Redeeming Doubt

Intro

Have you every heard a story that was just so extraordinary that you could not believe it?

Like every time that I watch the Lord of the Rings I cannot believe that that happened

Or even Star Wars, and I know that it all took place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away but I can’t wrap my head around it

I’m a Lee, and the Lee’s are pretty good at telling stories

We’re also pretty good at embellishing our stories, whether that’s a portion of the story or all of it

My dad once told me a story of a time that he and his brothers found an entrance to the storm drains and sewers open near their house and they spent the day exploring all these different tunnels

No idea if that’s true, but it’s a fun story

I used to work at Maranatha, and while I worked there I built a secret race track with some of my coworkers and we used to race each other late at night on the security golf cart late at night. One night it was raining and I flipped the golf cart, wrecked it, told my boss, and she told me to fix it and let me keep working there. (Messages, Mar 3, 2022)

Some stories are so out there that you just can’t believe them

The story of the resurrection is so fantastical it can be difficult for many

One of the primary stories where we see that is with Thomas

Which, what is his nickname?

“Doubting Thomas”

Which is so funny, He messes up one time and gets this nickname

Peter messed up three times in one night and we don’t call him “Denying Peter”

Paul doesn’t get called “Murdering Paul”

Just Thomas

And even with Thomas, what he is asking for is what everyone else has gotten so far

Pray

Story

Read John 20:19-25

I need to preface this by saying there is a lot of content in these verses. Today we are discussing Thomas, not everything that is in these verses. If you have questions, I will be around after for a while and you are welcome to ask.

Alright, let’s get into it.

Jesus has been crucified, He’s been in the tomb for three days and has raised from the dead.

There are a number of appearances that Jesus makes after the resurrection

Like to Mary

To the two on the road to Emmaus

here with the disciples, but Thomas is not with them

I have no idea why, I just know that John tells us that Thomas was not there with them

The disciples are hiding from the Jews, for good reason, after all, just a few days ago their leader was crucified

They’re behind locked doors and suddenly Christ appears in the midst of them saying “peace be with you”

They are terrified of what’s going on and what might happen to them and Jesus is like “you know what would be a great entrance?”

(If I give them the greatest jump scare of all time, and say “peace be with you”)

What Jesus is doing is showing them yet another miracle to demonstrate his resurrection

He shows them His hands and His side to show that it really is Him and they rejoice

But who is not there?

Thomas

You know what is really interesting to me?

We forget, I think, that the other ten disciples got to see Jesus’ side and his hands too. Thomas says he will not believe until he sees what they have seen

He’s asking for what we might call “fair”

I only want what everyone else is getting we might say

But that is not the point

What was Thomas’ doubt? What was he doubting?

Thomas was not doubting the Person, he was not doubting whether or not Christ existed

He knew that, He lived with Him, and learned from Him

He was doubting whether Christ had raised from the dead

But there had been multiple reports at this point in time

Thomas could not cross the bridge

Even when it was his brothers that he had lived with and trusted over the last three years he could not trust them further on this point

John 20:25 ESV

So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

I will never believe

Stating an absolute like that is never a good place to be

And I know that I just used one but mine is fitting

I will never believe unless I see the proof

Have you ever been in this position before? Or seen a friend of yours in this position?

Maybe it wasn’t a position like this exactly, but it was somewhere similar

Maybe it was one of those messages on Instagram saying that easter or Christmas came out of pagan traditions

Or perhaps it’s the age old thought that because the Bible is so old we can’t trust that it has been preserved

Or maybe it’s that the disciples made up the whole thing

Or maybe the doubts came out of nowhere, “can I really believe this? Can I trust these words? What if?”

You have doubts that God hears you

That He cares about you because you’ve been praying for this thing for so long

Does He see you where you are at?

Then we come to the thought, “I am a terrible Christian”

“how could I doubt?”

You’re right, this is not a nice place to be, and it’s not somewhere that you want to spend a lot of time in, because it sucks and it feels terrible

But you’re not going to help it by remaining alone

Thomas’ friends were on the same page but he placed himself in isolation. Isolated with his doubts, and what do you think that’s going to breed?

What happens when you sit with your doubts and don’t share them with the people around you? You are only going to feel more and more isolated.

So Thomas is there, but he doesn’t remain there, because Jesus meets with him too

Read John 20:26-29

What happens to Thomas? Jesus shows up

He shows up still with the marks and the scars, with the holes in His hand and the hole in His side

And tells Thomas to see them and touch them

I. He Meets Us Where We Are

Look, you don’t want to rest in doubt, you don’t want to remain there. But Jesus is there with you

He has never left you, even when you are doubting He has remained by your side the whole time

You cannot escape Him

Psalm 139:7–12 ESV

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

Thomas says that he will never believe unless this happens, well it did happen and Jesus tells him

Do not be unbelieving, but believing

I love that so much

Living in the present tense there

Don’t go on unbelieving, leave that behind you but live in believing

Believe it, that’s faith

He meets us where we are at

II. He Meets Us With Mercy

There is mercy for Thomas, he is not left as a lost cause

Jesus appears to him, giving the evidence and calls him out of his unbelief

We don’t see condemnation we don’t see judgment, we see love from Christ

Even after suffering at the hands of sinners Christ continues to love, to love His people

How amazing is that?

Don’t hear me say that you can stay where you are at. No, we need to repent and turn away from our sins when we are meddled in with them. And when we are doubting we need to step out of it, I will talk about what we need to do when we are doubting. But before we get there you need to see the love that’s in Christ’s eyes for you even when you doubt, even when you sin against Him

He loves you so much, His grace and mercy are extended to you, they poured out of the same hands and feet that bled for you on Calvary

For Thomas he gets to see them, you and I do not. But that’s where faith comes in

Thomas should have had faith in this, but even when he struggled Jesus still meets him with mercy, and He will meet you with mercy too

Though there is not only mercy, there is still a gentle correction

III. He Meets Us With Gentle Correction

Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed

May you or I never give this stipulation that we must see a miracle to believe in God

Where there is faith in the absence of evidence (which is exactly what faith is by the way) there is blessings

Yes, I have felt that way too, if only I could see some small miracle, if only You would call out to me like you did to Moses or Elijah then I could believe without any doubts

But that’s not faith now is it?

We don’t need to ask for these things nor should we and deny yet another wonderful blessing from Christ

This line is wonderful, is it not?

CS Lewis actually identifies it as a gentle correction

Noting who this was said to, it wasn’t said to someone who had no idea who Jesus was, it wasn’t addressed to someone trying to figure out whether or not Jesus existed,

“It was addressed to a man who already believed that, who already had long acquaintance with a particular Person, and evidence that the Person could do very odd things, and who then refused to believe one odd thing more, often predicted by that Person and vouched for by all his closest friends… It says in effect, ‘You should have known Me better.’”

We should know Christ better. We didn’t travel with Him through His ministry but we read His words don’t we?

We live with the Holy Spirit within our hearts, yet we struggle with doubt

We should know Christ better

We know and believe that Jesus is the truth, yet we struggle with doubt

How can I get out?

Before I get to that, I want you to see one more thing, it’s our Big Idea for today

BI: Jesus Restores Our Doubt To Deeper Faith

Look at this beautiful story

See where Thomas struggled, where his friends believed and he couldn’t trust them

He struggled to trust that Jesus could do one “odd thing” more

And Jesus met him where he was at

He came with mercy

And gently corrected him

But before Jesus does this, Thomas gives a proclamation of Who Jesus is

The other disciples see Jesus and say to Thomas, “we have seen the Lord!”

Thomas sees Christ’s hands and His side and says “My Lord and my God”

Not only are You my master but You are God

We let Thomas get to such a low point here because of his doubt, but man he does really well!

This is the hope, the hope that through our doubts we too will come to a deeper belief!

Even though we may be in the midst of struggle

But you do not need to stay within that struggle. The Lord is there with you and He is ready to guide you into deeper faith!

So, what should I do when I struggle with doubt?

What Can I Do When I Doubt?

I. Run to Christ

Thomas needed Jesus to come to him because the Holy Spirit had not come yet.

We don’t. For those of us who believe the Holy Spirit is currently living within us!

So, we run to Him in prayer

We study His Word, which the Holy Spirit illuminates for us!

When you do this you will find other stories and passages of people who also struggled with similar areas

The Psalms are filled with struggles asking where God is and why He hasn’t answered prayers in the way that the Psalmist wants Him to!

We also run to Him when we go to mentors, when we go to people who are older in the faith than we are

Which actually leads me into the next point

II. Ask Good Questions

The mentors around you should be fitting to be mentors

and when I say that they should be older than you, I do not mean age. I mean how old they are in their faith. That’s the key

Sometimes we don’t know what the right questions to ask are, but we are struggling with doubt

If we ask those older in the faith than we are they can help us both ask the right questions and answer the questions that we do have

We have a great resource within our church concerning this also

Pastor Kyle is well versed in Apologetics. He was one of my first Bible teachers and I learned a lot studying under him

If you have questions, I know that he would love to give you answers

I have mentors too. Because I have questions too. So does PJ, so does Pastor Kyle. And I know for each of us some of our mentors come through the form of authors and great theologians

Finding good people to read can be tricky, but people who have been reading these names for a while can help you in finding their books as well

So, what can I do when I doubt?

Run to Christ

Ask good questions

And

III. Don’t Let Doubt Slow Down Your Race Of Faith

This one may not be a catchy point like the other two, and it doesn’t give you an action here

But, I’m giving it to you as a reminder

Is it sinful to doubt? Here’s the question that I’m guessing that most of if not all of you have been wondering this whole message

That’s a very messy question, because it can lead to sin certainly

A few weeks ago we saw how Abraham’s weights encouraged him to sin. Similarly, our doubts can encourage us to sin

Thomas ends up resting in a place where he is going to be firm in his unbelief.

To willingly deny Christ is certainly sin

We give Thomas a hard time here, but he’s not the only disciple who doubted

In Matthew’s gospel we read at the very end that the disciples were going to meet Jesus on the mount where He would give them the great commission, and there Matthew tells us that some of them doubted

Matthew 28:16–17 ESV

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

That happens after all of this, and some of the disciples are wrestling with doubt

But they go to the mountain

Doubt can weigh you down further, slowing your race, it can encourage you to sin, or it can point you to Jesus in saying “I don’t know, but I trust You.”

In John’s gospel, chapter fourteen begins with a beautiful statement from our Lord

At this point He is in the upper room

Jesus has washed the disciples feet

Judas has been identified as the one who would betray Jesus, and has left

Peter has been told that he would deny Christ

and Jesus says

John 14:1 ESV

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.

He then talks about heaven, saying that there are many rooms and He is going to go to prepare a place for them and tells them that they know where He is going

John 14:5–6 ESV

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

“You should have known better”

Don’t let your doubt consume you

Jesus met Thomas with mercy and love even in his firm unbelief

He wants to meet with you too

Do you want your doubts to be restored? Do you want those quiet hours of questioning to be brought to light? Jesus wants to restore your doubt and have you draw in closer and closer to Him

You need to run to the cross, and that may be scary in the midst of doubt

So as you run, ask good questions. Don’t isolate yourself in your doubt, rather, find the people around you who can help you answer the questions that you have

In asking those questions we think that we are bad Christians, but theology was built off of questioning how all of this works. It’s the study of God, and as we study we question Who He is, through that and being guided by His word and relationship with Him we find ourselves in deeper understanding and deeper love.

He is already there where you need to be

He is ready to restore your doubt like He did Thomas’

And if you don’t know the Lord and the doubts that you have had about Him have restrained you from believing

There is mercy and love offered for you too

Look at how Jesus met with his friend who really should have known better

Certainly there is mercy offered for you as well

Come to the cross, He is waiting to restore your doubts too