Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] These last few weeks, we've been looking at the space of time in the Bible between the resurrection of Christ and the start of the church at Pentecost, when in Acts, chapter two, when the Spirit comes on the disciples and they begin to preach and people come to understand who Jesus really was.
[00:00:19] And I wanted us to take some time and just look at this, at the development of what happens in the Spirit and the soul of the disciples, how they move from people who were despondent, frightened, hopeless, to people prepared to be filled with the Spirit in such a way that they could transform the entire world as a result of their testimony.
[00:00:50] Two weeks ago, last week, we were looking at Emmaus. We were looking specifically at the story of the disciples going to a nearby town. And we saw that they were.
[00:01:05] They were frightened and afraid. Jesus ends up connecting with them. They didn't know it was Jesus, but while he's talking to them, they begin to. Their hearts begin to be filled with hope.
[00:01:17] And then they find out that it's Jesus just as he departs. And they ran back to go tell the rest of the disciples, hey, we just saw Jesus. They don't know what to do about it.
[00:01:30] And as they bust in the door to say it, all the disciples that were gathered there said, hey, Jesus just appeared to Peter. And they're like, oh, okay. So they got. They've got. They've got the best story that they could possibly tell. The coolest story going on, and they get kneecapped just before they could tell their story. And that's where. That's where we left off last week. So this week we're going to pick up with them finally being able to tell their story.
[00:01:58] It says then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road and how they had recognized him as he was breaking bread.
[00:02:10] And just as they were telling it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them. Now, by the way, they ran in there to tell the coolest story possible, and they were, like, clipped off. And then they were like, okay, well, here, let me tell you. Let me tell you our story, right? And you imagine they're telling your story, and then behind them, Jesus shows up, they're telling their story, and then nobody will pay attention to them.
[00:02:38] They're like this spot in the middle between Peter telling his story and then everybody else seeing Jesus. They're like, nobody will listen to us.
[00:02:46] That's how this moment is so crazy that these two people that literally engaged the resurrected Jesus on the road for the first time, their story gets lost in the middle of it. That's how wild this moment is. Okay, so Jesus, as they're telling his story, they. Their story just kind of like drowns out because there's Jesus.
[00:03:10] And the first thing he says is, peace be with you. Which is smart because the whole group was startled and frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost. Of course, now it doesn't say, like, we talked about this in link group. Like, did they believe in ghosts? Maybe, I don't know.
[00:03:27] I don't believe in vampires.
[00:03:29] But if somebody showed up with long teeth and came hissing at me and then I, like, put a cross in their face and burned their skin, they turned into a bat and flew away, I would say, I just saw a vampire. Right? I don't believe in vampires, but Jesus is dead and there's Jesus in front of them. What you think is, I'm seeing a ghost. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, you just saw a ghost. You. You know what I'm saying? That's the important part. The important thing is they have no frame of reference to know what they are seeing in front of them. Because Jesus is dead.
[00:04:09] He died. They know he died.
[00:04:12] So this must be a ghost in front of them. I've been hearing reports he's not there. We saw him on the road. Whatever.
[00:04:20] Resurrection. That's not what they're thinking. They're thinking, must be seeing a ghost.
[00:04:27] Jesus says, why are you frightened?
[00:04:31] He asks, why are your hearts filled with doubt?
[00:04:35] Now I just want to stop here and say, you know, as I was meditating on this all week, I don't know if Luke does this on purpose, but there are certain moments where what he's saying fits perfectly well. Like that, in that moment, that makes total sense, okay? But it's almost as if this question is fit for humanity. Every human, for every time and every moment.
[00:05:03] Why are you frightened?
[00:05:05] Why are your hearts filled with doubt?
[00:05:08] Are you frightened?
[00:05:10] Are your hearts filled with doubt? And if so, why?
[00:05:13] Why would that ever be true?
[00:05:18] Because I am limited and there's a lot going on around me that I don't understand.
[00:05:24] That is hurting me, that is difficult. I don't know how it's going to turn out.
[00:05:31] I am not feeling like I'm up to it right now.
[00:05:39] The responsibilities before me are not fit to my capacity.
[00:05:44] The people around me, I don't trust.
[00:05:47] I've seen things that happen in this world that are so ugly that how could any reasonable person would be frightened? I mean, you name it, right? Like the Answers to this question. These questions are like.
[00:06:02] There are boundless numbers of answers to this question, and all of them are correct.
[00:06:07] These are reasonable answers.
[00:06:11] Because I am a limited person, I don't know what's happening next. I don't know what's happening around me.
[00:06:19] I can't control the forces that are happening, and they end up causing problems for me and people that I love. Often they just experienced the death of Jesus, the death of their entire sense of their purpose in life.
[00:06:37] They are in this upper room. We're going to find out later, the door is locked. Because they're certainly afraid that the authorities are going to come and kill them next.
[00:06:47] They are encountering someone who's supposed to be dead.
[00:06:52] Why are you frightened? Well, makes sense.
[00:06:56] What Jesus does next to me is perfect.
[00:07:01] He says, look at my hands and look at my feet.
[00:07:05] You can see that it's really me. Here, touch me. You hear me?
[00:07:10] Can you? Can you touch me? Can you see me?
[00:07:14] I am not a ghost. Ghosts don't have bodies. As you can see that I do.
[00:07:19] And as he spoke, he showed them his hands and his feet. Now, this next part is tender. He says they still, still. They stood there in disbelief, filled with joy and wonder.
[00:07:34] My brain cannot catch up to what's happening here.
[00:07:38] I'm very glad to see Jesus.
[00:07:41] I don't know what I'm seeing.
[00:07:45] I'm full of disbelief that this is happening.
[00:07:48] I'm overwhelmingly happy.
[00:07:51] Then he asked them, do you have anything to eat? And then they give him a piece of fish.
[00:07:58] And then they sit and they watch him as he sits and he eats that fish.
[00:08:04] They are confused.
[00:08:06] They don't know what to do. He's already said, look, you can see me. I'm really here. I'm not a ghost. And then he says, just give me something to eat. And they literally just watch him eat a meal.
[00:08:18] Now, fish have lots of bones in them. So he's like. He's.
[00:08:22] The entire room is watching this man eat fish.
[00:08:28] He's just eating this fish, sucking the bones, popping the bones out. He eats this whole fish. And they're literally just watching him be normal, right?
[00:08:38] It's like, I just need a minute to see you do something normal here, right?
[00:08:47] Just what? Just what? Just what Jesus has always done. He's just doing something very plain and simple, giving them some time to catch up to what's happening.
[00:08:58] I like the wisdom and sometimes not feeling like you have to fix the problem with words.
[00:09:06] The first time I experienced this, I was really. I was like, gosh I was. I was in elementary school. I think I was in third or fourth grade, and, you know, school overwhelming. I was like, I had too much to do, not nearly enough time to get it done. And I was really. And then mom comes in, and she's got, like, stuff for me to do. She's not here today, so I'll tell on her. I'm already stressed, and she's adding more to my plate.
[00:09:31] She's gonna hear this, but I won't be around to anyway. So she gets me wound up, and then I, like, snapped at her. Okay.
[00:09:43] I don't know how things are now, but it was not the case 40, 40 something years ago that you just, like, yelled at your mom. I did not do that. I had never. I didn't see that done. I didn't. I did that. And I was, like, too late. You know, like, looked at me. Dad. Dad does this. He goes, clay, why don't you put your shoes on? Let's go. And I was like, oh, man, I'm toast. Right?
[00:10:11] All we do is we just get up and we go for a walk.
[00:10:14] We literally walked. We walked a long. It was a long walk. He didn't say anything to me. I didn't say anything to him because I was pretty sure anything I said was not a good idea. He didn't talk. I didn't talk.
[00:10:28] I was kind of amped from the whole thing. Both from the whole thing previous and.
[00:10:32] And all he did was just walk with me for, I don't know, 45 minutes.
[00:10:39] And we got back home, and he just said, hey, how are you doing? And I said, I think I'm okay now.
[00:10:46] I got back, my mind was clear, and I was able to get my work done really quick. I apologize to my mom, of course.
[00:10:51] And I just remember it was like magic how not trying to fix the problem, just giving me a minute was really important, you know? And when I see Jesus just say, like, in the middle of all this, they have all these questions. They're trying to figure all this out, and he says, hey, anybody have any fish? And he just sits down while they're all staring at him, and he just eats this fish, you know? And I imagine the transformation that happened in them as they were just like.
[00:11:23] Like seeing this and really beginning to trust what they're actually seeing in front of them.
[00:11:31] If you. If you're like, me and you grown up with the story that Jesus was resurrected again, right? There's, like, some. There's something behind all that that's like, sure. Like, I just. I've kind of, like, I start.
[00:11:43] I kind of started with the. I had to, like, make myself go back and think, like, oh, yeah, that is weird that I would. Why. Why do I think that's okay? That is not normal. You know that nobody in the world thought this could happen. And so when it's happening in front of them, they are.
[00:11:56] They're not. They don't know how to process it. Okay, Perfectly normal. The reason I say all this is because we, especially this. We're going to look at a comparative story out of John and Thomas. Doubts in there, they're all doubt. There are these doubts that are taking place and we're so quick to.
[00:12:18] We're so quick to, like, look down on Thomas for doubting or anyone for doubting or for being frightened or, you know, all that kind of stuff.
[00:12:27] And I think sometimes it's just that our experience needs a minute. You know what I mean?
[00:12:35] And if you have the grace with yourself to say, I don't know why I'm.
[00:12:40] All these things that are going around in the world causing me to doubt and causing me to be afraid, why don't I just have faith in the moment, like, all the time? You know, there is some discipleship around, like learning to reflexively look back to Christ, to look back to him in the moment and to touch grass and to say like, no, this thing isn't overwhelming.
[00:13:02] In a world where sin and death has been defeated, these things aren't as desperate as they seem at outside of Christ. Like, I can look to Christ and I can place this experience in that context, and my anxiety, my doubt, my fear can subside. But you know what? Sometimes it takes me a minute, you know, sometimes it might take you a minute for your faith to catch up with the moment.
[00:13:28] That's okay.
[00:13:29] It happened here.
[00:13:33] He finishes his fish.
[00:13:36] Then he said, when I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
[00:13:45] Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. I don't know if he just taught them, you know, just like, let me. Let me. Let me. Let me run you. Let me run you through all these passages that you knew, that you've already memorized, but you didn't see, in light of what you're seeing in front of you right now, you. You didn't understand those passages in light of the resurrection on this side. Now that you have seen what I have done, what's happened to me now you can understand these Scriptures in ways that you weren't able to before then. He said, yes. It was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise, rise and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all nations beginning in Jerusalem.
[00:14:36] There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.
[00:14:41] You are witnesses to these things.
[00:14:44] He, in the middle of revealing himself, he emphasizes the core gospel.
[00:14:52] There is forgiveness for sins.
[00:14:57] The relationship between sin and death is one for one.
[00:15:01] Like the reason that death exists is sin. Sin is the end of death. Like the defeat of death. Sin is the defeat of death.
[00:15:11] I am.
[00:15:13] Jesus says, I am the defeat of death.
[00:15:17] I am the defeat of sin.
[00:15:20] When you go and you tell this gospel message, those who receive that message and accept me as their Lord and their Savior will no longer be under the heel of that, of the fear and of the doubt that causes you to make the choices that you think you need to make to survive in this world of sin.
[00:15:43] Because death no longer has a hold of you.
[00:15:46] You are rescued from that.
[00:15:48] You are all witnesses to this. As he's finishing eating that fish, you are witnesses to the defeat of death.
[00:15:56] This is the story you're going to go tell.
[00:15:59] I love the way that Luke.
[00:16:03] Luke has, like a. This story has, like, a tenderness to it. There's a lot of, like, you're hearing a lot of, like, heart behind, or. I'm hearing a lot of heart behind it. How they were feeling, what they were thinking and all that kind of stuff. John tells this story also.
[00:16:17] John tells it a little bit differently, which is exactly the way, like, if we left here and I said you and you, like, tell. You guys get up here and tell, like, what happened in worship service this morning, there'd be some. They would agree and they'd be different, right?
[00:16:33] And especially, you know, you got different personalities and whatever, all that kind of stuff that takes place. And I love reading the same account from John's perspective because there's some details in there that I think are, like, very powerful that I miss in Luke, but there's some heart in Luke that I sometimes miss in John. So I want. I want to look at this from John's perspective and get some of the. The nuance behind it that kind of backfills some of the reason for the. The emotions that were happening in Luke. John, chapter 20 says that Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors. We don't. We don't hear that in. In Luke. They're. They were meeting behind Locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them. Now, when I was a kid, I thought, like, ooh, he, like. Like, magicked through the door, you know, maybe. Maybe he did. Or maybe, like, locks just didn't work for him. This in, what was it, Acts 10 or Acts 12, this happens to Peter. He's in jail. The.
[00:17:38] His. His bonds, his shackles fall away. He goes to the door, the door opens for him.
[00:17:45] It could be just like that. I know I locked that door.
[00:17:49] Jesus is there anyway. Like, what?
[00:17:52] Like, did you, Peter? Did you forget to lock the door? Nope. So it could have been like that. I don't know how. Either way, he's there among them. And he says, again, peace be with you. As much as the differences between their stories matter to me, the similarities matter.
[00:18:07] The first thing. What's the first thing I heard from Jesus on his resurrection on this side of the crucifixion? Peace be with you when Jesus shows up.
[00:18:21] When Jesus is present, having defeated sin and death, peace is with you. They all remembered that. Every testimony about this first moment, what they remembered was, peace be with you being the first thing that he said.
[00:18:35] And as he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side.
[00:18:38] We got from Luke why? Like, they were, like, freaking out.
[00:18:42] And if we just had John, it's like, hey, guys, what's up? See my nails? No.
[00:18:47] Like, he had strong reason for doing it. Or see the nail marks? He says they were filled with joy when he saw the Lord. John's testimony is like, he's looking back and he's like, oh, I was so happy. He forgets, like, we were freaking out, like, so. I love that he's correct. They were filled with joy, and they didn't know if they were seeing a ghost. They didn't know what was going on.
[00:19:10] Their brains were glitching.
[00:19:12] But he was filled with joy when he saw the Lord. And again, he said, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. Now, this is going to be interesting because this gets back to what Luke had to say about, like, you're going to be my witness about the good news.
[00:19:34] Here's the way John remembers that.
[00:19:37] As the Father has sent me, so I'm sending you.
[00:19:40] Then he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.
[00:19:46] If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
[00:19:53] This sounds a little like.
[00:19:55] Well, that sounds powerful, doesn't it? You are forgiven. You are not forgiven. No Soup for you. You know, like, it's just like arbitrary. Whoo. Gosh. Right?
[00:20:05] This is really important.
[00:20:07] The Holy Spirit on you, the witness on you. Peace be on you. You are sent by.
[00:20:15] I was sent by the Father, and I am sending you.
[00:20:18] You are sent from me, filled with me, to deliver the story of me.
[00:20:26] And those who receive me will be forgiven. And those who do not receive me will not be forgiven. And your testimony will mark those that are forgiven and those that aren't. There are going to be a lot of ideas about what salvation is like. There's always a lot of ideas about what salvation is like. That's what philosophy is. The idea that we. What is a good life? What does a good life look like? How do you. If you are dealing with depression, anxiety, whatever, what is. What is the solution to your. What is the solution to your problems? What fixes your problems?
[00:21:00] The disciples say the first thing that has to happen is you have to see the world correctly.
[00:21:07] Sin and death isn't what you think it is.
[00:21:11] Sin isn't necessary the way you think it's necessary.
[00:21:15] You don't have to desecrate your soul to survive anymore.
[00:21:20] Everything that you think you need to do to make it, you don't have to. Because God has overcome sin and death through Jesus Christ.
[00:21:30] I have a different perspective for you to see the world through. And when you do, you will begin to feel. Feel differently about what you're experiencing. I use this. I know I've used this illustration before and it must be a bad one because I don't think it lands, but I'm still going to use it because it makes sense to me.
[00:21:48] Like, some people cannot stand roller coasters because the experience, they're just free falling, right?
[00:21:56] I love roller coasters because I'm strapped in. I got this bar around me. I know that I'm perfectly safe, you know, Like, I. No problem, but I'm afraid of heights. Like, if I'm like looking over a cliff and it's just like a. Especially for me, it's like, it's gotta be like this. I gotta be. Hold something. If somebody were to come and hit me from behind, there's a certain point here where I'd flip over. You know what I'm saying? Like, in my mind, like, there's a certain spot, like, safe, like, you know what I mean?
[00:22:27] I am not okay with, like, looking over a cliff and not having something like, right here in my grip, in it, you know what I mean?
[00:22:34] Because my perspective is radically different than if I'm in that roller coaster, that bar makes all the, like, literally, I'm having two different experiences. If I were free falling like I do in a roller coaster without all that contraption around me, bro, I would not be. Ahah. I would be having a different experience. Okay? Your perspective, like what you know is happening physically in the world around you changes everything.
[00:23:01] And what he's saying is, you know, now you've touched me, you've seen me, you've watched me eat fish.
[00:23:11] You know, now I was dead and I am alive. And I am telling you, you can follow me into this life away from sin. Your perspective does not have to be the same that it's always been.
[00:23:26] You are forgiven.
[00:23:29] If you don't change your perspective, if you don't agree with the gospel, then you will continue to agree with sin and you will not be saved from sin.
[00:23:43] You will go on needing to protect yourself. Nobody sins to be a jerk.
[00:23:50] You sin because you, you need to protect yourself.
[00:23:55] You don't need to do that anymore. If they listen to you, if they will receive your message, they are free.
[00:24:03] And if they don't, they aren't.
[00:24:06] So you, your message, the story that you will tell, is how people's sins will be forgiven. And if they don't trust your message, they will not be forgiven.
[00:24:16] Now, one of the 12 disciples wasn't there notice in John's story, I don't see doubt anywhere. So far.
[00:24:21] It was like from the start over in Luke's story, it was like, oh yeah, there's like, don't worry, why are you doubting? You know, that kind of stuff. So far they're just like joyful, whatever.
[00:24:32] Thomas bears all the load for doubt in John's story and they're very good friends. And I don't know, sometimes I'm reading John and I feel like he would like, oh, that's a dig at Peter. That's a dig at Thomas.
[00:24:47] Thomas is bearing all the load for all of their doubt right here. This is poor Thomas, but maybe, maybe it's for good reason. One of the 12 disciples, Thomas, nicknamed Twin, was not with the other others when Jesus came and they said, hey, we've just seen the Lord.
[00:25:03] But Thomas replied, I won't believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands and put my fingers in them and place my hands into the wounds in his side.
[00:25:14] Now they did.
[00:25:15] Jesus did that for the other disciples. John doesn't say he did that because they needed it. Like John's, not like I needed to see, I was doubting and I Needed to see it. He just like, Jesus walked in and did that for me. That's great, right? But Thomas. Oh, Thomas doubting Thomas, you know, that guy, he's always like, oh, let's go to Jerusalem and die. You know, he's always pessimist, Thomas. He, like, he needs to. He needs to see these nail marks, right?
[00:25:40] So eight days later, which is kind of probably going to be the next Sunday, they would usually count. Like, they would.
[00:25:46] I'm in this day, and I'm in the next Sunday. They would kind of think of like living in those two days. So it's probably the next Sunday because so far, we're still on Resurrection Sunday until this point.
[00:25:57] Like, all of this has taken place till that night, that first day. So eight days later, the disciples were together again. And this time, Thomas was with them. The doors were locked again.
[00:26:11] But suddenly again, Jesus was standing among them. This time they're like, okay, that's what he does.
[00:26:18] And again he says, peace be with you.
[00:26:22] Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and look at my hands. Put your hands in the wound on my side.
[00:26:28] Don't be faithless any longer.
[00:26:32] Believe.
[00:26:33] Now. This is. This sounds really harsh to me.
[00:26:39] You know, I've just told you, like, it's okay.
[00:26:42] You know, doubting, it's like something you have to, like, in the face of things that don't make sense, you have to remember.
[00:26:50] You have to remember the reality of Jesus and what he's done and why. You don't need to be afraid of these things anymore.
[00:26:56] We need to kind of. Our spirit is being malformed, and we have to be reformed constantly through discipleship and remembering who Christ is, right?
[00:27:08] So, like, that's really important.
[00:27:10] But here Jesus says, thomas, don't be faithless anymore.
[00:27:16] Faith and belief are essentially the same word. And they are the same word. It's just one's a verb, one's a noun. Like, we'll say, I believe, right? And you have faith. Faith is like a substance, like a thing that you have, like an object, a noun. And faith is a verb. But it's the same word. Pistis for them. They just had. It's the same word.
[00:27:38] So they.
[00:27:40] Faith faithfulness kind of has, like, an allegiance quality to it. Like, I'm faithful to my wife, you know, this is who I am. I'm going to be faithful to this person and belief. I believe in them like, they're part of me. It's more than just like, I think that thing is happening.
[00:28:04] So when he says that, when he says that he's faithless. I think, oh, that's terrible. But all it means is he's like, you put an A in front of Pistis and it's not.
[00:28:17] Not faithful, not believing.
[00:28:20] I am doubtful. That's all it is. Don't be doubtful anymore.
[00:28:26] Don't forget who you are to me anymore.
[00:28:34] You know, sometimes we're like, when we think about being a faithless spouse, it immediately goes to, like, having sex with someone else or something like that.
[00:28:47] Faithlessness comes a long time before that. It has to do with forgetting who you are to that person, who that person is to you.
[00:28:55] Like what it means to be bound up in that person.
[00:28:58] And so you have seen me now, and you no longer need to doubt that you can be bound up in me.
[00:29:12] I have to think that even after these. Just these first few days, they had given their allegiance, they had given their faithfulness to this Messiah, this one that was going to come and liberate and restore them, this one that was going to come and be the representative of God on earth and bring justice to the people of God.
[00:29:32] And who they were allegiant to died.
[00:29:38] That bond of faithfulness has broken. Jesus was not who they thought he was.
[00:29:45] It turned out that Jesus was saving them from something that they didn't even realize they needed to be saved from.
[00:29:53] What Messiah was was different than they thought. And so what it meant to be faithful was different than what they thought it was to be faithful.
[00:30:01] Jesus is telling them not to be faithless anymore, to be faithful to who I. Now that you see who I actually am, now you see what salvation really is. Now you see what the gospel message really is. Be faithful to me now, not to the Messiah that you imagined me to be, but to the Messiah I actually am.
[00:30:18] This is being told to Thomas, but this was something that every single disciple had to go through. They all had to become. They had to die. It's almost like baptism. They had to die to who they were and to be resurrected to a new faithfulness to the Messiah that they. When they finally came to understand who he really was, because none of them got it until he explained it to them. So in a sense, they all had to become re faithful to the new Messiah that they never knew.
[00:30:47] And Thomas's response is jarring. He says, my Lord and my God.
[00:30:55] If he had just said, my Lord, Lord just means if someone is a Lord, that is like, if this is your kingdom, your will be done in that kingdom. This is the span of your effective will.
[00:31:06] If you say, you know, go get me that car over there and bring it over to me. Your will be done, Lord, because you're the Lord. That's what it meant to be a Lord, was that your will was done in this space. So Lord enough is like, that's massive.
[00:31:25] To call Jesus God is blasphemous if he's not God.
[00:31:31] So you could say, like, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to put my faith in you. I'm going to. You could be my Lord, you know, whatever. That allegiance, that wasn't something you broke lightly or whatever. But to put your allegiance in someone, in a person, that was okay. But God was. There was one God. Like literally, the Israelites are wiped out several times because they refused to play the game of participating in these multiple gods. They refused to. They refused to participate in the pantheon of gods that existed around them because it was blasphemous to them to acknowledge any other God but God alone.
[00:32:05] And so for Thomas to be the first to say not just that you are Lord, but that you are Lord and God, but he not only saw Jesus as this resurrected, like Messiah figure, he looked through that and said, I was wrong totally about what the Messiah was.
[00:32:26] The Messiah is God.
[00:32:30] No one could do this except God alone.
[00:32:35] You are God.
[00:32:37] And Jesus receives that.
[00:32:39] He receives that from him.
[00:32:42] We are told here that Jesus is God.
[00:32:47] And if it was false, if Jesus was not God, then everything that he says here would have been, would have. All the disciples would have blown up over it. A lot of times people have a heart. Maybe we'll do a Trinity series at some point and talk about the relation, the three persons, three in one, what it means to be the Trinity. But Thomas didn't have that full understanding of what the Trinity was, but he did understand that Jesus was God. And Jesus looks at him and he says, you believe because you have seen me.
[00:33:21] Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.
[00:33:25] He's literally looking at Thomas, acknowledging his godhood, looking through him to you and saying, you are blessed for seeing the same thing. Thomas says, without touching my hands and feet, you have received the testimony of these disciples and you have the blessing.
[00:33:48] You have the same blessing of the Holy Spirit that existed for the disciples for you. Now that blessing exists for you without even seeing because of your belief.
[00:34:03] Now let me be very frank.
[00:34:06] Without the testimony of the disciples, I would have nothing to believe. Without them having gone through this massive transformation process, coming out the other side through their doubt into this belief and this confession of who he was, I would have nothing to hang my hat on. I'm extremely grateful for them. This isn't a knock on Thomas or the disciples, but this is an acknowledgment that as we look back to their testimony, we are dependent on their. We are dependent on them. We are an apostolic church. That means the teaching of the disciples is what we hang our hat on. And it's not for nothing that we do that. Historically, you look back, you look back on what happened to them and there is no good explanation for their testimony.
[00:34:51] Here are the two primary explanations for their testimony. One is they had a mass hallucination in which they believed that he was resurrected and that he was God.
[00:35:04] The other was that they actually experienced the resurrected God. Those are literally the two biggest current, like Christians believe this and non Christians believe that. But historically, no one looks back historically at this point and says there was some mass conspiracy where these people lied about there being it. They act as whether or not they actually experienced a resurrected God.
[00:35:30] Their actions say that they believed that there was a resurrected Christ. Their actions say that at least.
[00:35:40] So I'm left with, like, intellectually, I'm left with two bad options.
[00:35:45] People do not resurrect from the dead, just like there are no vampires.
[00:35:49] And yet this happened. Historically, this experience led to the actions of these people.
[00:35:59] And I am left to either trust or not trust their testimony. If I don't trust their testimony, then I have to say, well, they believe that they experienced that, all several hundred of them, for some reason.
[00:36:21] It is a blessing that we believe without seeing, but it is a blessing to us that they believe because they saw their experience isn't something we look back on and say, yeah, yeah, our faith is better than that. No, our faith is dependent on that. And we, we are grateful for these men who went through the despair, the fear, the doubt, the joy, the hope and the belief and the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord and God.
[00:36:56] This is where we are so far in the story. Let's pray.
[00:37:03] Father God, as we continue to look at the development of these men and see how their spirit was reformed to become the seed, the beginning of this new church, Your church, Lord, Your kingdom on earth. God, I pray that we come to understand where we came from and what we are called to, what we have been called to as a result of Jesus operating and working on these men to share and confess their experiences with you.
[00:37:35] Father God, we trust you, we love you, we follow you, we are faithful to you. Amen.
