Finding Faith

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!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Introduction

How many of you appreciate the dashboard in your cars? I bet you haven’t given that much thought have you?

Dashboards give us a lot of good info that we rely on, right? We don’t calculate the amount of gas we have in our cars based on how many miles we drove when we last filled up, do we? No, we rely on the gauge on our dashboard.

So let me tell you a funny story about that. My family went on a road trip in 2020, and we decided to rent a large SUV to make this four state road trip. The car rental place gave us a brand new Chevy Tahoe. I mean this thing was so new that many of the inside components of the SUV had the plastic on it that we had the pleasure to peel away.

On the first leg of our trip we were driving into our hotel, set to arrive around 10 pm. The gas gauge on the new Chevy Tahoe let me know that we had 24 miles to go until we were out of gas. The station was only 4 miles away, so I thought we were good. As we are driving towards this gas station we are driving up a hill. Right as we get to the very top of the hill, this brand new SUV turns off. We are out of gas and coasting down this hill…

Fam… at 10 pm in another state, with my family of five in tow, I am freaking out.

By the grace of God, or what some would call dumb luck, the gas station is on the bottom of this hill and I coasted that SUV down the hill, and right into the gas station.

Joanna and I just laughed about it, but that could have been a pretty terrible way to start our road trip!

So, here I am relying on what I am seeing in front of me, and it doesn’t match what’s happening on the inside of my car.

Transition

And that’s what I want to talk about this morning, as we look at what happened on the day that Jesus rose from the grave.

Fear Factor

We read in John’s gospel that when Jesus rose from the dead, he first shows himself to the women who came to the tomb. Later that evening, he would make his first appearance to his disciples.

The first thing that we notice is the disciples are hiding. They’ve locked themselves into a home for fear of the Jewish leaders.

Someone say fear.

Fear is a feeling that everyone has to learn to deal with. Fear is a very typical reaction to facing a new challenge.

That’s actually something that I looked up and discovered when I was preparing for today. When we are faced with a new challenge, we have to overcome fear.

In our text, the disciples were afraid for two reasons, they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, and I think the bigger reason is because Jesus is gone.

You see the Jewish leaders didn’t just show up. They had been dealing with the Jewish leaders for a long time. The reason they weren’t too afraid before was because they had Jesus.

Jesus was like the ultimate cheat code for them.

The religious leaders would come in and question what they were doing and Jesus would put them in their place right away.

So the disciples were like the annoying little brother with a very strong older brother. You just didn’t mess with them, becuase they had Jesus.

Now, Jesus is gone and their new challenge was figuring out how they would begin to live again with this new challenge.

[TRANSITION]

And I think that as a collective nation, we’ve kind of been living in this tension.

We faced the challenge of a new virus that had our medical community scrambling to figure out how we should treat it.

We faced the challenge of new policies that were supposed to help us overcome this pandemic.

We are facing the challenge of coming out of this pandemic safely.

And now, due to a war that is on the other side of this world, we are faced with new financial and economic challenges.

Is it any wonder that there is so much fear in our world today?

There is a lot going on! We’ve got a lot of new challenges.

Peace is a Promise

And here, with a lot going on with the disciples, Jesus steps in and does two things. The first thing that he does is he says, “Peace be with you!”

This was so important that he repeats it to the disciples. Whenever Jesus, or the Bible, repeats anything, it is becuase it’s a truth that we need to internalize.

In the midst of everything that had happened in the last week with the disciples Jesus does not come in and tell them to cheer up. He does not come in and wish them happiness, he does not come in and remove the fear. He doesn’t come in and give them the latest self help formula for overcoming fear.

Instead, he simply says, Peace be with you.

Here’s the reason why I believe he comes in and speaks peace over them.

Peace is the Promise of his Presence

I think there are some things people assume about what it means to follow Jesus, and so we have to inform people what it really means to follow Jesus.

Following Jesus does not mean the absence of difficulty in your life. Following Jesus does not mean the absence of struggles in your life.

Following Jesus does promise that when we are going through struggles, and when we are going through difficulty, we are never alone. Jesus promises his presence when we are going through hard times. And when He is present, we can experience peace. Peace that we only find through his presence.

BUILD RIGHT HERE

When we know that God is with us, we can go through struggles, and we can go through difficulty, with a confidence that God will never leave us. God will always be with us. God will be present in the middle of whatever life will throw our way.

This is the peace of God.

TRANSITION

And what I love about God’s peace is this, just becuase I feel afraid, doesn’t mean I have to live in fear.

Yes, challenges produce fear, but that doesn’t mean that we are going to live there. We may pass through some fear on the road to where we are going, but we are not going to take up residence in fear. We aren’t moving in. We aren’t picking out schools, our favorite grocery stores, or our local coffee shop. We will not live in fear becuase the peace of God is with us.

STORY

Last year my wife and I went through a lot of transition as we moved to be closer to the church. It was a change of home, schools, job for Joanna, football for Jude, it was a lot. And first time in my life I started dealing with anxiety. It would wake me up in the middle of the night and I would be drenched. It was something that I have never experience before.

But I’ll never forget that when I had enough of this, I went on the offense. I started being more grateful. I started a gratitude journal. I started naming all the reasons I had to be grateful.

I didn’t take up residence in this fear. I didn’t go find a way to cope with what I was going through. I didn’t try to normalize this. I went to war the only I knew how. I wasn’t going to live in fear.

Peace & Power

The second thing that Jesus does for his disciples is he breathes the Holy Spirt over them. It’s definitely one of the more interesting moments of Jesus and his disciples, but I can explain what this meant for them, and what it means for us now.

When Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit over them he was breathing power over them.

We know this because Jesus explained that when we receive the Holy Spirit, we will receive power.

Acts 1:8 (NIV)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you...

God’s spirit in us gives us power to overcome what is happening around us.

You see when Jesus showed up later that evening, the disciples didn’t just lock themselves inside a house, but they locked out others becuase they were afraid of them.

Someone say them.

We deal with the reality of them. These are the external things that I cannot change. These are the people who just aren’t going to like me. These are the people who will never agree with me. These are the decisions that I have no control over, but boy do these decisions sure seem to have control over me.

These are the situations that require the Holy Spirit.

These are the situations that require you to be FILLED with the Holy Spirit.

Peace will get you through the internal storm that you are feeling, but the Holy Spirit is going to give you the power to overcome the external attacks of the enemy.

You need God’s spirit in you to overcome the things that are making you feel anxious.

You need God’s spirit in you to overcome the things that are causing you to be depressed.

You need God’s spirit in you to deal with the situation at work.

And let me go here...

What you don’t need is the power of positive thinking. You don’t need a new age idea that if you think it, it will happen. That’s called a counterfeit. Don’t allow a counterfeit from the world be a replacement for what God wants to give you. He wants to breathe his spirit into your life.

He wants to breathe the very power that was in his son Jesus, into you. He wants for you to live and walk in the authority of God’s word. But this oly happens when you are filled with Spirit of God.

But what stands in the way?

Now, immediately after this happens, there is a story about someone who was not in the room. I want to end with him. I want to talk to you about Thomas, or as we more affectionately know him in the church, doubting Thomas.

John 20:24–29 NIV

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 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.” 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!” 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.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

When the disciples went and told Thomas what happened, he felt nothing but doubt. He felt like this amazing experience that just happened wasn’t for him. Why? Because he didn’t see it. The dashboard of his life was showing him what the others saw.

And I think that for some people who have had a rough going for the last two years, you can identify with Thomas. You wonder how in the world can I have peace and power at a time like this? How is it that I can experience this same type of freedom? These people at this church must be drinking more than coffee.

I don’t see what they see. I see crazy gas prices. I see wars on the other side of the world. I see another new variant.

Does this sound familiar to anyone here today?

But here’s what happens. Jesus gives Thomas the VIP experience. He lets Thomas not just see his wounds, but he also lets him touch the wounds. All of a sudden, Thomas not only believes, but he’s saying, “My Lord, and My God!”

And then Jesus, he’s there with him, but he also makes this statement. “Thomas, you believe becuase you see. But for those who believe without seeing, they are blessed.”

Thomas, if you want my peace and if you want my spirit, you can receive this without seeing. All you have to do is believe.

Our ability to receive peace and receive the Holy Spirit is solely an act of belief.

Jesus is telling Thomas, if all you do is believe some dash board of your life, you are going to miss out on experiencing the peace and the power that I want to bring into your life.

And for some of you here today… you are looking at a dashboard of how much money you have in the bank. You’re looking at the size of your house. You’re looking at your 401k. You’re looking at the amount of followers that you have. And none of that is giving you the peace.

So I am here to let you know, that you need to make a change. Those things aren’t giving you peace, so let’s get you to the one who can give you peace!

And for those of you who are here today wondering how you can have this kind of peace and this kind of power, all you have to do is, believe.

Conclusion. Faith is a Seed

Here’s the thing about believing, or what we call faith. Faith begins as a seed.

We read about people of great faith. We hear stories about people who had faith that was seemingly dropped down from heaven, but I guarantee you it wasn’t always that way. That’s not the DNA of faith.

Jesus said this about faith;

Matthew 17:20 (NIV)

Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

And faith is believing in what you can’t see.

My prayer today is that someone here today would stop trusting in what you can see, and start putting your faith in the unseen. I want you to put your faith in God, even when what you see doesn’t make sense. I want you to put your faith in God’s word, even what what you see doesn’t make sense. I want you to pur your faith in the resurrection of Jesus, even if you can’t see it.