What Are You Waiting On?

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Amen.
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If you'll take your Bibles out and open them with me to the 20th chapter of the Gospel of John.
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We're in John chapter 20 and we're going to look at just one verse, verse 29.
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And the title of today's message is, What Are You Waiting On? John chapter 20 and verse 29, Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth of the Bible.
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And I pray today that my preaching would be in accord with the truth.
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That you would keep me from error, for I am a fallible man and capable of error.
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And for the sake of my conscience and for the sake of your people, I pray to be kept from that.
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I pray Lord that as the Gospel is proclaimed today, that you will use it to confirm in the hearts of believers their faith.
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And to convict in the unbeliever their lack of faith that they might turn to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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I pray Lord that when we see in this wonderful text the call to faith, that we know that this is the call to trust in a loving Savior.
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And that we would understand that he loved us so much that he gave his life for our sins.
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And I pray Lord that that message would be proclaimed today.
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And Lord that we would respond to it by the power of your Spirit, in Jesus name, Amen.
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You may be seated.
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When God created the world, he created the world in six days.
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On the seventh day, the Bible declares that God ceased from his work and he rested.
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Throughout the history of God's people, the seventh day of the week has been considered holy.
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It was called the Sabbath.
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And the law of God stated that it would be kept as a reminder of God's creation.
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And two thousand years ago, on the day prior to the Sabbath, which we call Good Friday, Jesus Christ was taken before several courts.
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He was accused, beaten, humiliated, and eventually taken to die on a cross.
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And during the Sabbath day, Saturday, he rested.
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He laid dead.
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But on the first day of the week, a miracle happened.
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In fact, it was the miracle of miracles.
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Life reentered the physical body of Jesus Christ and it was transformed.
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It became a new, incorruptible, glorified body.
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And the tomb which held him opened and Jesus was demonstrated to the world to be alive.
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And since that day, since then, the church has met for worship not on the Sabbath day, the day of rest, but on the Lord's day, Sunday, in commemoration of his resurrection.
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We see this when we study the book of Acts.
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The church met on the first day of the week to break bread, to pray, to study the word together.
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Likewise, in the book of Revelation, it says that John was in the spirit on the Lord's day in reference to Sunday.
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We call today Resurrection Day.
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Sometimes it's called Easter for short.
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But this is Resurrection Sunday.
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But the reality is that every Sunday we gather, we gather in a celebration of the resurrection.
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It's the reason why we gather.
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In fact, it's the very reason we gather on Sunday.
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Had the resurrection not happened, we'd still be meeting on the Sabbath.
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We'd still be meeting on Saturday.
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We'd be meeting in synagogues.
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But we wouldn't because we're not Jews.
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But when the resurrection happened on that first Sunday morning, God broke into history with this new miracle and this new promise of everlasting life through his son Jesus Christ.
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And thus he changed even the very method and mode of our worship.
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And we began to worship on the day that he rose from the dead.
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Our very reason for gathering this morning.
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Our very reason for gathering any time, any Sunday, is that Jesus rose from the grave.
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If Jesus had not risen from the grave, the apostle Paul tells us you all just ought to just go home and forget about the whole thing.
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I mean, that's a paraphrase.
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What he actually said was if Jesus had not been raised, we above all men are most to be pitied.
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Meaning that if we are worshipping a dead savior, if we are worshipping one who is still in the grave, then we are pitiful and we're lost and we're still in our sins.
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But Paul tells us something in 1 Corinthians 15.
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He says, but in fact, he has been raised.
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Not a point of mythology.
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Not a point of conjecture.
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And not a point of opinion.
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But in fact, he has been raised.
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And he is risen.
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As I said earlier in my prayer, we say he is risen.
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Not he has risen.
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But that he remains risen.
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He is risen today.
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And he stands at the right hand of the Father forever making intercession for his people.
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I think about the death of St.
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Stephen.
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When Stephen was dying, he was being stoned to death for his faith.
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The first Christian martyr, he's being stoned to death for his faith.
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And the Bible says the heavens opened and he saw the Son of God standing at the right hand of the Father.
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Why standing? Because he was standing as his advocate.
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He was standing for Him.
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To receive Him into glory.
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Earlier this morning, I preached outside.
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We have our early morning service on Resurrection Sunday.
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And I preached in John.
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And I preached verses 1 through 18.
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And that's the story of Mary Magdalene going to the tomb and seeing the risen Christ.
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She did not recognize Him at first.
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But when He said her name, Mary, she knew.
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And Jesus told us in John 10, My sheep hear My voice and they know Me.
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My sheep listen to My, My sheep know My voice.
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And she heard Him call her name and she knew it was Him.
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Now this morning, for our service, and I know most of you weren't here for that.
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But for this service, I want to continue in chapter 20.
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And I want to look at another person that is prominent in John 20.
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In John 20, we really have two prominent people.
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One is Mary Magdalene.
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And the other is Thomas.
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Now what name is often associated with Thomas? What adjective? Thomas the doubter.
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But I hope to show you today that Jesus used Thomas' doubt to teach us a powerful lesson about faith.
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And to remind you that Thomas wasn't the only one who doubted.
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Mary herself doubted when she saw the empty tomb.
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Peter and John doubted when they didn't know what was happening.
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Everyone doubted until they saw Him alive.
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But Thomas' lack of faith demonstrates for us a call to faith.
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So let's begin at verse 19, back up in chapter 20.
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This is the first day of the week.
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This is the day of the resurrection.
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It says, On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you.
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Now I'm not going to spend a lot of time breaking down all the history of these passages.
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But there is some things to consider here.
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One is that the doors were locked.
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And it says why they were locked.
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They were locked because of the fear of the Jewish authorities.
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The Jewish authorities had killed Jesus, but that didn't mean they were done.
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If you read the book of Acts, you will see that the hatred for Christianity and the hatred for the cross went well past the life of Jesus Christ to the point that all 12 of the apostles, and you remember Judas who killed himself was replaced by Matthias, all 12 died the death of martyrdom for their faith according to church history.
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So the hatred for the cross did not stop at the cross.
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The hatred for Jesus did not stop.
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And it goes on to today.
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You realize that a week ago today, two churches were bombed and 30 plus people died in pews just like you're sitting in today for their faith in Jesus Christ.
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The hatred of the cross continues to today.
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So they were behind locked doors for fear of the Jews.
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And Jesus came and stood among them.
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How did He get among them? Well, when He came out of the tomb, I believe He came out in His glorified body.
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And His glorified body is not bound by the structure of our normal bodies.
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And He's not bound by a locked door.
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Some people think maybe He snuck in through a window or maybe He was hiding there before they got there.
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Maybe He was just waiting to pop out like a magician.
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No, Jesus is not bound by a locked door.
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He's not bound by anything.
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Remember when He was on the road to Emmaus? They couldn't even tell it was Him until He opened their eyes to see that it was He.
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Jesus isn't bound by anything.
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And so a locked door holds not Him back and He's there.
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He's not a ghost.
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He's in a physical form.
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He's able to eat.
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He has an appetite.
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He's able to sup with them and enjoy fellowship with them.
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He's even able to touch them.
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That's what it says in verse 20.
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It says, when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side and then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
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What a statement of understatement.
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They were glad when they saw the Lord.
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They were fascinated.
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They were frightened.
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And they were glad.
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Notice one thing about what Jesus says.
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He says, peace be with you.
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And then later in verse 21, Jesus said to them again, peace be with you.
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This is the vernacular of the day of Him saying, calm down.
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Can you imagine? For a moment, see, we get so complacent about these things because they're so normalized.
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Most of you grew up in a situation where you heard about the resurrection of Jesus from a very early age.
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Some of you grew up in church.
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And even if you didn't grow up in church, you grew up in America, some of you maybe didn't, but you still grew up in a place where you heard about Jesus and the resurrection your whole life.
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It's nothing special.
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It's nothing different.
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It's nothing new.
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You've heard about it every year of your life.
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These people never heard of such a thing, never seen such a thing.
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To them it is out of their mind that it could even be.
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So Jesus keeps calming them.
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Peace, peace be with you.
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And He goes on to say, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.
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This is the first of several times that Jesus will tell them that He's giving them a mission.
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The Father sent me to seek and save the lost.
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And now I'm going back to the Father, but I'm going to send you to seek and save the lost.
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And when He said this, He breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.
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This is something that we know happened later at Pentecost.
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They did receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
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And when they went out and preached, they preached in the fullness of the Spirit.
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And He says in verse 23, If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.
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If you withhold the forgiveness of any, it is withheld.
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That's not some special priestly gift that He's given to them as if to say that they can give absolution of sins.
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What He's saying is, I'm giving you the gospel.
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And when you proclaim the gospel and someone believes it, you can tell them your sins are forgiven.
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And when you proclaim the gospel and they do not receive it, you can tell them you are still in your sins.
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That's the power that we have.
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We do not have a priestly power.
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We don't sit in a box where someone else sits in a box and whispers to us their sins and we whisper to them forgiveness.
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No, I tell you from the housetops, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven.
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And if you believe not on the Lord Jesus Christ, your sins are not.
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It's very simple.
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And that's the message of the gospel.
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Clear and unadulterated.
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The gospel is a gospel of forgiveness.
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If you are here today and you're outside of Christ, I tell you, your sins can be forgiven.
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Though your sins be as scarlet, they can be washed as white as snow.
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And they're not washed by you denying them.
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They're not washed by you hiding them.
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They're not washed by you sweeping them under the rug or putting them away in your closet.
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They are washed by confessing them to the Lord and repenting of them and trusting that His blood will cover them.
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And that's how you're forgiven.
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And that's the only way.
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You can't be forgiven by good works.
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You can't be forgiven by giving money.
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You can't bribe your way out of it.
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You can't purchase your way out of it.
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You can never do enough good works to earn your way out of it.
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The only way is through Jesus Christ.
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The only forgiveness comes through the cross.
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Verse 24, Now Thomas 1 of the 12 called Didymus, or the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
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So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord.
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But he said to them, Unless I see His hands, the mark of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.
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You know, Thomas, again, is often given great grief because he was willing to say what he thought.
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But keep in mind, Thomas is far from alone.
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When the women came to the tomb, they didn't believe that Jesus rose.
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They even saw angels and still didn't believe He rose.
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Because when they went back to get the disciples, they said, We don't know where He has been laying.
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What does that mean? Somebody took His body, but we don't know where they put it.
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And when Mary Magdalene gets back to the tomb with Peter and John, and she's standing there, and she sees the gardener, which is actually Jesus, but she thinks it's a gardener.
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She says, Sir, tell us where you have laid His body so that I may go retrieve it.
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See, even then she didn't believe that He had raised.
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And the two men on the road to Emmaus came in and said they saw Jesus.
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There was doubt about their testimony as well.
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So we mustn't think too poorly of Thomas.
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In fact, his character described in Scripture...
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I want to share something with you about Thomas.
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I like to look at men and sort of try to put myself into their mind and try to imagine the type of person they were.
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And one of my favorite characters, in fact, is Peter because I tend to think I'm a lot like him.
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Neither one of us know when to shut up.
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And so I connect with Peter more than any of the other apostles.
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He had a big mouth and a...
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Well, never mind.
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I won't go any further.
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But Thomas had a character that's very interesting in Scripture because he said very little, and very little is known about him.
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But in John 11, there's something that Thomas said that I've always found amazing because in John 11 is when Jesus hears about His friend Lazarus who was sick.
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Remember that story? Jesus hears that His friend Lazarus is sick and he's dying.
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And Jesus says, well, let's wait and not go.
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And finally, word comes that he's dead.
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And Jesus says, now we'll go.
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And everybody's like, what do you mean? We're going to go now? He's dead.
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And the Jews want to kill you, Jesus.
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If you go, they're going to stone you to death.
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And Jesus said, but I'm going to go anyway.
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In John 11, verse 16, this was Thomas.
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Thomas said to the fellow disciples, let us go with Him that we may die with Him.
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So you don't hear about that part of Thomas, do you? That Jesus said, I'm going to go, and I'm going to go, and if I die, I die.
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And Thomas said, I'm in line.
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Now we know he, like the rest, didn't remain as faithful as he hoped when the time came.
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But it is something to think about in his character that when Jesus said, I'll go, Thomas said, I'm right in line with you.
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I'll be right behind you.
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And if we die, we die together.
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Thomas is a man who loved Jesus.
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He's a man who followed Jesus.
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But the prospect of his resurrection was too much to hope for.
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So you have to understand, he would rather be grieved by the death of his friend than to be disappointed in a hope that wasn't real.
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So Thomas said, I can't believe.
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I can't take this heartache again.
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I can't take the destruction of my soul.
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I've watched Him die once.
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Please don't make me experience this again.
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That this is a hoax.
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That this is a farce.
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That you have in some way tried to fool me.
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I won't be fooled.
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Eight days later, verse 26, his disciples were inside again.
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But this time it was different because Thomas was with them.
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Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, same thing, third time, peace be with you.
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Almost the same story.
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And it's one week later, by the way.
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This is one week after the resurrection and everything is the same, except one thing.
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Thomas is here.
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So Thomas has heard about this for a week, but he hasn't seen Him.
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Thomas has been dealing with this for a week, but he hasn't seen Him.
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Now, He's here.
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And I want you to see the pastoral heart of our Savior.
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Because He didn't walk in and take His sanctified finger and shove it into the chest of Thomas and say, feel that? I'm alive, buddy! Why didn't you believe? No, He took His hand and He said, put your finger here.
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See My hands.
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And place your hand in My side.
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Do not disbelieve, but believe.
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This is a reminder of how much Jesus loves His people.
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Because He lovingly extended the hand of fellowship rather than the finger of disappointment and judgment.
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He said, see My hands? It's Me.
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And you put your hand here and know I'm alive.
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In verse 28, we have the great testimony of St.
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Thomas.
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Hakuriasmu kaihathiasmu.
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My Lord and My God.
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And let me tell you something, that is no simple expression of random words.
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But that is a powerful statement of who Jesus is.
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Jesus Christ is the Lord and Jesus Christ is our God.
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And I want you to notice something.
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I've had this conversation with Jehovah Witnesses because Jehovah Witnesses deny the deity of Jesus Christ.
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And I take them to John 20 and I open up John 20, 28 and I say, Thomas called Jesus kurias, Lord, which by the way is the Greek translation of Yahweh, which is the Old Testament name of God.
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He called Him kurias, Lord, and theos, God.
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And you know what the Jehovah Witnesses say? He was just yelling in excitement like you would say, My God, My God.
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No.
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This is not an expletive.
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This is not an exasperous expression.
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This is a statement of faith.
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You are Lord and you are God.
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And Jesus did not rebuke him.
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You see, if Thomas was wrong, Jesus would have said, Slow down, Thomas.
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I ain't God.
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Because you know that did happen when John fell before the angel.
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The angel said, Get up, don't worship me.
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When people fell down before St.
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Peter, what did Peter do? Get up, don't worship me.
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I'm a man the same as you.
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But when somebody falls at the feet of Jesus, He receives their worship because He is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, who has lived forever as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit live forever and ever as our triune God.
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And then we come to verse 29, our first verse we read today.
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Jesus said to him after his confession, after St.
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Thomas' confession, He said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
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I want to share something with you today that I thought about this week.
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My wife and I were conversing about this verse.
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We were conversing about what I wanted to preach today.
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And I was trying to explain it to her.
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And I said, I really want to preach this and I want people to understand.
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And I hope that it makes sense.
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So here goes.
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There are two ways that we exercise faith.
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One is the faith in the reality of something and the other is the faith in the reliability of that thing.
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And like if someone said, you know, there's a chair right there and I couldn't see it.
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Let's say I was blind.
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And somebody said, there's a chair here.
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Well, if I was blind and couldn't see it, I'd have to trust you that there's a chair there.
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But then I'd have to sit down too and that's a second act of faith, right? The first act is believing that it's there and the second act is actually sitting in it.
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Right? So there's sort of a two-pronged part of faith.
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It's one, believing that it exists and two, believing that it does what it's going to do and that's hold my weight.
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Right? When Thomas heard that Jesus rose from the dead, he didn't believe it.
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He didn't believe in the reality of it.
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But when he saw Jesus, he believed in the reality of it.
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And when he saw Jesus alive, he no longer had to exercise faith in that because he saw it.
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But he still had to exercise faith in what Jesus did and what He was going to do.
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Again, I don't want to be confusing about this, but what I'm saying is this.
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Thomas saw Jesus.
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He didn't have to believe that Jesus arose.
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He saw Jesus arose.
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You understand? It's no longer an issue of faith if you see Him.
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As long as you trust what your eyes are showing you, then that's it.
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So Thomas didn't have to exercise faith in a risen Jesus.
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He saw a risen Jesus.
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But he still had to exercise faith in what Jesus had done and was going to do.
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But Jesus said that there's coming another generation, us, who don't see the risen Jesus.
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So now we get to exercise faith in two ways.
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One, we exercise faith in the reality of the resurrection and the reliability of the resurrection.
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We exercise faith in what we haven't seen.
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And that's Jesus risen.
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Has anyone seen Jesus today? You didn't wake up and Jesus was standing by your bedside.
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You didn't get in the car and ride here with Jesus and you say, well, Jesus is in my heart.
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I mean physically.
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Like Thomas.
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He didn't come to you and say, here's my hand, here's my side, hold this, put your hand here.
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He hasn't done that for you.
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But he has said this, there is a greater blessing reserved for those who believe without the need for that.
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And some might say, but wait a minute, that's blind faith.
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Let me tell you, it is not blind faith.
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Because though we have not seen the risen Christ in person, we have every reason to believe that He did rise.
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Not the least of which is the fact that the men who did see Him rise, like Thomas, gave their lives, not for what they believed, but for what they saw.
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Not for what they imagined, but for what they touched with their own hands.
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Did you know that the church in India was founded by St.
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Thomas? It is called the Martomian Church and it stretches all the way out to India.
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Do you think that Thomas would have carried the gospel of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to India if he had not seen a risen Christ? Thomas died because of the man, Jesus Christ, who looked him in the face and said, put my hand here.
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Put your hand here.
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We have not been asked to exercise blind faith.
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Blind faith would be believing in something for which there is no evidence and no reason.
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It's like jumping into darkness hoping to catch ourselves on a rope, but having no reason to believe the rope is there.
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And God is not asking us to jump blindly into darkness.
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He does not call us to believe in what hasn't been seen.
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He tells us.
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He doesn't call us to believe in something that no one has ever seen.
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Do you know that when Jesus rose from the dead, He was seen by over 500 people? And when He rose from the dead, He was here on earth for 40 days ministering.
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And while He was here on earth, many of the people that saw Him, ate with Him, held Him, touched Him, heard Him, saw Him, went to their deaths proclaiming His name.
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And I will tell you this, many men will die for things that they believe in that are not true, but no one will die for something they know is a lie.
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Some people ask me, why do you believe in Jesus? You've never seen Him.
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I say, you've never seen Alexander the Great.
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And there is more evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for Alexander's conquering of Persia.
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There is as much evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ than there was for the presidency of George Washington.
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And you weren't there for that either.
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And I will tell you this, I believe I have as much reason to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as I do of any other fact from history.
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And I am willing to stake my eternity on that fact.
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Thomas had to see the scars.
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Thomas had to touch His side.
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And even though he doubted, he was blessed.
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But Jesus said this, more blessed are those who believe and have not seen.
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The title of today's message is, What Are You Waiting For? Thomas was waiting to see Jesus.
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He wouldn't believe until a qualification was met.
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And I want to know today, have you come here today with a qualification that God has not met? Is there some qualification that you have in your mind that's keeping you from coming to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith? I can tell you, I don't expect that Jesus is going to appear to us today and offer you His hand and His side.
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I do not expect that.
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But I do know this, even if He did, some of you would not believe.
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Because unbelief is more than just an evaluation of evidence.
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Unbelief is a condition of the heart.
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If you don't believe me, recently there was a Reason Rally in Washington.
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The Reason Rally is a group of atheists that meet annually to celebrate atheism.
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Hooray! There is nothing and we're going nowhere.
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Praise nothing.
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But in the Reason Rally, a Christian minister went through and did a survey of the atheists.
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And he asked a very pointed question.
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He said, if it could be proven to you beyond the shadow of a doubt that God does exist, would you worship Him? And every single one of them said no.
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You see, faith begins with accepting the reality of Jesus, but it doesn't end there.
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It didn't end there for Thomas and it doesn't end there for us.
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The Christian faith begins with the recognition that yes, Jesus did come.
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Yes, He did die.
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Yes, He did rise from the dead.
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And now He has proven Himself to be the Messiah.
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He's proven Himself to be the Commander of our lives.
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He has demonstrated that He deserves our trust.
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He has called us to repentance and faith.
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And so what are you waiting on? What more must He do to satisfy you? He has done it all.
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What are you waiting on? Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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And I thank You for the lesson that we learned from the life of Thomas.
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That it is a better blessing that we have received to believe even though we have not seen.
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And I thank You that men like Thomas do demonstrate the reality of the resurrection by their willingness to stand for Christ and even be martyred for their faith in the resurrection having seen Christ alive.
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And I pray today, Lord, if there are those who have come, and I'm certain that there are, who have never bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, that there are those today who are waiting on something, some type of evidence, some type of proof, some type of need that they feel like have conjured in their minds that they want before they would bow the knee, that those things would vanish away, that they would see the glory and the beauty of Jesus Christ, and that they would turn to Him in repentance and faith as the only one who can save them from their sins.
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Lord, might it be today that You would move on the hearts and draw people to Yourself.
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We ask this in Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen.
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Let's stand and prepare our hearts to receive communion.