Sunday Morning Sermon Series with Pastor Jeff Shipley (Date 03/21/2021)

Doubting Thomas and the Faith That Goes to India

Today, right now, in southern India, in southern India, a whole region in southern India, today, there are church meetings happening right now, and these people are called the disciples of Thomas. You know why?

Because Thomas said, I didn't believe. Peter said, I'm going back to fishing. John was just passive aggressive and said, I'm taking care of Jesus' mom, I ain't got time to do anything else. But yet, after Jesus showed up, they said, I'm going on the mission field.

Doubting Thomas, you know that Christian that gave it up? That supposedly strong disciple that Jesus handpicked that said, I quit, I'm scared, I don't believe? After he saw Jesus Christ, he went to India and was tortured and beheaded for the name of Jesus.

Ah, but you see, that kind of faith, even though you may have feelings of doubt, that faith that is given to you by God Almighty kept him on that mission field, and today, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people heard the gospel because even someone like a doubter like Thomas, when they had the faith of God, could change a life.

Three Kinds of Doubters in Acts 25 and 26

We're going to be in Acts and John today, but we're going to start out in Acts 25. Let me ask you a question this morning. What kind of doubter are you? Who in this room has never doubted Jesus Christ, the power of your salvation?

Right, we all have. We've all come to a place either in our walk with Christ, or at first as an unbeliever coming to Christ where we've all had doubts. But we somehow, through our little silly churchy religion garbage, we come somehow present this idea that once you're a Christian, you never doubt again.

I'm here to tell you, that is not the case. I'm going to show you in Scripture three different kinds of doubters. Two of them will lead you straight to hell in a handbasket. One of them will still possibly lead you to salvation.

Look with me in Acts chapter 25, starting in verse 19. Acts chapter 25, starting in verse 19. It says this, Festus is speaking. Go ahead and smoke. Festus is speaking saying, instead they had some disagreements with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus, a dead man.

Paul claimed to be alive. Since I was at a loss in a dispute over such things, I asked him if he wished to go to Jerusalem and be tried there concerning these matters. Let me tell you about Festus. Festus was the new guy on the block.

His job as the regional governor under Roman imperial Caesar, his job was to do two things. Number one was to keep the peace. Number two was to make sure that tax money, that money that was collected in the name of Rome, got back to Rome.

That was his two jobs. Well when he gets there, there's a Roman citizen that's been in jail for two years. His name is Paul. He's been there for two years and he's trying to clean up old court cases and so he comes to Paul and says, what's going on?

And he said, well the Jews in Jerusalem want to kill me. And he goes, well why do they want to kill you? And Paul sits there and says, well I believe in Jesus Christ and that he was resurrected from the grave.

And so in Festus' mind, he's sitting there going, okay this is a religious dispute? You didn't kill anybody? You didn't steal anything? This is just a religious dispute? Okay, well I don't understand all this.

The first kind of doubter is this. One of the key characteristics of them is that they are ignorant. Not stupid. They're just ignorant. They don't get it. And so they are not even really in the realm of seeking it out but circumstances may bring their lives into connection or at least into a close proximity with the gospel.

So they're really not looking. They're really not searching. They really don't care. But the gospel will brush by them at different times. Now I want you to read again that passage of scripture. Notice two things.

Number one, he sits there and says, my prisoner claims that a dead man is alive. Let me tell you all something. This that we are here this morning to praise and worship is not a stupid religion. We're not here as Baptists.

We're not here as Southerners. We're not here as Americans. We are here because we have the audacity to believe that there is an empty tomb in Jerusalem and our king is risen from the grave. We have that audacity.

To this doubter though, he's ignorant of all these things. Listen to me. He comes to a point where he starts talking to Paul. And Paul sits there and says, let me explain to you in greater detail what's going on.

In chapter 26, if you just flip one page over, in chapter 26, guys, I need a lot more up here. In chapter 26, verse 23, it says this. Paul's explaining, he goes, hey, the Messiah must suffer. And that as the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light to our people and to the Gentiles.

As he was making his defense in this way, Festus exclaimed in a loud voice, you are out of your mind, Paul. Too much study has driven you insane. The first kind of doubter is ignorant, but when he hears the truth of the gospel, his rational or humanist, secular mind cannot wrap around the fact that a man named Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again from the grave.

You may see some of these people as skeptics, and that's fine. You may see some of these people coming to a place where they're interested to hear, but when you get to the name of Jesus Christ, there is no way possible that they're going to believe because it is impossible.

With the strata of rules and regulations and science and understanding that we have as humans, it's absolutely impossible for someone to come out of the grave. Their doubt becomes solidified in the fact because they're looking to their own reason, their own self, their own experience, and the experience of this world to tell them what is fact and or fiction.

In other words, this, you're trusting in a group of people that can't decide and have changed their minds five times whether Pluto is a planet or a star. That's what you're trusting in. You're trusting, again, in a group of people that cannot explain creation.

Richard Dawkins, Dr. Dawkins, that militant atheist, that arrogant person who sits there and when he gets boiled back down to it, he says, well, I can't really explain how the Big Bang happened. I can't.

He'll admit that. And then he will say this, with all arrogance, not even seeing the irony, he'll say this, well, we've got to have faith that science will discover the answer one day. Wow. And when people press him on it, he comes up with this theory called panspermia where an alien race seeded the universe and that we are products like some greenhouse effect of an alien super intelligent race of beings that have seeded us.

That is so logical. Wow. Because you have a P, an H, and a D after your name, shazam, I've got to believe. Wow, you are so smart. And the 60s was really tough on your brain pan, dude. Really? Come on, man.

I came from a nose-picking ape? Well, yeah, that's what they teach in school. Really, guys? The first person who actually came up with the idea of a heliocentric universe was a Christian. The guy who defined the laws of physics as we know them in thermodynamics was a Christian.

The science community needs to thank God's people for discovering the idea of what God already written down that there is a God and guess what? You ain't him. But they can't do that. They're a type of doubter who are ignorant and they'll stay ignorant because when they hear the truth of Jesus Christ, they balk at it.

Agrippa and the Doubter Who Knows the Truth but Loves Sin

But then there's a second type of doubter. There's a second type of doubter who gets it. Watch this. If you turn with me to Acts chapter 26 starting in verse 27, Festus calls another guy up. A guy named Agrippa.

This guy was a little freaky. He was a little weird. I want you to kind of hear the correlation. He had grown up in church. You know what I mean? He kind of knew the whole idea of the Jewish background and the idea of Messiah coming.

He had already gotten all that. He kind of got the flavor in the things. In fact, if you read verse 27, Paul, when Festus says to him, Hey, dude, you're insane. Paul leaves Festus, shakes the dust off his feet, turns to Agrippa and says this to Agrippa, King Agrippa, do you believe in the prophets?

I know you do. So what Paul's about to do is this. He's going to take the Old Testament that was written thousands of years before Paul even was alive. And he's going to take the Old Testament and he's going to talk about all the prophecies of a man named Jesus or a man who's coming, who's going to be the light of a dying world, who is going to be the redeemer of God's people.

And he says, Agrippa, I know you know who I'm talking about. And Agrippa sits there and goes, Okay, I want to hear a little bit. If you look here in verse 27, he says, I would like to hear the man myself.

There's a second type of doubter, guys. There's a person who on the outside may look and act like they have it all together, but like the first doubter, they're coming more to a realization that they have no idea.

These are the kind of people that are like, My life is a wreck. I need to get back in church. My marriage is in shambles. I need to get back in church. I need to hear something. I need a self-help book.

I need something. I want to hear more because it may benefit me. But ladies and gentlemen, the problem is that no matter how many times the prophets have spoken, no matter how many times the word or the gospel of God is preached, there is something that holds them back.

And it's not doubt. Doubt is not the problem. And we're going to get to that more in just a second. But doubt is not the problem. It's where arrogance comes in. Now watch this. As he's sitting there talking, in verse 28 of chapter 26, Agrippa says this to Paul.

He says, Are you going to persuade me to become a Christian so easily? Now I want you to understand this. Agrippa is not saying, and I know this has been preached for years and years and years like this, and it's wrong.

If you look in the syntax of the Greek, and if you actually study this in harmonutical perfection, he's not saying, Oh, I almost became a Christian. Oh, I'm rejecting it. It is something totally different than that.

You see, you got to understand something about Agrippa. He was a little freaky. OK, we kind of think he may have been from Arkansas because incest was best for Agrippa. OK, I'm just I'm going to leave it there.

But that's kind of who he was. And he was kind of even to non-religious people. He was kind of icky. You know, I mean, do you think your sister's hot? You know, right? Oh, by the way, science says all you men are sexually attracted to your moms and all you women are sexually attracted to your dads.

That's what, no, wait a minute. Now you think I'm joking. That's what science says. I mean, I can remember 16 years old. I had all those urges, and I was like, man, mom, you're looking mighty good in those 70 power suits.

You know, leisure suit. Yeah. Never did it ever happen. But that's what science tells you. Once again, those people who think they know. So here he is. He sits there, and he asks this question, or he makes this statement.

You almost persuaded me to be a Christian. What he's really saying is this. I love my sin more than I love your Savior. You see, he came to a point in his life, what he knew was truth was being spoken, but he did not want to make the change.

He didn't want to make the change. He loved being in that place in his life more than he wanted. In other words, it wasn't just doubt. It was a solidified understanding that then totally rejected the cross of Jesus Christ.

Some of you in here are seeking because you're confused. You're ignorant. You want to learn more. Okay, cool. But here's the danger in that. You're going to keep vacillating back and forth with an intellectual mind, trying to validate with intellectual sources the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And 30 years from now, you're going to be in that exact same place. Here's why. Because the power of faith is this. It's to embrace your doubt and take a leap. It's to reject and totally remove. Not with a total clear picture understanding.

It is an absolute act of faith where you finally come to a place where you say, I give up. I'm messing my life up the way I'm doing it. I need to surrender my life to Christ. Oh, but what's that mean?

Well, I want to be a Christian, but I'm afraid to give up this. I'm afraid I'm going to lose this. I'm afraid I'm going to lose this. And most churches today will tell you, Oh, don't worry about that.

Just walk down this aisle. Just set Jesus in your heart. I'm here to tell you, Yes, God will accept you where you are, but He will not accept you still being there. God's call to Him is your whole life.

It means you sacrifice everything. If Jesus Christ is not your Lord and your boss, He will never be your Savior. And I know today that is unpalatable, but I'm here to tell you the truth. Word of God says, If any man wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me daily.

It's not a five-second decision based on the emotion of music in the background and a stirring oratory from a perfected species of the male psyche, or physical. I messed that up, but you get with me.

It's not any of that. It's this. It's your willing to surrender everything of your life to follow Jesus Christ. Now, the third and last doubter is this. Hmm. This is the one I identify with. This is the one I identify with all the time.

His name was Thomas. And it's really awesome because we heard about it during the worship service. Brother Andrew picked these scriptures and I will pick them as well. I want you to understand this. It says here in verse 24,.

But one of the twelve, Thomas, called Twin, was not with him when Jesus came. So the disciples kept telling him, We have seen the Lord. We have seen the Lord. But he said to him, If I don't put the mark of his nails in my hands, if I don't put my finger into the mark, or put my hand into his side, I will never believe.

After eight days, the disciples were in door again and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace to you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and observe my hands.

Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Don't be an unbeliever, but be a believer. And Thomas responded to him and said, My Lord and my God. Jesus said, Because you have seen me, you have believed.

Those who believe without seeing are blessed. Just last thing and I'm done. Listen to me. Last thing and I'm done. Listen. I identify with Thomas. If you're in this room today, and even in doubt you have given your life to Christ, understand this.

Even in ignorance you have given your life to Christ. Remember the words of Jesus. Unless you come to him with childlike faith, you are never going to see the kingdom of God. Sometimes we tell people that it's way too hard to come to Christ.

Oh, but a broken and repentant heart coming to Christ will be met with the hands of Jesus every single time. I promise you that. It is not difficult intellectually to understand because there is no intellectual understanding to it.

By a regenerated spirit made alive again by the Holy Spirit of God, you can come to Christ today. Everyone else in this room is such a holy Christian, you are out of your frigging mind. Last week I had doubts.

I had doubts. Not of my salvation. I had doubts of making a decision. I had doubts of surrender. I had doubts constantly. Now, used to I doubted my salvation all the time because I saw God as I saw my earthly father and I was never good enough.

I was too stupid. I couldn't pour water out of a boot if the directions were on the hill. I was worthless. I would tear up a steel ball with a rubber hammer. Son, the best part of you and I won't finish.

That's what I constantly heard all the time. And so I doubted my salvation because I was not using the gospel, I was using my experience to define who God was. But as I read the gospel and it became sweeter and sweeter every day, as I learned that in no wise will He ever cast me out, that this is the will of God the Father and that all which He has given Christ, Christ would not lose one, but would resurrect Him on that last day.

My confidence soared in my salvation not because it was mine anymore, but because I really belonged to Jesus and I was firmly in His hands. But I still doubt. Oh, I still doubt. If you're in here today and you're a Christian who doubts, welcome to the party.

You're in good company. Now, the church knows Thomas as Doubting Thomas. Give me a break. In that text we just read, let's look at a couple of things. Number one, where were all the other disciples? They were behind locked doors.

If you really believe that... If we're sitting in this room and Miss Louise died, God forbid, if she just died right here and then we all prayed and said, in the name of Jesus, Miss Louise, rise up. And she went, whoop!

What's up, guys? It would be a different Sunday for us, wouldn't it? Right? They had all seen Jesus. Remember, they didn't hear a good stirring sermon. All of the disciples had seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears the resurrected Jesus Christ standing before them.

What am I going to be scared of? Nothing, man. A good dude just showed up. I watched him feed the 5 ,000 and I was impressed. I saw him raise someone from the dead. I'm impressed. But the grave couldn't hold this guy.

I'm following him. Coach, put me in. I'm ready to play. That's what I would like to think. But let's be honest. We're fickle humans and we're scaredy cats. Where were all these dorks? They were in a locked room.

People say, oh, Beth Moore's going to write another book, I guarantee it, about women in the Bible. Guys, let's quit writing books about women in the Bible. Let's quit writing books about the Bible and let's go live out the Bible and I guarantee the gospel will be proclamated just fine.

I love these great Christian leaders who sit there and write a book about some genre, some genre in the Bible, because society is talking about African Americans in the Bible. There wasn't no African Americans because there wasn't no Africa.

Stop it. And then in the love of Jesus, they sell it to you for $39 .99. Oh, come right on down in Jesus' love, put $39 .95 in my hand and you too can be encouraged because you're some sort of subculture in American society.

Stop it. Let's look at these two chicks. Mary, oh, she was the perfect Christian. She never did anything wrong. Where was she going Sunday morning? To the tomb. It actually says in Mark 16, verse 1, these women went to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body.

Yet Jesus said, hey, in three days I'm going to rise again. If they truly believed and had no doubts, they'd be going to the tomb not with spices for a dead body, but a trumpet to declare the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Why didn't they? They doubted, just like everybody else. They were not expecting a resurrection of Jesus. It's irony, isn't it, that all of his friends doubted. Every single one of them doubted. But the Roman government put guards on that tomb because the enemies of Christ actually may have believed.

They were like, ah, no. But all the Christians were all up locked in a room going, buying 5 .56, getting ready for the end of the world. Guys, it's amazing how many people on the outside look like they got it all together.

But if we're all a little honest and we can take strength from this, is we all have doubts, believers. We all struggle. That's why God invented this thing called the church, so we can help each other through our struggles.

Listen, I am a right-wing zealot, according to the world. I am a right-wing, like, here's what, I'm over there. Because, like, I really believe, that I believe, that I believe, that I believe, that I believe that Jesus Christ is real, died and rose again and is coming back to get me.

And if you people are lucky enough, He's coming back to get you too. But I know He's coming back for me. Right? I know it. Now listen to me. Listen to me. If you're in this room and you think that even someone like that does not have doubts, let me dispel that for you.

I doubt all the time. And it's amazing. God shows up and does a miracle. And I go, Amen! Well, so and so has cancer. Oh, God. We're not going to make it. Well, Brother Jeff, this person, oh, my God, they're struggling again.

Well, this person fell off the wagon. Oh, it's all over, God. Jeff, you're a loser. You have no right to be a pastor and be on that stage, talking to people about Jesus. You're right. I'm a loser. But God called me.

He set me apart. He called me His son. Even into this day. Jeff, why are you worthy to be called a son of God? You're not. That's what's called grace. It doesn't matter what your thought process, it matters what God said it would be.

We all doubt. So I want you to hear something. Hear the words of Jesus to Thomas. They're up in that room. Thomas publicly said this. He got nasty with it. He was like, unless I see them scars, I ain't going to believe.

Never going to happen. Hey, Thomas. Listen to what Jesus says. Come here, son. You know how many times I've heard, come here, son. You know how many times I've heard, Pastor Jeff, come over here, boy.

Yeah, I know you have doubts. Put your faith and trust in me. Again. Let me strengthen you a little bit. Let me let you see this miracle over here. Okay, buddy, I know you're all fired up. Okay? Just remember that.

24 hours later, God, this is never going to happen. I don't know what I'm going to do. We're all going to end up eating worms, running from the Antichrist. You know? I got this. Here's the thing. Doubters, you're welcome to the cross of Christ.

God calls doubters. You see, but you can't have faith without doubt. It's impossible. To have faith, you have to have doubt. If everything is just all written out perfectly, and you know it all, there's no faith involved.

You've got to have doubts to have faith. Read this part right here. I'm done. Read this part right here. Thomas responded this. He said, My Lord and God. Now, I looked it up in the Greek. You know what the word God means?

God. That's what it means. Well, Brother Jeff, what that really... No. Thomas came to a point where religion died. And he came face to face with a God who created everything in this universe. And he came to an understanding by faith that He was Lord and God.

Guys, if you're in this room and you've asked Jesus into your heart, or you walked down an aisle, or you joined a church, or you got baptized, or you had an ootsy-quitsy little feeling when someone sang a Christian song, cool.

You're still on the way to hell. Trust me. You're still on the way to hell. That has nothing to do with following Christ. Nowhere in Scripture does it say you have to have a feeling. What it does say is you must have faith.

Without faith, Hebrews says, it is impossible to please God. Now, you say to yourself, Well, Thomas had Jesus standing right in front of him. Well, I've got about 200 Jesuses walking around here. I've got people that can share whatever war story or whatever you've got going in your life.

I've got two of them that went through the same thing. I guarantee you. This is the church that you don't want to come to be a drama queen with your war stories and hard life. Wrong place. You might want to go on over to life with some of the yuppies with the skinny jeans, okay?

Because the people here have got scar tissues a mile and a half long. But here's the deal. They're still here. They're still here. Guys, are you one of them peoples? Are you one of them peoples that you want to see something else?

You're just like Agrippa. Show me something. Oh, that? Well, let me explain. There's a logical explanation for that. And you're going to go to your grave and split the gates of hell wide open because your intellect is your God.

Trust me on that. Well, Brother Jeff, I don't believe that. Okay. I've got good news for you. One day, you will. Trust me. You will. You're going to believe it. Hitchens right now is a Christian. Oh, he is.

He was one of the greatest atheists in the world. He died. I promise you now he is a believer. Okay. Because every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ is Lord. You can do it here or you can do it in the torments of hell.

But you will admit Jesus Christ is Lord. Well, I feel, I think, I believe God does not care. That's why we call him God and you Bob. Okay. Last thing, look at this. Watch this. 28 says my Lord and my God.

Now, we're going to stop here. I've been watching a show on the red one. What's the red one called? Netflix. I've been watching a show on the Netflix about Mexican drug lords or something. Or Colombians.

Same thing. I know. That was politically incorrect. And I'm working while I do it. So, you know, I'll get little blurbs and pieces in it. But I was thinking the other day, I like watching shows about how the mafia was formed.

I like watching shows about, I just like that. I think it's interesting. But it's amazing. None of these groups ever last. I mean, maybe the name lasts, but like they change leaders like underwear, man.

It's like, oh, he was there in charge for 10 years. Wow, 10 whole years. That's your life expectancy. And here's how the government always gets them. Here's how they always get them. It isn't by arresting them.

What they do is they arrest someone who knows them, who knows them, who knows them. And they'll arrest like 400 people that are way down on the bottom line. And the prosecutor will come up and go, hey, it's like this, guys.

Somebody's going to jail for 99 years, right? It could be you or the guy beside you. But the first guy to cough up information, the first guy to give up the information, he goes free. Everybody else goes to prison.

It's amazing. Muerta. Bull. Everybody turns. Everybody gives it up, you know. You go get busted and you're facing a 99 prison sentence, I will turn my mother in, OK? That's how they all get busted. That's how they all lose.

Or tax evasion, right? They all get, it's just, bye. Bye. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing. That no matter how solid, no matter how close they were, no matter how many times you were drunk going, I love you.

No one understands me. I'll never leave you. I'll never betray you. They always end up betraying them. But there were 100 people in that room and the 12 disciples. They were locked in a room, scared to death.

Historical fact. Historical fact. And then the very next day, they were in the streets of Jerusalem going, Jesus Christ is alive. What happened? It's amazing how many people, when things get tough, give up and quit.

These people were facing not jail time, they were facing torture and execution. Yet all of them went to their grave and never changed their story, I saw Jesus Christ alive. They went from being cowards to being preachers in 24 hours.

Historical context. How did that happen? People say, were you not there? No, I wasn't there. But I've got 66 books of people who were there. They all said, man, we believe. Man, this ain't a joke. We don't, brother.