Dealing with Doubt

Intro: 2 truths and a lie

I’ve eaten worms in a meal.

I’ve broken my spine.

I’ve climbed up a waterfall

Life with Jesus is a life of faith

John 20:19-31.

The Life of Faith

Jesus shows up to His disciples (minus Thomas) and talks with them

Jesus brings peace.

The very first thing that Jesus tells His disciples since He died (outside of Mary of course) is that He brings peace.

You’d almost think He’d say something else! Something like “I’m back,” or “I missed you guys”

In this passage, He says peace be with you 3 times.

Jesus is fulfilling a promise that He made in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

When Jesus says “Peace be with you,” He’s saying that because He has died and risen from the dead, we are given the peace of God! We don’t have to be troubled or afraid because Jesus has brought peace!

If we follow Jesus, we are brought into His peace.

Notice, this isn’t just a concept of peace or some mystical idea of peace like Buddhists have. It’s a real, tangible peace from a real, tangible God.

It’s a peace that can only be gained with a relationship with Jesus!

We are sent.

After Jesus brings peace, He tells them that He has sent them, and then breathes the Holy Spirit on them.

This whole being sent thing is so interesting because Jesus provides us with a job.

When Jesus was on earth, His job was to spread the Kingdom of God on earth.

After Jesus left, it’s now our job to spread the Kingdom of God on earth.

We get to be a part of the mission of God!

So you are already a missionary! Whether you are paid for it or not, whether you’re going on a mission trip or not, you are empowered by the grace of God to be a messenger of God on earth!

That was the whole point of Him breathing the Spirit of God on them. He’s giving them the ability to go out and tell others about Christ.

And, it’s a callback to Genesis 2! In Gen. 2, God breathes life into Adam so that Adam can live; and then Jesus breathes life into you and I so that we can live like Christ!

It’s the message of the Gospel! Ephesians 2:1 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins”

We were dead because of our sin! We had no life in us, we were just dead bodies still walking, but then Christ came and died so that we could live!

He forgave us from our sin by taking our sin on Himself and provided us a new life where we can be with God forever

And part of that means being a disciple who calls others to being with Jesus.

Verse 23 though, is incredibly intense!

What do you think this means?

This doesn’t mean that if you don’t like someone that you can tell God never to forgive them and He won’t.

This seems to mean that you and I are responsible for proclaiming the Word of God to others.

Your friends, family, classmates, and neighbors that don’t know Jesus are your mission field! You can tell others about Him!

And, if we aren’t willing to do that, either we have made our view of them so high that they are better than the message of freedom and redemption through God, or we think too low of them.

Either way, we aren’t allowing them to come to a right faith in Jesus by neglecting to tell them about Jesus!

I don’t want to get to heaven and miss out on my friends because I was too busy looking out for myself.

All of this is great, but we still have a problem to deal with. We all doubt! I’m sure we have all, at some point, not fully believed the message of the Gospel! And this is where a dude named Thomas comes in.

Dealing with Doubt

Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus showed up and did all the cool things. So, when the other disciples tell him about Jesus coming in to their room, he doesn’t believe them.

So, Thomas earns the title “Doubting Thomas”

Here’s the problem, ALL OF THEM DOUBTED!

They were in that room huddled up together because they doubted that Jesus was coming back!

They were shown Jesus’ hands and side, just like Thomas asked for!

All that to say, I don’t like calling Thomas doubting Thomas, because if he get’s that name, I should get much worse names for stuff I’ve done.

But, in Thomas, I think we see a blueprint on what to do in dealing with doubt.

Doubt isn’t wrong!

There’s a weird belief in Christianity that you’re not allowed to ever doubt anything that the church tells you. That’s wrong!

You’re absolutely allowed to question things and to have difficulty believing! The disciples did, and it’s not like Jesus smited them for doing it!

Jesus doesn’t even attack Thomas for doubting!

He addresses him and talks to him, but Jesus doesn’t seem to be angry here at all!

There’s a phenomena that people have noticed recently called deconstruction. People will look at their faith and then deconstruct it (break it down into it’s pieces) and then see what the foundation is. And people are terrified of it.

We’ll hear pastors try to scare you away from ever deconstructing your faith because then you won’t believe in Jesus

BUT IF JESUS IS THE SOURCE OF YOUR FAITH THEN IT CAN’T BREAK DOWN!

So you should deconstruct your faith constantly! We should always be questioning what we actually believe, because if we find out that the God that we’ve been following isn’t the God that we see in the Bible, then we need to change that!

And know, if and when you ever deal with doubt, you’re not alone!

Everyone has experienced doubt! We’ve all questioned our faith, but we’ve come out the other side stronger for it because it brought us closer to Him!

Be open.

Thomas is probably being sceptical when he gives his way that he’ll believe Jesus, but he was still there with his friends 8 days later!

He didn’t leave, he didn’t say “screw you guys, you’re dumb,” he stayed.

So, if you’re dealing with doubt, don’t just give up because it’s getting hard! Lean in, let God work in you!

You can’t do that with math!

It’s not like in school you can just give up because something get’s difficult! Often if it’s difficult, that means it’s worth learning!

Don’t give up on youth group or church or praying or reading your Bible just because you’re having a hard time doubting. Maybe that’s God working on you to lean in harder to grow with Him!

Encounter Jesus.

What happened to Thomas to make him believe?

It wasn’t informed apologetics!

It wasn’t the right book!

It wasn’t a certain preacher or song or program!

The way that Thomas was brought back to faith is by encountering Jesus!

All of that other stuff can be helpful, and it can help facilitate people encountering Jesus, but the only way any of us will ever come to faith is by meeting the real Jesus!

How are we supposed to encounter Jesus now?

V. 29: We can’t see Him!

We aren’t able to touch Him like Thomas did, so what are we supposed to do.

Pray

Read His Word

Worship Him

Practice being with Him.

When we can put the energy into really being with Jesus, we get all of our other junk out of the way so that we can be with Him.

Jesus is just as real now as He was then. Jesus can be just as real to you as He was to Thomas.

Thomas came back to the faith that day, and he followed Jesus powerfully.

In church tradition, Thomas went out preaching the Gospel and spread the Kingdom to the point where he made it all the way to India. Some people say that he actually started the first church in China as well, until he was murdered in the streets of India for preaching the Gospel.

Vs. 30-31 shows us what we can do.

This Book is there to give us access to God, that we can believe in Him. We have an ability to talk with, sit with, and be with God.

Your doubt can be used powerfully by God to bring you to a better relationship with Him.

Questions.

What is the best cookie?

Who can you be a missionary for Jesus to in your life?

Have you ever doubted in God? How did that experience feel to you?

What can you do this week to encounter Jesus?