The Lord is With You

We are spending the next few weeks allowing the Gospel of John to help us discover or rediscover the ways that God can be revealed to us. We are starting this week by being reminded that “The Lord is With You.” Our scripture comes from John 20:19-31.

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. 21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe x that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Please pray with me…

There maybe times in our lives when God is with us, but we struggle to find him or believing that he is with us. Our scripture for today takes us on a journey. We have a group of the disciples have Jesus make an appearance.

We have another disciple that believes they may have seen something but he needs proof to believe that it is Jesus who is alive. We call him doubting Thomas, but it would be my guess that all of us at times have doubted.

We have wished that we could put our hand in his side and feel the intentions that the nails made in Jesus’ hands. Thomas needed physical proof that Jesus was with him. We don’t have that kind of proof, that means that we need faith.

A faith that tells us that we are not alone during the worst of times. A faith that can lead us to worship God during the best of times. A faith that allows us to be there for those that are hurting anytime.

Our scripture begins with a lack of faith not by Thomas but by the other disciples. We have the disciples hidden away in fear. They were expecting that they would be the next ones to die. They weren’t looking for Jesus even though Jesus told them that he would be back.

They were waiting for the next news cycle to remove them from the headlines. They were trying to survive long enough to be able to get out of town and stay away from Jerusalem forever. They were glad that social media wasn’t around to mock them in their defeat.

I spoke of this last week, they couldn’t believe that the Messiah could be put to death, let alone receive the most humiliating of deaths by being hung upon the cross. They believed that they must have been tricked by him.

God had other plans.  God reveals himself to them in order to allow them to believe that he was a Lord worth following. He was and is the Messiah. God came down to earth to live among them in order to show them how God desired for humanity to follow him, and how God wanted humanity to live with each other.

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We should desire to reach a point in our faith journey that we can be like Paul in our first reading and say out loud “If God is for us, who can be against us?” The disciples had to see Jesus to believe, we have to find a way to allow our faith factor to be greater than our doubt factor.

One of the things I hate most about being a pastor is when the sermon hits to close to home. I am writing words that I don’t want to write because they are as challenging to me as they may be to each one of you.

I have faith but I still often allow my doubts to paralyze me so that I don’t move forward. I get stopped because the doubts start creeping in. Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Will I look stupid when I don’t know what to say or how to say it?

We need to find a way to have these negative “am I’s” and “will I’s” have less control of our thought process. We need to allow ourselves to believe “that through God all things are possible.” We need to have that become our mantra.

After all, it is true that we aren’t good enough or smart enough. It is why we need to have the faith to believe that the Lord is with us and will give us the words to say so that I won’t look stupid. Faith is us being willing to step out of our comfort zone and rely on God more and ourselves less.

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Jesus says this regarding us when Thomas needs the physical Jesus to believe. He says,“blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” He is saying that our faith is greater than Thomas’ faith.

I want to make sure you understand that. Thomas has followed Jesus for three plus years. He has seen the miracles live. He has heard the words in person but yet when it comes to this moment, he doesn’t have the faith to believe.

Those of us that do believe have had to believe from the beginning without touching Jesus. We have had from the beginning to decide if we believe the words from scripture. We had to decide that the Lord desires to be with us, and he is worth having become a part of our lives.

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Jesus didn’t just stop by and say “hi.” He offered proof to the disciples that he was the Messiah. He came with a gift that he wanted to give them. He came with the Holy Spirit and a promise of the same power that he had during his time on earth.

We find that the disciples end up using that power for good just as they had witnessed Jesus do before them. We find in scripture them going from students, the disciples, to the sent-out ones, the Apostles.

They take the message of Jesus outside of Jerusalem and share it with the world. That is what we find in our text from last week from Acts chapter 10. We have Peter who was given the Holy Spirit speaking to those that are not Jewish. The conversation ends up leading to the people of that household receiving the Holy Spirit.

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We are not called to just receive. We are also called to share the Gospel of Jesus with those that are around us. We are called to allow for them to decide if they want to receive the same gift offered by Jesus to the disciples.

We find in today’s text that the disciples first had to believe that Jesus was alive. They had to verify that Jesus was really in physical form before them. They went from people of fear to people who believed that Jesus was able to be their Savior.

We can become the verification to people around us that Jesus is the Savior of the world. He is the Messiah that died on a cross to save each one of us. We can become verification to those around us.

We can be the ones that help those God places before us believe that God first loved us. He came down to earth to die for us. And he left us a helper who we call, the Holy Spirit. And he wants to do be that person to each person that walks the earth.

But we not only have the scriptures, we also have our own stories to share. Stories of how our lives were changed through our willingness to become followers of Jesus. Stories of how Jesus is with us no matter what we are going through and how he will also be there for each one of us.

Let us be willing to share our stories. Let us be willing to allow for those around us to hear how our lives were changed through Jesus and the example he gave to us and the gift he has offered to each one of us, the Holy Spirit.

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We are more likely to have our faith overcome our doubts and fears when we believe completely that “the Lord is with us.” Paul offers it to us this way in Romans 8:37, he says that if we are relying on God “we are more than conquers.”

We can do more than conquer the power of sin and death. I would say it this way that with God’s help and the love that he gives to each one of us, we also can become overcomers. When we rely on him, we are able to overcome the obstacles of life.

We do this when we are willing to allow Jesus to walk with us on our journey. The important phrase in that statement is “with us.” We have to be careful that we don’t walk in front of Jesus or behind Jesus. Jesus needs us to be walking with him.

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What does it mean for us to be walking behind God? This is what I am very good at not as a pastor but individually, I am willing to move forward when I believe that God has already prepared the way. It is us saying OK God I will do what you want after I see that everything is set up for success.

We find this throughout the New Testament with the request for Jesus to provide signs and wonders. They want Jesus to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the Messiah. Walking behind God doesn’t take much faith. It is us forcing God to show us that he is who we say we believe he is.

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We walk behind God when we choose to not tell those God places before us about Jesus. We have enough faith to believe that God can bring people into a relationship with him, but we don’t believe that he wants us to help him.

We are saying that we want God to lead people to our church but yet we don’t invite anyone to church. We have faith in what God can do but we lack the faith that we are the right person to help him do it.

Again, I am as guilty as you. As one of my pastor’s often said if I am pointing a finger at you I am pointing three fingers back at me. You are not alone if walking with God is something that you are struggling doing. We each have to find the way for us to find the faith. We need to believe that God is helping us instead of relying on him to do all of the work for us.

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We also can find ourselves walking ahead of God. This will often occur for the opposite reason. We have walked with God and been successful and now we believe that God will always be with us in all that we do.

What we forget is that God has us work not in our timing but in his timing. We are ready to move forward, and God is still preparing the way for us to be successful. God is setting up the parameters to allow for our success.

But instead,we move forward without speaking to God. We move forward without asking God to help us. We move forward assuming what God wants us to do instead of asking if what we want to do is part of his plan.

We find theIsraelites doing this during their time of taking over the land promised them. They would decide it was time to conquer a specific people-group. They wouldmove forward and they would end up being conquered. They would then cry out to God and ask why he isn’t helping them.

God will then remind them that they never asked if they were doing what he wanted done. They believed that God is with them even when they aren’t doing what God desires for them to do. They are leading God instead of allowing God to walk with them.

 This often happens with great intentions but without the understanding that we are to do what our Lord desires for us to do. The Lord is the reigning power. We should not attempt to work outside of the will of the Lord.

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What we need to do is walk with the Lord. We need to choose that we are going to rely on God to lead us down the path he wants us to go and be willing to step forward to help him fulfill his plan.

This is us stepping out of our comfort zone and taking a step forward in faith with him. We are believing that God is with us and will not abandon us. We are telling God that we believe that he can help us overcome the obstacles that we might face.

We find an example of this through a man named Enoch. He is probably the least known person that we find in what is called the faith hall of fame in Hebrews chapter 11. We find one short mention of him in all of scripture in Genesis chapter 25.

The only information we receive about him is that he is the father of Methuselah and that he did not experience death because “he walked with God.” That’s it. This should stress to us the importance of walking with God.

We don’t receive any examples of what he did. What we do know is that because of the way he walked with God he is one of only two people in scripture that did not have a human death, him and Elijah.

What does it mean for us to walk with God? It means that we are in communication with God. We are listening for God to tell us what he desires for us to do.

It means that we respond to God. We hear what God desires from us and then we without hesitation go and do what God asks for us to do.

It means that we trust God. We have the faith to believe that God wouldn’t send us if he wasn’t going to be with us. We believe that God has prepared the way for our success.

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This is not only the case for us individually but also for us as the church. It is why this is the year of traction. We are allowing time for us to hear from God and discern what God his desires for us as a church.

We are preparing the way through our mission statement. We received an understanding of what God wants us to do, and we are taking the time to hear his voice. We are getting ready for God to tell us to go.

Our first reading gives us some insights on what happens when we believe that God is with us. Paul tells us that

“Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

There is nothing that can stop us when we believe that the Lord is with us. Therefore, let us be in prayer. Let us be ready to move in the direction that God desires for us to go individually and as a church. Let us believe that the Lord is with us all of the time and trust him to help us in all we say and do.

Please pray with me…