Holy Week Special - Easter People Part 4: Doubting Thomas

Holy Week Special - Easter People Part 4: Doubting Thomas

Holy Week is a time when we can reflect on the events that led to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection from the dead. In this short series of sermons that were originally delivered in 2025, we are drawn into these events through the eyes and the experiences of five people. Some were very close to Jesus throughout his ministry whilst others appear momentarily. But all can say the same thing: that they met Jesus.

This is the fourth reflection on easter people in our short series of five vignettes. Along with Peter, James and John, Thomas is perhaps one of the most well-known disciple - maybe because he is the one that gets the nickname. But Thomas is a really interesting individual and in many ways, he is you and he is me. The sceptic? Or the one who comes to faith with his thinking head on? And let's not forget his reaction when he did see Jesus. He fell to his knees saying, "My Lord, and my God." 

You can see past sermons on the Leominster Baptist Church website at https://www.youtube.com/@leobc2402/streams and can contact us directly with your feedback or queries through the Ask Dean a Question link at the top of the episode description text.

Leominster Baptist Church can be found on Etnam Street in Leominster, Herefordshire. To find out more about us, visit our website leobc.co.uk. If you would like to speak to someone about anything that you have heard on our podcasts please give us a call and ask for a chat.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

After Peter, James and John. Thomas is probably up there as one of the disciples who easily remember. And the reason for this is because he's the one that gets away. Doubt Thomas. Poor Thomas. Forever remembered as a skeptic. Well, today Thomas is an Easter person. And what wonderful, relevant person is to get to.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Poor old Thomas. You only need the cyber who gets a nickname. You don't get runaway Peter that we've looked at, you don't get, I don't know, the fearful others, all the ones who didn't stay at the cross, but poor Doubting Thomas. That's what he gets known as. Doubting Thomas. It really, really frustrates me that nickname. One, because the others don't get a nickname, also because we're told that he's called Diddy's. And Doubting Diddy Mus, surely would make more sense, a bit of alliteration there, these people trying to tease him. If you're going to do it, do it properly. He gets singled out and forevermore known as Doubting Thomas. We've been going through different characters, and this week Thomas is our guy. He's an incredibly relevant person for the age and time that we live in. Doubt and cynicism are the air that we breathe. They are the way that culture is, it's the way we think about things, it's the way we look at things, that we we question everything. We're able to question everything because we go on our computers and we can type in things to check whether it's true. And yet even that now is a suspect, and we're not sure whether the things we search for are true, the things we're being shown. We question images we see, we question reports that we hear, we question absolutely everything. And some of that's good, it roots out mistakes and errors, it miss out, it roots out cover-ups and issues like that. But what it also does is introduce an element where everything we hear we don't believe. Where we even the good gets rooted out, even what is true gets questioned. And this blanket doubt and cynicism that is all around us and everywhere that we look and everything we hear, it causes us to say, well, what can we stand on? What is true? What is right? Just like Pilate asked, it's not a new question. Pilate asked it all those years ago, what is truth? It's the question of our age, and so we're left adrift, we're left with nothing firm, nothing solid. And so Thomas and his questions, his doubts speak to the age and the time that we're in. Thomas is uh interesting, he has this question, and all the other disciples, although he gets the nickname, all the other disciples have an experience that he doesn't have. And all that Thomas really asked is to have that same experience. They weren't exactly going out and proclaiming that he is risen, they weren't rushing around telling everyone the good news, they were sitting locked in their room for fear of those outside. And Jesus has to come in and show himself. It says he shows them his side, he does the same thing he does with Thomas, and he does it to them, and then they finally believe and get excited and overjoyed. And all Thomas asks is, may I have the same experience? Not so much doubt, but just this desire to have confirmed to him the truth of what he has heard. There's a lot of terms and phrases that we're going to cover today. There's unbelief, uh, there's doubt, there's faith, there's belief, and all these things, and they're all quite nuanced, um, and we seem to be talking about the same thing, but I think they are different. Unbelief in scripture seems to be this settled rejection of Jesus. This idea that is rooted in a heart of rebellion that says, I'm in control and you don't tell me what to do, and so I will not believe. Not because I don't think it's true, but because I don't want it to be true. That's what unbelief is in Scripture. And Jesus comes against it, he says it's a serious problem, it comes from a hard heart, it's it's a desire to continue in the patterns that you're living in, a desire to be in control and rebel, and Jesus is quite short with that. Then there's doubt, and doubt is slightly different. Doubt is a search for the truth, but struggling to arrive. It's an honest quest, an honest struggle. And what we see in Thomas is doubt but not unbelief. He doesn't refuse outright, I'm never gonna believe. He wants to experience what the others had, and once he does, he then believes. God is against unbelief because of the hardness of heart and the destruction that it brings when we do what's right in our own eyes, and the result is pain and suffering. But God is not scared of doubts. God isn't worried about our doubts. Doubts do not disqualify our faith. Doubt, if approached in the right way, actually are the pathway to a deeper, more meaningful faith. And today what I want to encourage you with is if you come here with doubts, questions, things you are wrestling with, they are an opportunity to build a faith that is closer to Jesus than ever before, that has a clearer view of who God is than ever before. Now you may be scared of your doubts, that's okay. And church, church can be scared of your doubts. Don't question anything in church because it will upset people. Your pastor may be scared of your doubts, because although he studied a bit, he doesn't have all the answers. But God is not scared of your doubts. The reason is because Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And so if you are on the quest for truth, if you have a true desire to find out what is true and what is right, you are always on a trajectory towards Jesus. If that's your honest desire to find out the truth, Jesus is always the end of that journey. And so God is not scared of your questions or your seeking or your wrestling because he is always the end. Now, if you're looking for something else and you're using doubt as an excuse, then you're never going to arrive. But God is not scared of your doubts because he knows a true quest for truth leads to Jesus. He is the truth. And if you're seeking and asking and wrestling, then you will arrive at him no matter what way you come at it, because he is the truth. He is the destination of all those hearts that are longing, who are searching, who are trying to figure things out. He is the answer. You may have doubts. You might have doubts because of you have a spiritual question, perhaps you can't answer. Perhaps you've been reading your Bible, you can't make sense of it. Maybe you watch YouTube and a very smart guy of lots of letters asked after his name told you that science and modern philosophy has disproved the Bible and the stories it tells. You might have met someone who's really, really lovely and perhaps even lovelier than the church people you know, and then you found out that they were a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Hindu. And you think, well, how does this work? Or maybe you've experienced something so unfair, there's been horrific pain, injustice, and you're trying to reconcile how God can allow that, and this can be a part of your life as you walk with him. Perhaps you've prayed something. God saved my parents' marriage. God, would you make them well and found that that prayer wasn't answered in the way that you thought it should be? Maybe it's a strong Christian that you looked up to who made a difference, and they did something that was so sinful and hurtful, you're now questioning, How can I believe when the person who led me to Jesus went and did that? Your doubts can come from many places, but God is not scared of any one of them. When Peter's walking on the water, Jesus asked the question, why do you doubt? There's a question I want to ask you today. Why why do you doubt? What is it, the source? What is it? Don't let other Christians run you out the door. We're not gonna tell you, well, you need to read your Bible and pray, and you need to have more faith, and you just need to believe. Because we're not in that age. We're in the age where people are questioning. Where around the world we're seeing many come to faith, but we are also seeing many who grew up with faith stepping away. There's a whole movement, perhaps you've heard of it, called De Deconstruction. When I was in college, it was sort of put as a good thing. It's a way of rooting out what is true and right and what is simply tradition that we've added on. But it seems in recent years it's taken an additional turn that now it's a complete tearing apart. It's seeing all of our faith through the suffering we've experienced and the pain and the wrong that's been done to us until there's nothing left. We have no faith left to deconstruct, it simply vaporizes. But this is the culture we're in. People are questioning, and because they're told they cannot question, they are simply walking away. And Peter, I believe, shows us that there is hope in these situations. God doesn't want unbelief, he's not worried about our doubt. But what he really wants is for us to be able to trust him. See, belief again, there's this nuance and they sort of overlap, but belief is what we believe to be right and true about God and the Bible and the world and things like that. Faith is become more of an abstract word. It's sort of it can be the pattern of life that we live, the traditions we follow, and the whole umbrella of what we we do. The word that scripture uses again and again, and is often translated as faith, is simply to trust. Or perhaps another way to put it would be fine the wrong word, is to entrust. That what God wants for us is to be able to entrust ourselves to Jesus. That's it. Even with our doubts, with our questions, with our wrestling, if we with it can say, I can't figure this out, I can't answer this, but I entrust myself to you. That is the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. James puts it famously. He says, Look, you should see, what was it just before? I can't remember. Maybe it's not on there. But James says, you believe that there is one God, good. That's a good belief. It's taught in the Bible. Trinity, God is one, one and three. Can't get our heads around it, but it's it's what scripture teaches. He says, Good, you believe there's one God. So do the demons. And they shudder. You see, belief it isn't enough. They don't entrust themselves to God. They believe, they perhaps have better doctrine than you and I, but they do not entrust themselves to God. And what God wants for us is not that we think right things about Him, but even when we think wrong things about Him, we say, I entrust myself to you. Even if I haven't got this all figured out, I'm willing to entrust myself to you, to your faithfulness, to your love, to your promises, to your goodness. I'm willing to lean my entire weight on you and say, I trust you, and I live in light of that trust. God doesn't need you to agree with him. God isn't upstairs up there, sort of scared of our doubts, going, Oh man, yeah, maybe is Jesus really my son? Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe the tomb isn't empty. Yeah, right. You you you maybe you have got it right. Maybe those stories are a bit far-fetched. God isn't concerned, he doesn't need us to agree with him, he just says, I want you to be able to trust me. He's God. He's beyond this. And his invitation is that not that we understand everything because we never will, but that in what we understand we entrust ourselves to Jesus as our shepherd. We think of that so lovely and warm, don't we? A lovely shepherd. We went, took the Capre students out to Paul Winden's farm uh the other week, and they saw a lamb being born, and they all said, the lamb came out, and they sort of hoisted this lamb up and then sort of not roughly or in a mean way, but kind of the lamb was under the control and and they they they they were told what to do, and then they're taken out to the field. A shepherd controls the sheep, they lead them where they don't want to go, they correct them where they wander. There is an idea that Jesus, you are my shepherd, says, You are in control. I'm trusting you to do what is best for me. I'm trusting you, I'm entrusting everything I am to you because I can't figure this out for myself. I can't work these things out, and I don't know what's going on, but you have shown enough that I can entrust myself to you. You are a good shepherd. To be a Christian is not just to believe Jesus is the Son of God, although that's right and true, I believe. To be a Christian is not to base my life on certain truths or morals or practices, as helpful and right as they might be. To be a Christian is to entrust yourself to the person of Jesus. I entrust myself to you. I give, I am, I'm leaning on you, my weight is on you, I call on your name. You are the one that I turn to. You're where I place my trust. And that's the purpose of the entire Bible. The Bible we used to say, where do we build our faith? And if you grew up in Sunday school, I didn't, but I know there's a song, the B-I-B-L-E. That's the book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God. You know it? The B-I-B-L-E, yeah, Johan, that's one for the golden oldie. It's not quite true though. We do turn to the word of God, it's where we get our our insight, it's where we get our wisdom and our truth about who God is. But Jesus went on to say this: He said, You can study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. Whoa, that's in the Bible. The Bible says that the Bible isn't where we build our faith. The Bible leads us to Jesus, and he is where our faith is placed. It leads us to the one that the book is not a Bible's not an answer book for our doubts. If you have questions, there'll be some questions the Bible will not answer. It's not an answer book, it's a picture book. It's a picture book that points constantly to Jesus, and when it leads you to Jesus, it fulfills its purpose. Whenever you open the Bible, your prayer should be, as I read these words, may these words lead me to Jesus. If they do anything less than that, then they aren't fulfilling the purpose. Jesus says, unless you can see me through this, unless you can entrust me through this, unless these are a testimony of who I am and what I've done and what I promise to do, that then you're all you're doing is reading a book and looking for answers and looking for life, but they're not in there that leads to me. There's the word of God, little W, and there's the capital W, Word of God. That's what John says. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. That's who this book points to. And Jesus says you can search this thinking get life in it, and it's wonderful, and it's precious, and it's God's gift, but it's this gift and it's precious because it leads to the one whom we can entrust ourselves to. The Trinity is not Father, Son, and Holy Bible, it's Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, the presence of Jesus with us. And this points to that and testifies to it. But this does not contain life, it points to the one who is life. And Jesus is very clear, these tests are just about me. And so you need to come to me. This needs to lead you. It's a path, it's a way to come to me and hear me and know me. And so when we open our Bibles, lead me through these words, lead me through these truths, lead me through these accounts and these witnesses, lead, let them lead me to you, Jesus. We can do that with our songs as we sing, Lord, may these words, may this praise, may it lead us to you. Through our gathering, Lord, may this get may it lead me to you. If I don't get a sense of you and our fellowship and our conversation, then I'm missing the one who gives life. The Bible doesn't exist to answer all our doubts, but it introduces us to the God we can trust. That's why John, when he writes his gospel, he says, the gospel is written that we might entrust ourselves to Jesus and find life in him. That's the promise. He performed many signs. We can write all these books about him, hundreds of books about him. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, that's entrusting yourself to him, you may have life in his name. And so the Bible is this witness. And what I love about the Bible is that it contains stories like Thomas. Thomas who doubted, a disciple who saw everything Jesus did and still said, I still need a bit more. I need some evidence. The Bible includes prophets like John the Baptist, John the Baptist who declared, Here's the Lamb of God who'll take away the sin of the world. Then a few months, years later, he's in a prison cell and he sends a message to Jesus and says, Jesus, are you the one who was to come? Or are we waiting for another one? Because I'm sat here in jail and I'm not I know I got quite a bit over the top, and I said you're the son of God, and I told everyone to follow you, but now I'm not so sure. Could you just confirm to me whether you are the one? John, the greatest prophet ever, we're told in scripture. And yet he doubts and questions have I got this right? Or have I missed something? The Bible tells us that Jesus has brothers, James and Jude. We're told that they thought Jesus was mad when he began his ministry. We're told that they didn't get it, they couldn't see it. No one would if it was your brother. How could you see it? You know this person, you grew up with them. And yet we're told later, because there are two books in the Bible, not very creatively named, one's called James and one's called Jude. They've become authors of scripture. And yet there's a time where they doubted who Jesus was. That transformation of not knowing, not sure, they don't really get it to leaders in the church who write scripture. That's why the church answer of just read your Bible and pray isn't always the right answer with our doubts. Because James wrote the Bible and doubted, Jude writes the Bible, and yet there's this question that they have. The apostles. One of my favourite passages, Matthew 28. We've referenced it already today. Jesus comes, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you, and surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age. What an ending. What a crescendo. How wonderful. I imagine Matthew sent this off to his editors and they said, Wonderful, Matthew, it's great. Gonna be a bestseller, I'm sure. That ending is so wonderful. Just got one question there. Just not nitpicking, but I have got a question because just before that you said the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had told them when they saw him, they worshipped him. That's great. But some doubted. Matthew, we're just wondering whether that's really necessary. It's a bit of a dampener on the whole thing. I mean, the last bit's wonderful, all authority going, but the idea that they doubted, shortly just leave that bit out. Come on, the resurrection's happened, they see him, they worship. How great. Don't don't introduce more doubt at this last moment. And Matthew goes, I know, I don't know, it would be better without that, wouldn't it? It'd be all on the high, all wonderful. If we just left that bit out, it'd be wonderful, but I'm gonna leave it in there. Why? Because that's how it happened. Even in that moment, as Jesus stood before us, some of us worshiped, and some of us said, We're we can't really believe that this is happening. We're not really sure what we're seeing before us. And some doubt in that moment, some doubted. And scripture isn't afraid to include that because God is not scared of our doubts, he's not scared of our questions. And he would even include it in his grand crescendo of the greatest story ever told, to remind us that our doubts do not restrict us, they do not hold us back, they do not separate us from God. They are a chance to press in and find him. Thomas has good company, you have good company. If there are doubts and questions, then you stand side by side with the disciples, with John the Baptist, greatest prophet who ever lived. Abraham, Sarah, Gideon, how about we go through these people who question and wrestle, and yet through that find a deeper faith, there is a solidarity that Scripture portrays to us. This is part of the journey. And on top of all that, God's people are called Israel, which means those who wrestle with God, those who struggle, those who are constantly figuring it out and fighting to figure out what's true and what's right. That's who we are. We don't have to be scared of our doubts. What we do need to be scared of is our hearts. See, Thomas is interesting. Thomas, we get this one account, but there's very little about him in the rest of Scripture apart from in John chapter 11. Very famous story. If we've been in church, Lazarus raised from the dead, and we're so busy looking at Lazarus being raised from the dead, we miss kind of this conversation that goes on beforehand. It says, When he heard Jesus heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, let us go back to Judea. But Rabbi, they say, a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you were going back. This is a danger, don't go back there. You nearly died last time. You don't want to head back in that direction. After he'd said this, Jesus went on to tell them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I'm going there to wake him up. His disciples replied, Lord, if he sleeps, he'll get better. Don't worry about if he's just sleeping, he's going to get better. Don't put yourself in danger. Don't get us in harm, or you and us, in harm's way, because it's not going to end well. Jesus then says to them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I'm glad I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him. Then Thomas, here he is, also known as Didymus, said to the rest of the disciples, Let us also go that we may die with him. Some have said that that's a bold, confident statement by Thomas, kind of like Peter, we all go with you, and if you die, then we will die with you. Others have pointed out that actually in the Greek it's more of a sarcastic comment. Well, we couldn't convince him. We couldn't talk him out of it, so we've had a good run, guys. Let's go, and we'll all just die with him, shall we? In that whole conversation, you get this sense of the disciples trying to control Jesus, trying to tell him what's good for him, trying to tell him what the right thing is to do, where he should go, how he should be. Often, when we say that we have doubts, what we are Saying is, I don't want to give God control, but I wouldn't ever say that out loud. That'd be I'm I'm too polite and too well-mannered to say that. So what I will do is I'll introduce some doubts that excuse me from having to do what I know God's calling me to do. And our doubts become a cover-up for this self-control that we have. Doubts often aren't about evidence. Doubts are often about remaining in control. You see, certainty, which is what we all think we want. We want certainty. I want to be absolutely sure of this and certain of what it's true. It has a twin mindset, which is control. When I'm certain about something, I've got control over it. I figured it out. I know what it looks like and how it's going to work. I know where I'm going to go and where I'm going to be and what time. If I can plan it all out and figure it all out that I'm certain of it, then I'm finally in control of it and everything is okay. But certainty and control are not the way of disciples. They are not the way of sheep who have a shepherd who leads them. We are not certain. We are not in control. And what we do is we use our doubts or the fact that we aren't certain as an acceptable excuse for the fact that we don't want to give up control. Because what Thomas and the disciples and John and all the others show us that even with our doubts, we can still say, I entrust myself to you. Even though I haven't got all the answers and I haven't figured it out, I will still entrust myself to you. And yet what we tend to do, or what our culture tends to do, is well, unless God shows up clearly before me, shows me exactly what I need to see and hear, then I will not believe. And what we're really saying is, I want to remain in control. And so I'll set a bar that's so high, I'll demand so much evidence that until he fulfills exactly what I tell him to, I will not follow. God does not bow down to our demands. God does not cater to our whims. He is gracious and he is good. And the truth is from scripture is that even if he did show himself, your doubts would not disappear. We know that because he showed himself to the disciples, to Thomas, and their doubts did not all disappear. Still they doubted. It's a cover, it's a it's a ploy, it's a tactic that perhaps we aren't aware we're doing, but we are so so driven to remain in control that we will find any reason not to let God finally take control. Because we're not sure of him. We don't know what God's like. We don't know whether we can entrust ourselves to him, and that's our biggest problem. We're not sure whether God can be trusted. Which is why I love what Thomas does when he finally sees Jesus. He puts his finger in his side, he reaches out, Jesus tells him, Stop doubting and believe. And Thomas's words are, My Lord and my God. He declares he's the first one to declare it plainly and clearly in Scripture. He finally gets it. You're my Lord and you're my God. Jesus is God. Let's turn it around. God is Jesus. See, the reason most of us or many of us struggle to trust God, or perhaps if you're not a person of faith yet, that you say you wouldn't believe in God, is that we tend to use everything that we see to define God. So we use our church experience to define this is what God's like. We use history to define this is what God's like. We use current events to say this is what God's like. We use our successes to say this is what God's like, or we use our struggles to define God, or we use what's happened to us to define God, or we use what hasn't happened to us to define God, we use our upbringing to define God, we use others in the way they treat us to define God, and we use all these things and we say, well, God can't be trustworthy because this wouldn't have happened, and that wouldn't have happened, and this person wouldn't have done that, and we define him by all this stuff, and the truth of Jesus being God means that the only way we can define God is by looking at Jesus. He is the clearest picture of God that we've ever been given. Jesus is our definition of God, he is our once and for all, he's our final word, he's the word of God, he's the truth of God. Scripture puts it like this: He is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Elsewhere it says he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Again, it says he gives the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. When you see Jesus' face, you see God as clearly as you possibly can. And what that means is whenever we find something that we're trying to define God, an experience or something we've been through, something that causes us to doubt, we hold it to Jesus and we say, Is this God? Does this look the same? Is this how he treated? So I feel like this has happened to me and God doesn't love me because this happened. Right, let me hold that next to Jesus, who shows me as he dies on the cross his infinite love, his breadth, his depth, the height and love. And then I go, Well, well, I'm gonna use Jesus to define God, not this experience. There is something else going on here, but it's not it's not the definition of God. Jesus is my definition. My doubts and my questions, those things that I experience that make me say, Is God in this? Has God done this? I bring it and compare it to him, and in his face I see clearly who God is. And Thomas finally gets it. I had doubts because I couldn't, it was it was impossible to believe. I I was scared and I was afraid, but when I saw his face, he is God. And although I didn't have my questions answered, I knew that I could trust him. For those of you who are searching, my advice to you, if you have doubts, is to seek the face of Jesus. Not because your doubts will be answered, not because your questions will be resolved, but because when you look into his face, you will see someone that you can say, I don't know what the answer is, but I am willing to entrust myself to you. Because in your eyes I see love, and in your eyes I see mercy, and in your eyes I see kindness and grace, in your eyes I see strength and I see hope. And I'm willing to entrust myself to what I see, even though I cannot answer all these other things. For those of you who have never come to faith, my advice would be to seek the face of Jesus. There are four accounts where you can read that that portray him. And as you do, ask, is your picture of God, does it match this Jesus? Because if I ask you what's God like, you might say, Well, he's an angry God in the sky and he hates me and he doesn't want anything to do with me and he just causes suffering, he's either not powerful or he's not good or he's not loving. Okay, that's your picture. And you say you don't believe in God, neither do I, not that God. That's not the God I believe in. But when I see the face of Jesus, suddenly I go, Well, I still have questions, I still can't work out why this is happening, why this is going on, but I see in his face one that I can trust even with my doubts. If you want to know what God is like, you look at Jesus. If you want to know what God might think of you, you look at Jesus. If you want to know what God might say, if you want to know how he might respond to your failure, if you want to know what he might say about your life, if you want to know how he feels about your heartache or your seasons of silence or your trial or your disinterest, then you can see him. We don't define God by circumstances or our struggles or our culture. Jesus alone is our definition of God. In Christ alone my hope is found. And this God is the one that we see again and again when we doubt, comes and draws near with his presence and reaches out his hand. He does it with Peter when he's on the water and he's sinking, he comes to him and he reaches out his hand. Don't doubt. I always saw that as kind of a bit of a jive. Oh, you silly. Why do you are you doubting? But I see it now more as an invitation. You don't have to doubt. Look, I'm here. You don't have to doubt me. You can entrust yourself. Here's my hand. I will hold you. I will keep you. I will protect you. We can trust him. We can trust him not to do what I think he should do. That's not trust, again, that's control. But I can trust him to do what is good and right. And when I still my heart, and when I fix my gaze, when I hear his voice, when I see his scars like Thomas did, when I think upon his sacrifice, I see that he is good, he is faithful, he is trustworthy. And I can entrust myself to him. Trust says, I know this thing would suggest my beliefs are wrong. I know that this experience would suggest that this belief is wrong. But I have now a greater faith in the one who is who is true, the one who is truth. I have evidence that he is trustworthy, I have evidence of his love and his goodness. I have evidence that his purpose is so clear. The evidence is the Easter story, his death and resurrection. That is meant to be the once and for all display. This is who I am. This is love. This is kindness, this is mercy. And because I have that, that is my bottom line, that is my foundation. And anything that would contradict that, there is an enemy he wants to steal, kill, and destroy. There is a world fractured by sin and groaning under the weight of it. We have bodies that are broken and in need of healing and redemption, but none of that defines God. God is the healer and the restorer and the savior and the good shepherd that we can trust. And those who perhaps have fallen into their doubt, there's this wonderful promise in Timothy. It says this is a trustworthy saying. If we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. There's a warning, if we deny him, he will also deny us. But if we are faithless, he remains faithful. Our ability to believe in him is not the full story. He remains faithful even in our doubts, in our questions, in our wrestling. Diane mentioned to me this morning as we came in a church that she was in in a stained glass window with a quote from Spurgeon. You have to remind you what it is.

unknown 32:26

I am both held and held.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

I am both holding and held, was it?

unknown 32:31

I both hold and held.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

I both hold. I both hold and am held held. I both hold and I'm held.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

I both hold and am held. I both hold. And sometimes that grip isn't very strong. Sometimes that that grasp isn't very, very secure. But I am held. I both hold as much as I can, as much as I'm able, but the truth that I am held is what keeps me and grounds me and secures me. And Jesus ends with this that you are blessed. Thomas, he sees and he's blessed. But Jesus says, Because you've seen me, you've believed. Blessed are those who have not yet seen and yet have believed. There is a time coming where you won't be able to see, where something will occur and it will blind you and obscure him from your sight. But in that moment, if you are able to entrust him, entrust yourself to him, there is a blessing. One preacher I listened to put it like this it's quite a long quote, but I'll read it all. Blessed, happy, fortunate, so well off and at peace are those followers of Jesus who, even when life is hard, even when the dream is crushed, when the diagnosis is lousy, when they have more questions than answers, and live in the fog of confusion and can't chart a way out, even then they don't fall away into sin, they don't walk away from God. Instead, they sit and wait and trust. Whatever comes, comes. They are okay. Content even. They don't use the circumstances to define God's character, they look into his face, see his eyes, remember his sacrifice and promise, and because of that, the settled condition of their heart is to live in reliance on the goodness of God. That's what Jesus is saying. For all of us, there'll be a time where we cannot see, where something happens that throws us and doubts creep in. In that moment, do not be afraid. When that moment comes and it will, it will be like a cross to bear. It'll be a time of waiting, but there is a grace that is sufficient. There is an invitation to trust, there is an opportunity to find blessing if you sit and wait and fix your eyes on his face. Don't let the circumstances define God's character. Know him, remember his promises, see his sacrifice, and let your heart be settled in reliance on the goodness of God. Just say it simply, trust him. Entrust yourself to him. Because that's the answer. I'm a questioner, many of you will know that. I question and question and dig to the bottom of everything. But I've learnt more and more that there aren't answers to some questions. There aren't solutions to some problems. And in my attempt to find them, all I'm saying is, I want to be in control. But I'm not very good even when I am in control. If I can entrust myself to him, there is a peace that surpasses understanding. And many of you will know this more than me because of the stories that you can tell, the journeys you've been brought through. And like Thomas, you will know that in that trusting your doubts resulted in a deeper, firmer, more wonderful faith than you had before. That's what our doubts can do. Don't be afraid of them. Press through them into a deeper faith and entrusting yourself to God that is on the other side. So what we're going to do in a moment is just take a moment to do that, to entrust ourselves to God. I'm going to pray for different groups of people, going to pray for those perhaps who are walking with Jesus, disciples of Jesus, but doubts and questions perhaps have crept in. Then I'm going to pray for those who perhaps haven't made that choice, who have never felt able to entrust themselves to Jesus. But perhaps today you realize that you will never have the answer to all your questions. You will never have there, not that there aren't answers out there. I found many of them, but there are some things that you simply have to say, I know enough to trust him. Don't have all the answers, but I know enough that I can entrust myself to him. And perhaps you've been on that fence for a little while when today is a chance to make a choice because faith is a choice, not a feeling. It's a decision that we make to entrust ourselves to him. And so I'd like to lead you in a prayer to do that. But first, let me just pray for that first group. The questioners, the hurting, perhaps even today, sensing, I just want to be in control, and that's my problem. And I'm using these excuses to keep God at arm's length. Perhaps you come regularly, but you know that your hearts aren't actively following Jesus right now. And if that's you, then you can pray this prayer. You can come back. Jesus invites you to come. He reaches out for you. Heavenly Father, we we pray for those who are wrestling with those doubts and questions. For whatever reason it may be, we thank you that you have grace for our doubts. Lord, we believe in you. We confess that sometimes we struggle. We don't always understand what is going on. We thank you, first of all, that our lack of faith doesn't diminish one iota your faithfulness. That our inability to see clearly does not mean that there is not truth and life with you. And we ask, Father, for what we can see, from what we do know, that you would help us to entrust ourselves to you. Help us to see that face. Remind us of your truth, remind us of your love, remind us of your promises. Holy Spirit, let me see the face of my Savior, my shepherd, my Lord and my God. And as I begin to see, Lord, strengthen our faith, guide us through our questions, we choose to hold on to you even when we don't have all the answers. And we thank you, Lord, that you never let us go. When our strength wiggles out, when our hands are not strong enough, yours are your everlasting arms around us. May we know that today. In Jesus' name. Amen. And for those who might think, I don't know where I stand with God, I don't know if I know him, let me do what I've just told you to do and point you to Jesus. Who is Jesus? He's the Son of God. He's the one who said, If you want to know the Father, look at me and I will show you. If you want to know the way to the Father, I will take you there. If you want to know how to come into His presence, I am the one who brings His presence to you. I came not for the righteous, not for the altogether, not for the healthy, but for the sick, the sinners, the broken, the struggling, and the lost. Those who feel that they've been pushed out by religion. There is grace and forgiveness for you. Who is Jesus? He is the one who is perfect in every way, and yet on the cross he takes all our sin, all our darkness, all that is in us, and he pays the price. He is the one who on the third day God raised from the dead victorious over death, that he might lead us into new life, the first of a new creation, that all who call on his name will be saved, not all who behave themselves, or those who back up their ideas or figure it out and answer their questions, but those who entrust themselves to him would find his grace, his mercy, his salvation, his presence, the gift of his spirit and promise that he is with us always. And so he is the one that we entrust ourselves to. For he is all that we need. So, Father, we pray now for any here who want to take that step. For those whose hearts are whispering that they want to trust in the goodness of God, they have that sense that they need it. They want to know you, Lord, they want to call on your name. And so we pray as they make that decision today, Lord, they know if they want to. And so, Heavenly Father, we come to you with our questions and our doubts. We thank you for loving us even though we struggle. For those today who want to make that choice, Lord, we say, Today I choose to trust you. I have seen enough to know that I can trust you. And even when I can't make sense of things, I believe that Jesus died for my sins and rose again. We ask, Father, forgive me, change me, make me yours, and help me walk by faith. We thank you, Lord, for saving me and giving us new life. In Jesus' name. Amen. One day we will see Thomas. I don't think we'd be brave enough to call him Doubt on Thomas in that moment. Because what we know of his story is that he goes on to become a missionary. And he takes the gospel to India, some say even China, where the church today is growing at a greater rate than ever before. And there in South India, in fact, he he loses his life for the Saviour who he saw crucified, saw risen again. I don't know what this name should be. Declaring Didymus, truthful Thomas, whatever it is. His doubts are not his final word. His doubts are not the thing that define him. And yours don't have to be either. The one thing that defines us is we are his. Nothing else matters. We are his. We belong to him. And because of him we are able to believe. We're going to sing a final song that celebrates the truths that we hold to, the Father God that we have. It's a creed that very early in the church was used to say this is what we believe. But it ends despite all the beliefs and who God is and what he's done. The bottom line is I believe in the name of Jesus. I entrust myself to him. I believe in that name, and that is the bottom line for all of us today. Wherever we may be, wherever we're at, whatever doubts cloud our mind, I believe in the name of Jesus. And that is like an anchor in the storm. It's like a ray of light in a cloudy sky. It is something that holds me when I can't hold on. The music would like to come and lead us as we just sing and remind ourselves of this truth. We believe in the name of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

We hope that you've enjoyed listening to this sermon. If you would like to talk to anyone about what you've heard, just contact us at Lambster Baptist Church and ask for a chat. Our details are on our website, which is leobc.co.uk. Alternatively, as always Sunday morning, ten thirty. We'd love to see you there.