb and checked it out, yet they went away wondering what had happened.
Then, on the evening of that same day, according to verse 19, Jesus suddenly appeared to the disciples behind locked doors. The disciples were in hiding for fear of the Jews. They were afraid for their own lives. They were in doubt concerning the testimony of Mary and the other women.
Jesus said “Peace be with you!” and they were scared out of their wits. Luke 24: 37 says “They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.” They had been told by Mary that Jesus had risen from the dead, and not believed. Now he appeared to them and they still didn’t believe.
You know, Thomas, whom we will talk about in a few minutes, gets a bad rap. He stated he wouldn’t believe unless he put his finger in Jesus hands and side and yet, what was it that convinced the other ten disciples that Jesus wasn’t a ghost? In Luke 24 Jesus says, “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” They touched Jesus physically resurrected body and believed. After believing, Jesus told them to receive the Holy Spirit.
There is some difficulty with the meaning of this verse, since we know from Acts chapter one that Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received power by way of the Holy Spirit to be his witnesses to the world, and Acts chapter two that the Spirit was poured out on the disciples on the Day of Pentecost, and from that time forward they were changed men. John MacArthur sees this verse as a promise to them that they would receive the Holy Spirit in the future.
Concerning the power to forgive or not to forgive men their sins, again this verse in the context of the whole New Testament has to be interpreted to mean that when a person becomes a believer in Christ, you or I can declare that their sins have been forgiven, and if a person refuses to believe in Christ, you or I can declare that their sins have not been forgiven. Only God has the power to forgive sins and that is based on a confession of faith in Jesus as the risen Lord and Savior.
Finally, we come to Thomas. He wasn’t with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to them and they believed. And even though he had the testimony of the women and the 10, he continued to doubt and said he would not believe unless he examined the hands and side of Jesus. And so to this day we call people who have doubts about something a doubting Thomas.
So on the following week, Jesus once again appears in the room where the disciples are gathered, behind locked doors, and he confronts Thomas. “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.!
What was Thomas response? “My Lord and my God!” When confronted with the physical evidence of Jesus resurrection, the Lord Jesus Himself, he believed.
And that brings me to the most important part of this passage. Verses 29 – 31. Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed.” But listen to what he then said. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
He was happy that the women had seen and believed. He was happy that the 10 had seen and believed. He was happy that Thomas had seen and believed. But he goes even further than happiness for those who would believe without seeing, for those like you and me who would believe based on faith. Jesus said, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
If you and I can’t examine the physical evidence, Jesus resurrected body, then what do we have to base our faith on? The testimony of those who did see the resurrected body. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 said that in addition to the disciples, that he appeared to more than 500 witnesses at the same time, and that when he was writing this letter to Corinth, that most of them were still alive and could testify to this fact.
And then in verse 31 John wrote that the things that he had written, as a disciple and a witness to the resurrection of Jesus, were written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Why do we have this book, written by men, inspired by God, covering thousands of years from the time of Moses until the death of John? As a testimony of what God has done in this world on behalf of mankind, culminating in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus from the dead. These things have been written that you may believe.