Sermon Tone Analysis

*Enniscorthy Christian Fellowship 23rd April 2008*

*We can be SURE!

**John 20v24-31*

*NOT THE ODD ONE OUT*

Have ever felt like you were the odd one out?

A friend of mine did.

He was unemployed for a while and wanted to stay active, so he took up swimming in his local pool.

One day as he got into the pool he noticed a group of people doing water aerobics and so he thought he would join them.

He joined in with all their exercises.

At the end of the session, however he was surprised as the first person to get out the pool was an expectant mother.

He was even more surprised when the next person to get out was also a pregnant woman.

In fact everyone else in the exercise group were expectant mothers – and it was only then he realised that he had just been part of a woman’s prenatal exercise class!

He really was the odd man out.

*Doubting Thomas*

I think that is how Thomas felt on that first Easter.

Thomas had missed those amazing events of Easter Sunday.

Maybe he needed to deal with his grief on his own.

Maybe he had other responsibilities to attend to.

The Bible doesn’t tell us.

So when Thomas eventually turned up, he was confronted not with the group of discouraged, dejected and defeated disciples he had left.

Rather he was met with excitement, amazing stories of personal meetings and the incredible news: “The other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.””

John 20:25

 

The word “told”  here means “kept telling him.”

The disciples told Thomas about how Jesus appeared among them.

How he showed them his hands and side, ate with them, taught them.

Perhaps Peter and John told him about the empty tomb.

Mary Magdalene about meeting Jesus in the garden.

Possibly Cleopas and his friend told him their conversation with Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

But for Thomas, this was not enough.

“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 it.”

v25 There was a finality in this statement.

Thomas literally said: “I positively will not believe!”

End of conversation, I don’t want to hear about it anymore!

Thomas didn’t accept their witness, he wanted hard evidence.

He wanted a personal experience of the risen Jesus.

And so for a week, Thomas was on the fringe, not understanding or entering into their joy.

Uncomfortable and isolated.

The odd man out.

*We’re not the only one with Doubts*

Have you ever been like that?  Have you ever had doubts about Jesus?

Maybe even today, as we’ve read those amazing accounts of people who saw the Lord, you’ve

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struggled to accept that Jesus is alive.

Or maybe you have doubts about who Jesus is, if he really can love you, or if you’re really accepted by God.

The first lesson from Easter is that we’re not on our own in our struggles to believe.

Doubts are something we all experience.

Thomas doubted.

But he wasn’t the only one.

The other disciples struggle to believe in the resurrection until they saw Jesus for themselves.

Martin Lloyd Jones said: “Doubts are not incompatible with faith.…

Some people seem to think that once you become a Christian you should never be assailed by doubts.

But that is not so… Doubts will attack us, but that does not mean that we are to allow them to master us.”

*Jesus Helps us to overcome our Doubts*

But Easter also shows us that Jesus helps people overcome their doubts.

Jesus knew all about Thomas’ doubts, but he did not condemn him.

Instead he respectfully, generously and gently provided the evidence that Thomas wanted so that he could be sure.

He showed Thomas the nail marks in his hands, and the wound in his side.

Jesus helped Thomas move from unbelief to faith: “Stop doubting and believe.”

v27.

Jesus knows our doubts and struggles to believe.

And he wants to help us to overcome them.

Today, we can echo the words of another doubter: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Mark 9:24 

 

This morning, Jesus wants to show us his hands and his side, so that we can be sure of four different truths!

*1.

**We can be sure that Jesus is Alive*

First of all, Jesus’ hands and side are proof that Jesus is alive.

This was Thomas’ biggest struggle.

A vision or a hallucination was not enough for Thomas.

Thomas wanted evidence that Jesus was really alive.

Physically alive: “Unless I… put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side.”

Many people today are sceptical of resurrection.

They talk of a spiritual but not a physical resurrection.

They speak of a mix up with the tombs.

Last year there was even a documentary aired on the Discovery Channel that claimed that the 10 bone boxes were found near Jerusalem in 1980 contained the bones of Jesus and his family – his mum, dad, wife and son.

This claim which was based on the names inscribed on these boxes was rejected by most archaeologists.

But as Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site said, although the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards, it makes for profitable television.

*a)                      **Convincing Proofs that Jesus is Alive*

But the disciples were just as sceptical on Easter Sunday as we might be today.

But their

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

doubts were overcome by the proof that Jesus was alive.

Luke says in Acts 1:3 “After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.”

This included eating with them, showing that he was physically alive.

But the main proof was his hands and side.

When Jesus appeared to his disciples, “he showed them his hands and his side.”

v20  Their response was immediate: “The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.”

v20  It was the same evidence that converted Thomas from a doubter to a believer!

Of course we must come to this assurance of faith without seeing Jesus.

If we do, instead of missing out, Jesus says we are especially blessed, as Jesus says in v29: “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

But this does not mean we need to have a blind faith, without any evidence.

There are many convincing proofs that Jesus is alive for us today.

The empty tomb.

The inability of the religious authorities to counter the resurrection claims with our Lord’s body.

*i) **Eye Witness Accounts*

And the wounds of Jesus still speak to us today.

We can’t see them though our eyes, but we can see them through the eyes of the first century witnesses.

Without doubt, the gospels we have in the Bible are first-century writings composed within a few years of the events described.

They are written by people who were there when it happened.

John says that he writes about that “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched.”  1 John 1:1  And he recorded it for us: “these are written that you may believe,” v31

 

*ii) **Transformed Lives*

And these eye-witnesses are convincing because their lives were transformed through meeting the risen Lord Jesus.

They were changed from a small cowardly and confused group of men and women to a courageous, committed and world-changing group of followers of Jesus.