The Confession of the Christian Faith - John 20:24-29

1:14Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed. So here we are, that First Lord's Day, if you remember, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, and then later that evening, he met up with all the disciples who were shut up, locked up in fear for the Jews. He came and stood in their midst. Problem is, one individual wasn't there, and that was Thomas. And so our passage this morning picks up at that evening when Thomas was not absent, where Thomas was not present, and then picks up again on an evening a week later on the second Lord's Day. And Jesus then again appears.

2:11And the skeptic, Thomas, goes from an individual who doesn't believe in the resurrection to the disciple with the highest confession in John's gospel. In fact, we're now at the high point of John's gospel. It's going to be really downhill from here, winding up, tying up a few loose ends. But this is where John wants us to be. He wants Thomas's confession to be our confession. What is that confession? Jesus is my Lord and my God. That's the high confession in John's Gospel. That's the purpose he wrote John's Gospel, was to take us to this point and having Taken us to this point, impressing upon us not just that this is what Thomas said, but this is an invitation for you to say the same thing as well. And that's why John wrote his gospel, is so that you and I would come to this same place in our own spiritual journey where we can look upon Jesus, the Christ revealed in Scripture, and we can say, Jesus, you are my Lord and you are my God. But Thomas had to go from being a skeptic to a believer, or certainly a believer in all that Jesus' resurrection implied. And so this morning, what I want us to do is simply look upon the skeptic, Thomas, witness how Jesus dealt with him, listen to his confession, and observe the blessing that Jesus offers us here today.

4:02But this is the fundamental confession of the Christian faith. Jesus, you are my Lord, you are my God. Not just that you are Lord and you are God, but the fundamental confession of the Christian faith for those who own it is, Jesus, you are my Lord, you are my God. And so first, I just want to jump right in. And look at the skeptic. We meet a skeptic. Thomas slow to believe. Some people go to the point of saying that they don't believe Thomas was a believer until this point.

4:48I don't go there. I believe Thomas is a believer. He has a high degree of devotion to Christ, a real love for Christ, enough to leave all things and go and follow Him. Jesus Himself said that all of His disciples were clean except for one, and that would have been Judas. So I think we're talking about Thomas being a real believer here, although I understand the language at one point makes one wonder. But certainly, I believe He's a believer here, and yet he's somebody who is slow to believe. He's slow to believe all of the implications, He's slow to believe the resurrection itself and what that implies. He's been walking with Jesus, and He has a lot to learn about Him. I think that's true about a lot of us. We come, we read scriptures, we're slow to believe.

5:50And I hope this morning will be a time of reflection upon your own soul as a skeptic, and that the Lord would bring you. Out of all such skepticism, and that you would simply believe what is set before us in Scripture, and that by believing, you would allow that to transform your life. Well, Thomas is a skeptical disciple. He's out of fellowship with the others. And I want us to just real quickly make five observations about Thomas's skepticism.

6:29As a skeptic, we can look at Thomas and we can look at his skepticism and learn. But look at, first of all, look at verse 24. We'll just pick it up and walk through the narrative, as is our custom, just to go verse by verse through. Verse 24, but Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, which means twin, so he had a twin most likely, was not with him when Jesus came. So Thomas's prolonged skepticism from that previous week to his, where we find him in this text, was related to his absence the previous week. As with skeptics, as with many skeptics, a skeptic often fails to assemble with believers. And so their skepticism is a result, oftentimes, of missing out. On what was communicated, what is shared in church, what is exhorted in church, what is part of that assembly. Thomas was not there the previous week, and so he missed the blessing associated with that first Lord's Day, and that is Jesus Himself appearing and making himself known. He wasn't there.

7:58Scripture doesn't give us the reason for Thomas's absence, but his absence is certainly in line with his pessimistic attitude that John has already revealed about him. You remember in John chapter 11, and Jesus says he's going up to see Lazarus or go to Lazarus, and Lazarus is dead. And what does Thomas say? He says, Well, okay, let us go up there with him and die with him. In other words, you see that pessimistic attitude coming out. Yeah, they want to kill you up there. They just tried to kill you, and you're going back up there. And now you're going up there, and we'll go up there and die with you. Remember, in John 14:4, Jesus said, And you know the way where I am going. And Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where you are going. So how in the world can we know the way? That's Thomas.

9:01That's his appearances here in John's Gospel, both negative, melancholy, and pessimistic. In fact, if I had to draw a portrait of Thomas's personality, we might be able to relate to a very famous comic named Eeyore. You know, that one lost my tail again, poo, and I was attached. Nobody cares. You know, you know, the personality, right? Well, and to a large degree, that's that's Thomas. I don't mean to say that he didn't love Jesus or wasn't genuinely devoted to him, but he was certainly slow to believe, and that needed to change about him.

9:57He missed the blessing of the previous week, he wasn't there in assembly, and there, the reason is immaterial. The reality is he didn't have the benefit of knowing what the others knew because he was not there. You know, attending church is important. I'll go beyond it. It's key to spiritual growth, it's fundamental to spiritual growth. One of the Three core values here: truth, community, and mission. And community is essential to growth. In fact, truth is given to be spoken in community, certainly in private devotion through the reading of the word, but also in community as we share, as we gather around the word, and we listen and we grow in our knowledge of the word and we exhort others in the truth of the word. That is part of the sanctification process.

11:07And one of my biggest concerns about COVID that has come up these recent months is not so much what it's done to the economy, not even so much as what it is the threat of it or people getting sick. Even that isn't the biggest concern I have, though it's real. Biggest concern I have is how many people have grown accustomed to being out of church, out of community. It is time we get back to church. There are some things that are worth living for and things that are worth dying for and risking your life for. I can't promise you won't get COVID if you come up here. We've taken measures, but at some point we have to move on and recognize that God intended. us to be in community and disciples are made in community and the whole corporate relationship that we have with each other is one of being in community together centered around Christ's word. It is there that the older men exhort the younger men, the older women exhort the younger women and so on. Now I recognize that we're living in different, a very difficult situation, but at the same token, it is time to get back to church. In fact, we intend to start church, get back to our pre-COVID routine in early September, Sunday school and all.

12:55Certainly dialing in is a good surrogate in between time and for good reason. Many should, but at the same token, it doesn't replace the community we have by fellowshipping one together in person. And that needs to be happening. And to miss that is to miss a fundamental element of what Christ envisioned his church would be. But a skeptic often fails to assemble with believers, and then their unbelief and what comes out is directly associated with what they missed. You can't go through life just missing what all we talk about and what all we all that goes on in church.

13:54But a second observation I want to make comes from verse 25. Look at verse 25. So the other disciples were saying to him, We have seen the Lord. Now you think about Thomas here, he's hearing the testimony. We have seen the Lord, and yet he completely rejects it, as the rest of the passage makes clear and the rest of the verse, right? Well, that's what a skeptic does. Not only does a skeptic fail to assemble with believers, a skeptic thinks believers are deceivers. And here's Thomas. You think about what's going on. He's hearing the company of his friends, and he has to charge them with one of two crimes. Either you are completely deceived yourself, or you are bold-faced liars.

14:44That's the overwhelming, that's everybody else in that company is telling him, we have seen the Lord. And Thomas is basically saying, no, you haven't. You're either deluded or you're lying, one of the two. Third observation to make about a skeptic is a skeptic elevates himself or herself as the measure of all reality. Look at what Thomas says. The other disciples were saying, We have seen the Lord, and this is ongoing. We have seen. They've been telling him this several times. But he said to them, and well, he kept saying to them, unless I see the hands of in his hands, the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.

15:37See, a skeptic's universe is limited to only what they can see, touch, or get their mind around, right? What an arrogant place to put himself. Thomas puts himself as the one who can measure all of the reality. Unless he could see, touch, and get his mind around, there's simply no belief. Testimony is invalid at this point in Thomas's life. Listen, if you're going to learn anything about this universe, anything about this world, and even anything about your field of study, you have to trust somebody. You're going to have to rely on valid testimony of somebody somewhere, some expert in your field. And certainly that is true about God's world.

16:31That's true about the spiritual realm. If you're going to learn anything about it or know anything about it, you're going to have to put your trust in a reliable witness. And so, reliable witnesses are necessary to expand our understanding of the universe. And certainly, life beyond the grave. But a skeptic like Thomas here, his universe was limited to only what he could see, touch, or felt. And he himself said, I am the measure of this reality. Your testimony invalid.

17:14It's an arrogant and a dangerous place to be. Fourth observation about skeptics is: a skeptic puts an unjust demand upon God, doesn't he? Isn't it incredible what Thomas puts upon Jesus right here? Think about the conditions he's putting upon him. Thomas demanded that if you want to make me a believer, Jesus, you're going to have to come, you're going to have to show yourself to me, and you're going to have to let me put my finger in your hand and my hand in your side.

17:51That's it, or I'm not going to believe. Otherwise, what a demand. Who does he think? He is. And oftentimes, that's what skeptics do. That's what we do sometimes, right? God, you have to prove to me that you are with me on my terms. That you are good, and this is the measure I want. Here's the hoop I want you to jump through so that I can sign on with who you are. Fifth observation about Thomas the skeptic here is that he was committed to his unbelief. He was committed to his unbelief.

18:35And that's basically what happens at the heart level. A skeptic is committed to unbelief. And think about this: Thomas had witnessed Lazarus' resurrection. Thomas had heard Jesus say that he would rise from the dead. Thomas now had heard the testimony of all of his friends. We have seen the Lord. And Thomas is committed, doubled down, doubles down in his unbelief. And that is sin, the sin of unbelief. That is what Hebrews 12:1 speaks so adamantly against. Hebrews 12:1, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance of the sin which so easily entangles us. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Do you know what the sin in the context of John chapter or Hebrews 12:1 is? The sin of unbelief. That is what needs to be set aside.

19:48Do you know how the sin of unbelief manifests itself? It manifests itself by looking for reasons not to believe. Finding reasons, finding technicalities, or finding good reasons why this passage doesn't apply to you, whether it's warning or whether it's glorious comfort. Our hearts can be impervious to it because we look for reasons not to believe. And that is the fundamental sin of unbelief. Coming and saying, this isn't about me, this doesn't include me, it's too good to be true about me, so I'm not going to believe it. Or it is clear that this is wrong and it doesn't apply to me because I know this is right.

20:30The sin of unbelief looks for reasons not to include ourselves in scriptural truth, scriptural elements. That's the sin of unbelief. And we need to repent of that. How do you repent of that? What does repenting of your commitment to unbelief look like? Well, repentance of your unbelief starts by looking at reasons too. Believe instead of reasons to not believe. Repentance from your unbelief looks like coming to scripture and looking for reasons to believe what it says and following the implications of where those truths lead. That's what belief is about. Coming with a heart of saying, you know, unless there's some gross error that jumps out here that says, I cannot believe this, unless that be the case, I'm going to believe. I'm going to simply believe. Let that be your disposition, not the other way around. Unbelief says, unless there's a good reason to believe this, I'm going to reject it all. Do you see the difference? Let us accept the testimony of nature. Let us accept the testimony of God's word unless there's clear evidence not to. That's what a believer does. And you'll find reason. And you will see your life transformed by the truth of this word because it's the truth when taken in and believed that transforms.

22:20And that's what happens to Thomas. That's what transformed this skeptic. So I want to take a few moments and just look at. The transformation of this skeptic. And the bottom line is it boils down to Jesus' kindness. You know what transforms Jesus' kindness? You know what transformed Thomas? Jesus' kindness toward him. You know what transforms us? God's kindness to us. And I just want you to see four ways in which Jesus is kind to Thomas here and by implication, kind to everyone he deals with because it's who he is.

23:07But first of all, his kindness is shown to Thomas in his effort to reconnect with Thomas. Look at verse 26. After eight days, his disciples were again inside and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and he said, Peace be with you. So after eight days, literally, it would be, and with days eight, this is a way of expressing the following week, the following Lord's Day. You count the beginning, day one, the first Lord's Day, then after or with eight days, you're going to be at the next Lord's Day. And it's unanimous in commentaries and scholars that this is an expression. Referring to, or certainly in unanimous in the ones that I consult, that this is speaking of the next Lord's Day. It's a way of saying the next week.

24:16Again, they are together, the doors being shut. No mention of fear this time, and I believe because Jesus has already given a measure of his peace through the Spirit and has implanted that in their hearts, that they are now at peace. But they certainly are in with closed doors. And like last time, with no other way to come in, Jesus comes in, stood in their midst. Jesus loves the assembly of believers. He loves the individual believers gathered in the assembly. In fact, earlier in the service, we read from Revelation 1. And where is Jesus pictured there? He's pictured there in and among the lampstands, the churches. That's where his heart is at. That is where his mind is engaged. He is looking. He is hearing. He is walking among. He is very concerned about what happens here this morning and in all of his churches, just as he was that morning.

25:29It's interesting. Seem to note, he doesn't go find Thomas out on a park bench somewhere and sits down beside him and starts talking to him. He met him in the assembly. Now, he did meet with Mary earlier on her own and by the tomb and all that. But as you progressively go on, you start seeing Jesus more and more meeting with the assemblies. They're very important. Second way in Jesus' kindness is shown here is in his desire for Thomas to be at peace. Jesus comes in and he stands in their midst and he says, Peace be with you. And that includes you, Thomas, where the conversation is going to go. This is the third time in this section that he has spoken peace. Peace. Peace. And then he follows it up with an action again, like he did. And we looked last time. Shows them his hands and his side.

26:40Peace. He knows what Thomas has been going through. You ever had one of those weeks where you feel like the world is against you? I mean, you just feel like the world is against you, and your closest friends have forsaken you. You're out of connection with. Them, you feel alone, feel like they could care less, and then your thoughts turn to heaven and you start wondering: does God really care? God could care less. The world's against me, friends against me, even God's against me. Have you ever had a week like that?

27:27Nobody cares. Have you ever had one of those? I think we're pretty frequent. I think we might be able to identify, nobody cares. Well, think about Thomas for just a moment. And I don't put that up there to make light of his situation, but hopefully that you will remember it. He had a horrible week, he was at the lowest point of his life. He was marked out by the world as an enemy. Why? He was a follower of Christ. They just crucified him. Yet he was out of fellowship with the people he identified with, right? He was at odds with all of his friends who had seen Jesus. He was removed from the shared experiences of his fellow believers.

28:27I am sure Thomas felt as isolated. As he ever had felt in his life. He was probably felt more hurt, more abandoned, more alone, more lost, more directionless than he had ever felt in his life. And then I bet you his thoughts and mind started asking him this question: Why do you think Jesus didn't show himself to you or to me? Why didn't God show himself to me? And think of the further isolation this would have taken him. But certainly, he was a man without a country, a man without friends, a man not knowing which way to go, and a man certainly with no inner peace, at least until Jesus stepped back into his life. And then the whole thing changes. Because the truth is, Jesus does care. His kindness is real. And he comes in, peace, peace to you all, including you, Thomas. Peace to you. All is well. All is well between us.

29:43All is well. So his kindness is seen in his effort to reconnect with Thomas. His desire is, and his kindness is seen in his desire to see Thomas put at peace, but also. Also, third, his willingness to accommodate Thomas's demands. And this is remarkable. He's willing to accommodate Thomas's demands. Look at verse 27. Then he said to Thomas, Reach here with your finger and see my hands, and reach here your hand and put it into my side.

30:22Be reaching, be beholding, put your hand into my side. Now, there's some sort of connection with Jesus's pre-death body and his resurrected body. It bore the marks of the crucifixion. And this is his resurrected body. And it's going to be glorified, but it's still going to have these marks. And the language here: put your hand in my side, into my side. It makes sound like the wound is pretty big. You put your hand inside. The language there speaks of a very large or significantly large wound.

31:14But you can think for a moment, what a startling moment for Thomas. What an awakening moment for Thomas. So Jesus steps in, and what does he do? Okay, Thomas. Thomas, come here. Touch. Touch. It's like in a moment, Thomas knows Jesus heard me. He heard my demands, but yet he wasn't in the room. He knew. Did you tell him? No, no, I didn't tell him. How did he know? Right? How does he know? What a moment. Standing before Christ, and all of a sudden you're standing before somebody, scars. He says, I know exactly what you've been thinking. I know what's going on in your heart. See, Jesus loves the assembly. He knows what's going on. He hears what was spoken. He heard what was spoken, even though he wasn't physically present. His omniscience is real. He does know. And scripture makes it clear he knows even more than just what we say. He knows what we think. He knows what's in our heart. Even before it's a thought, he knows the motives. And he has to be such. If he's going to be earth's ruler, he's going to have to have omniscience. Justice is dependent upon omniscience. You have to know everything, be able to do things right, judge rightly. He's going to judge the world. And for it to be right, he's going to have to know more than just deeds. He's going to have to know intentions and motivations. That.

33:00Is God's judge. And also to shepherd his people. He has to really know humanity inside out, and he has to know us inside out to be able to shepherd us. And so he comes to Thomas. Okay, Thomas, don't touch. And his willingness to accommodate Thomas's demands is startling. The fourth act of Christ's kindness to Thomas here is seen in that simple but gracious command to believe. His gracious command to believe. Look at the end of verse 27. And do not be unbelieving, but be believing. And here's the main command: Look, reach. Well, it starts out, feast, reach, see, and then reach again, and then you be believing.

34:06And the word there, it's a noun. It's not, it's like be believing, it's be a believer, Thomas. Don't be an unbeliever, don't be void of faith, don't be characterized by an absence of belief. But, Thomas, be one full of faith, full of trust, full of believing. Don't doubt, don't interpret this through the lens of skepticism. Interpret this, interpret me, interpret these wounds through the eyes of belief. And it's with these words that Jesus not only silenced Thomas's skepticism, but he transformed Thomas's entire understanding of who Jesus is.

34:53Well, that's the kindness of Jesus. Before moving on, I'd like for us just to take a moment to just take in this rich patience and this rich graciousness of Jesus. This is how he deals with people. This is how he deals with us. He puts up with our skepticism, our dullness, our stubborn unbelief. He puts up with that. If we would only believe what was really here, if we only truly believe what's written and what is given to us, it would transform us.

35:37But we're slow. But he is patient. He is kind. He desires to connect with us. And he graciously says, you need to stop your unbelief. Somebody needs to tell you, stop going down a life of skepticism. Go down a life. Of believing, come to him and be believing. That's fundamentally what's wrong. But it also gives us, as we drink in his patience and his kindness towards us, it gives us a model for how we should relate to one another, right?

36:22There's a lot of people who are weak in God's family. There are a lot of people who wandered far from God, far from his people, many slow students, many broken, many hurting, many needing, many stubborn, skeptical, and yet we can be patient with him because he's patient with us. Well, I want to move on to a confession. Look at this confession. Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God. There's no indication that Thomas actually did what Jesus or what he said he would do. There's no indication that he went over and started touching and saying, okay, yeah, okay, God. Yeah, that looks pretty good. Gonna go with you. No, he doesn't do any of that. He moves right on and just, my Lord, my God.

37:17There's something about the sound of Jesus' words, seeing Jesus there. He believed. He believed that Jesus was alive, but he believed a lot more than that. He believed what the resurrection implied about Jesus. He looked with the eyes of belief, and he understood that mere man doesn't do this. This isn't a mere, a mere man doesn't come back from the grave like this. And he put it all together and he said, you are my Lord and you are my God. And I want you to see three aspects of this confession. This is the highest confession of John's gospel.

38:02And he's led up to this point. Three aspects of Jesus' confession that express the content of his faith and the content of the Christian faith. When you boil all the creeds down to their simplest form and you put them in four words, if you take all the creeds and you boil them down to four simple words, it's this. Jesus, you are my Lord, my God, my Lord, my God. You boil it all down. That is what the Creed should say if it is truly a creed that comes out of Scripture. My Lord, my God.

38:47First aspect is that Jesus is Lord and God. He is Creator God in human flesh. He is Earth's rightful ruler, Lord and God, Creator God. God, human flesh. John, this is where he started his gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. All things came into being through Him. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That's where John starts his gospel. Now he's getting to the very end, to really the last main end point, and it comes back to this truth.

39:23Jesus is eternal God, and only eternal God can be eternal Savior. Second aspect of Jesus' confession, I mean, Thomas's confession, is that he is, not only Jesus is Lord and God, yes, that's true about who he is, but he makes it very personal, doesn't he? You aren't my Lord. My Lord. And when Thomas says, my Lord, he is emphasizing his personal subjection to Christ. He's emphasizing Jesus' rightful place in relationship to himself. Word for Lord here carries the idea of ownership, the idea of one who has control over something, the idea of master, master. Jesus is my master, is what he's saying. He's Lord of all, but it's more that Thomas is saying, You are my Lord. You are. My master. Our relationship is such that I owe you everything. And when I fail to give you as you deserve, I owe you an apology and I ask for your forgiveness.

40:48That's the idea. There's this idea that Jesus can be your Savior and not your Lord. Well, that's not based upon the Christ of Scripture. Lordship speaks about the proper relationship between the two. And if you think Jesus is your brother and not Lord, you've missed the Christ of Scripture. You're serving another Christ. Christ is very much Lord. That's the proper relationship between us. And when that is violated by me, I need to ask for forgiveness. It doesn't mean that we're going to be perfect, right? It means there's a proper relationship that I acknowledge and that I often get it wrong, but the purpose of sanctification is growing in the relationship where everything in my life is brought under subjection to him. That's the concept of Lord, and that's the concept that John is articulating from Thomas's confession. You are my Lord. I owe you everything.

41:53But then there's a third aspect of Thomas's confession here that I want you to see. My God, my Lord. God. And this is an expression of the affection that Thomas now has for Jesus. He is worthy of worship. He is my creator. He is my redeemer. He is my master. He is my friend. He is due all the affection that I would give to God himself. So here, my God, he is worthy of worship. And Jesus does not refuse such worship.

42:35So we've looked at a skeptic. We've looked at his transformation. We've looked at his confession. And fourth, I want us to look at the invitation that is here for us today. Verse 29. Jesus said to him, saying to Thomas, Because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed. You see, Thomas's confession is an invitation for us to believe Jesus to be our Lord and our God and to be blessed as such. That's why John wrote this whole gospel to begin with, and he takes us to this high point because he wants us to know what coming to faith in Christ looks like. What does faith in Christ look like? Looks like. It looks like you and I on a personal level saying, Jesus, you are my Lord and you are my Lord. My God, that is the fundamental confession of the Christian faith. And this is what coming to faith looks like.

43:40And he makes it very clear that the disciples had known him. They came to know him as Israel's rightful king, earth's rightful master, and God's son. They had the privilege of seeing all that. But Jesus makes it very clear that there is a special blessing for those who do not have to be constantly seeing in order to believe. We have been given his words. Believers like us, some later believers, would have to do what Thomas couldn't. Maybe this made their proclamation a little more sympathetic, right? You guys had to see all this stuff, and now you're asking future generations to believe through your word. And yet, that's exactly what Jesus said would happen in John 17:20, as he prayed for us, he prayed for us, as he prayed for his disciples, he prayed that we for us who would believe in him through their word. That is the only connection. Believing through their word. That's the connection. That's the way we see the Christ of Scripture is through the words that His Spirit has left us. And it is through those words that we see the Christ of Scripture, the one that the disciples, apostles, knew. We cannot expect. We cannot share the experiences of those first generation, but we can share and partake in the same faith because their experiences have been written down for us, and through them we can know the one that they knew. And Jesus pronounces a special blessing upon those who come to faith through the hearing of the words.

45:33Romans 10:17. But those who hear and believe take their place among the many who are blessed upon the earth. Oh, Thomas said these things. Jesus wrote this confession down so that Thomas's confession would be our confession. What do we do on our end as we've fought through all this? Well, first of all, I think it's important that we be at ease in the sense that we know that Jesus is patient with us, he waits to show us grace, he willingly stoops to our level to bring us grace.

46:30Let us be at ease and know that he is kind, as he has dealt with Thomas, he will deal with us. And then, how? How do we really make his confession our confession? Well, first of all, joyfully realize, joyfully realize here this morning that it is not his desire that any of us should perish, that you should perish, and that's exactly why he chases away our sin of unbelief. Marvel at the fact that you are treasured, that you are loved to such a degree by the Son of the highest, that God over all would bleed and die for you. Let that sink in. Believe that. Understand. Take it in through belief. And follow those implications. Let that, your God, Son of the highest, came and bled and died.

47:34Does this truth astonish you? That your king, your God would do this? If it doesn't astonish you, you probably don't believe it. Be amazed. Be amazed that you and I have a king, a Lord, such as Jesus. A protector, a wise lawgiver. Jesus Himself is the greatest gift that the Father gives us. He's the one who can cause a soul like Thomas to leap from despair to gladness. He can quiet the anxious soul. Only God can do this.

48:24So let us, with Thomas, say, You are my Lord, you are my God. And know for certain that there is a day coming when we will all assemble. We will assemble as the spotless bride of Christ, cleansed from every stain, every wrinkle. We will be conducted to his throne in royal procession. We will be revealed to the universe as his beloved. Our hearts, in union, will sing back the song of the beloved to her beloved, and the church will say in loud, unanimous voice, Jesus, you are. Our Lord. You are our God.

49:36And that is the beautiful song that the bride sings to her beloved. Let us begin singing that now. Jesus, you are my Lord and my God. Holy Spirit, please come make that more true. Make that confession. Now it is a confession, and we don't live up to that confession. Holy Spirit, please guide, direct, let this confession be a reality. But know a day is coming for sure that one day it will not be just a confession, it will be a stated reality.

50:20Let us look forward to that day and let us begin even now looking like that. Let that confession become more and more real until it is perfectly complete in us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the morning. Thank you for these truths. Thank you for John's gospel. And Father, indeed, we rely upon you and your Spirit to come in and do these things in us because there's no way this confession will be anything more than a high ideal. Unless you do a complete work in us. So please convict us of our sins. Show us where we have not given subject, been subject to you as you deserve, and have not honored you as Lord, and forgive us where we have not worshipped you and adored you as your Heavenly Father. Thank you. Thank you. In Jesus' name.