I think How many of you were there yesterday. Just say me: Yeah, Was it? Was it fun? Did you enjoy it? Say yeah, Don't say no.

If you didn't say no, I'm like, ah, I keep it, keep it chill. I want you to tell me about it Now. People told me about it yesterday. They told me on site. I was in my blue shirt.

They didn't know who I was, Not that I'm important. Servant of all is what they say pastors are supposed to be. But it's funny. I preached the Gospel. Then I come down and, they're like: "When's my, When is my heat?

What do they call it? I don't know. When is When is my egg drop". And it's probably not the way they said it. I don't know, but we had four Easter egg drops yesterday.

We had a special needs egg hunt on the front end and then we had a free-for-all egg hunt on the back end. They told me we had about 7,000 people come out to hang out. Isn't that awesome, Super cool, and we got to preach the Gospel to all the ones that were there when I did it. You know it's. It's amazing that people- The Bible says in Romans 10, it said Paul's saying this, He says: "How are they to hear unless someone comes to preach it".

And so the reason we do events like that is because I mean we love others, because he first loved us, and the way he loved us was he came down from the sky. Come on, somebody Came down from the sky and interacted with us in the midst of our mess and died and rose. Now he's seated at the right hand of the Father and what that does is it shows us his love for us and his capacity to forgive us of our sin. If he stayed dead- I'm looking at a dead dude, But he didn't, So it alters my entire life. And so yesterday we, we preached the Gospel.

A lot of people came, And when people would come up to me, they'd say: "So the way we did it was when you showed up and registered-, that was when we entered you in. You got a wristband for a specific egg drop. The earlier you showed up, the earlier your egg drop. And so we gave people wristbands and they said: "My wristband says 12:15.". It was like three drops away.

And I'm like, "Oh, no, So sorry". And they were like: "Nah, I came here. I only got a certain amount of time. I, I, I came here to do this and I'm it's time for me to go, Like I don't, I don't want to wait". I'm not mad about it, I get it.

It was hot, Wasn't it? One as bad as it is out there right now, Praise God, but it was warm. There's a lot of stuff going on, It's a big crowd. And then if they jumped into the bounce houses, there was a line there too For registration. There was a line there.

Can we just celebrate our registration team, Didn't they do good yesterday? But what I learned- most people were chill. Couple weren't as chill. But what I realized is something that's true for you and me, and for them for sure- Is I don't like to wait my turn, And in my spiritual walk it's kind of the same way. I've grown up being much different than maybe other people in the faith, And so what has happened for me as I've grown up is I've seen others experience some sort of move of God, or maybe they had a spiritual experience, and I'm over here like chopped liver to the Lord, waiting on him to do something in my life.

They said they go to like some retreat and they're like "God changed everything", Or they'll go to church one day- and I spoke in tongues or I heard God audibly tell me this- And they'll have these spiritual experiences. Some people, it's not even just one spiritual experience, It's that they grew up in a family that had tons of spiritual experiences. And I, I didn't go to church for the first time in any significant way that I'm aware of, at least, until I was in eighth grade, And some of you, same boat right, I've never been to church or I went to this church and it was interesting to attend that church. This is a much radically different experience, Regardless of yourself in and around differently, And this is at different times, And so it's really easy for us to be frustrated when we're waiting on the Lord to do something that we have literally seen him viscerally do for somebody else, And it's just a natural tendency. I don't like to wait at the stoplight.

I don't like to wait for a bounce house- not that I jump in those anymore. I don't like to wait in any area of my life, And so it's just natural that, spiritually, when the Lord tarries a little bit longer, That's a super spiritual word, ain't it? Tarries. I don't know When the Lord waits a little bit longer than I want him to. What happens now is I start to get anxious or frustrated or even extremely angry at the Lord, Or I start to mask the hurt and frustration that I have toward God with logic that says he doesn't exist.

 Or just I? I feign ignorance or apathy or a lack of knowledge, agnosticism toward this God because he didn't come through for me in the way that I anticipated he would. I ignore the mundane things or the normal things or the things that I can see as a pattern throughout the world. He may do it, but I ignore that because it happens for other people. All the while, I'm looking for something extravagant And I miss it.

And in John, chapter 20, I mean, let's zoom out a little bit. In Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the disciples and almost everyone attached to Jesus responds in various ways to the death of Jesus. Now, if you're new to church, what happens is Jesus comes, spends about well 33 years on Earth, spends 3 years doing ministry. The Pharisees and the Sadducees and other people didn't know what to do with this person who spoke God's word with authority. Jesus gathers together a lot of disciples.

This was normal in the ancient world. These days it's a little bit different. But he gathers together his disciples, They follow him for this 3-year period and he teaches them. And then, near the end of it, we find out through the Scriptures that none of the disciples truly understood what Jesus came to do. They thought he would be a military Messiah, not the one that we all have come to know of.

And so then he dies on a cross, Like it's an execution. He is broken in form and took a sinner's cross, A robber's cross. I- I don't know if people ever articulate this- We like to picture him in some sort of loincloth right, But in the ancient world he would have been naked to show even more so his shame. And when the disciples look at that, and then they see his death and he's put in the tomb- It was a good tomb, It was a nice tomb. Joseph of Arimathea- the text tells us that, he, he put him on a piece of property with a nice tomb in a cave and stone was rolled in front of it.

And during this time period, this Passover time period, the disciples think Jesus is dead And they're like: "I thought this is what we had anticipated". In Luke you hear a story of this group of people going to a place called Emmaus and they interact with Jesus. It's a cool resurrection account. I'm not going to preach on that today, But we find that when they're talking to this person that they didn't know was Jesus at the time, they said: "We had hoped that this would be the Messiah" And this group of people, these Jewish people, who had long awaited a Messiah, thought that this person, Jesus, was the Messiah. And then he dies.

And because they didn't quite understand what was meant by the resurrection from the dead- it's a whole theological conversation in the ancient world- they think that their Messiah has died and now their hopes have been demolished And we enter into John, chapter 20. I preached on verses 1 through 8 this morning during our sunrise service. Which, if you didn't come, what do they say? You snooze, you lose. I'm just kidding.

I love you to death. It's not, You didn't lose out cuz you got this this this time, right now. But it was really pretty. The sun rose over the school, I said in Instagram thing. I felt so terrible about it.

I said it rose over the Australia mountains, but I guess my depth perception is terrible or my direction skills is bad. It rose over the school, But wasn't it pretty if you were there? Yeah, it was pretty, It was super cool. I didn't see it. I got to saw, see all those beautiful faces there, and they didn't see me either.

All they saw was a heavenly glow from the sunlight piercing my back. I don't know what y'all saw, I'm just kidding with you, But it was a fun moment. What I preached on very briefly, is the first part of John, chapter 20, verses 1 through 8. What happens there is, you know, Mary was the first to see the tomb and realize that there was no one in it. She runs back, talks to Peter and John, also known as the beloved disciple, And Peter and John.

They run to the tomb with Mary And apparently John beat Mary there. You know, John beat Mary at the tomb, Or sorry, John beat Peter to the tomb. I don't know how was the race, but he's a runner, He's a track star, He's got it covered And so he gets there. And then John doesn't even walk into the tomb at first. Peter goes in, sees that the linens are laying right there, Just the way that they would have over Jesus' body.

Now, any innocent bystander would have just thought, "Oh, a robber took him". This is, This is actually what Mary thought, that someone took his body, but John had the percep- perceptivity to be able to believe when he saw the linens. And so that was this morning. And we pick up right at the end of that portion of the passage, and it's in verse 11. And I'll read through to verse 16.

Now Mary stood outside the tomb, crying As she wept. She bent over to look into the tomb And she saw two angels in white. Now the Greek term for angels is angelos, which can also be translated as messenger, So she's not looking in and seeing like angelic beings. The text doesn't read that way. It's.

It's two messengers. This is a, This is a postscript for Mary. Mary didn't know who they were, but they were in white And they were seated where Jesus's body had been, One on the head and the other at the foot. They asked her: "Woman, why are you crying". And she says: "They have taken my Lord away and I don't know where they have put them".

At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her: "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it that you're looking for". Thinking he was the gardener, she said: "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put them. Put him and I will get him".

Jesus said to her "Mary". She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic: "Rabbouni", which means teacher. Now, this is a very confusing passage. To a certain extent, right, You got these two men in white sitting there asking her why she's crying, and then she turned around and then it says Jesus talks to her. I don't actually know what that would have looked like.

Was it one of the two men, Or did some time pass and she continued to cry and then Jesus walks up. Either way, she turned around, looked at the person and realized "Okay, this man just talked to me", Asked me what's going on, And she thought it was Jesus. The text tells us it was Jesus, but she thought he was the gardener. It's funny: Sometimes Jesus shows himself up in some common places. You know, I don't know.

 She thought he was the, the gardener. I'm not, I don't. I don't have a gardener. Well, I have a landscaper. I pay him a, a hundred or something.

I'm every so, whenever I, whenever I need it. I don't know, I don't even know what he dresses like, cuz usually I'm gone when he's there, But I don't have a gardener. There may be some people in here who do have a gardener- If you do good job Like hook me up once in a while- but I don't picture Jesus as a gardener. And so when she saw this man who's talking to her, he, he was not some beastly angelic being, He was not in a form that would have been obvious. In fact it was obscure.

It was a man just kind of wandering around there and she didn't know why he was there. And he says: "Why are you crying". And if it is the gardener- which again this is, I'm trying to get into the mind of Mary here- If this is the gardener, then he wouldn't have had to ask her why she's crying, Because she's standing there, right, right there next to the tomb. And if he's the gardener, he would have probably had part of the conversation. As you know, like he probably know who they put there, The gar- gardener at the funeral home or the landscaper at the funeral home tends to know what's happening at the funeral home.

This gardener would have known. But he says: "Why are you crying". And she looks at him and she tells him, She kind of asks him: "Do you know where they laid him". She's just in this emotional state. She's frustrated, She's stressed out.

John has believed, Peter has run back to figure some things out for himself, But Mary still doesn't understand what has happened. And then, in verse 16, Jesus said to her: "Mary". She turned to him and cried out in Aramaic: "Rabbouni", which means teacher. There's some some difference, right? Jesus talked to her in an unshapely form, in a way that she didn't immediately recognize, and she turned toward him but didn't understand who he was, and starts treating him like he's a gardener.

But then he says "Mary" And she turns toward him again and she knows exactly who it is. I don't know exactly what that meant for her. I would imagine that maybe others called her something different, but Jesus called her a specific name. If you've watched The Chosen series, I didn't realize this until I was reading this portion, but her character arc's about to make me bust out in tears when they get to season 7 or whatever it is. But the first episode in the thing was- and this is not scriptural, but the first episode in the thing was, Jesus calling her Mary, And I, I.

I don't know that that's accurate, but it is poetic and helps me understand something deeper about the ancient world- that, however he called her, Mary was intimate, Not in any weird way, but it tells her immediately who this person is that's talking to her. I say all that to say this: This is Mary's moment. She'd been waiting at the tomb, She had talked to Peter and John, and now He talked to her directly. He called her by her name, And then she goes and she tells the others. She goes and she wants to tell the disciples, and when she tells the disciples there's a lot of confusion in the mix.

In the ancient world- and there are a lot of women in this room and I just want to tell you- this is not my opinion, But in the ancient world your best witnesses weren't women. So when Mary- who is already in like a really bad spot- she bought burial spices because she thought he was dead, Now she's coming back, told them they had stolen the body, and then she's coming back and telling them that that Jesus is still alive, that he rose from the grave, The people look at her and they're like: "Mm Mary, won't you go get a nap? Take a second, Think on this for a second Move from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, Let's Just calm down". And she tells them- And this is her moment- She turns and then she goes and tells other people and for them it's still confusion. But then here's what.

Here's what happens in the next passage, Verse 18. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news "I have seen the Lord" And she told them that he had said these things to her. Then this skips ahead a little bit: On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said: "Peace be with you". Now I want to highlight something here, because I think there may be some people in this room who have fled not religious persecution, but just a religious vibe that was like really dark and has. You might call it church hurt.

I don't like to call it church hurt, but it's people hurt, The mask itself as church hurt, because they're church people who did it And you might have fled organized religion because you're struggling with church people. I think you can identify with the disciples here. What has happened is the Pharisees and the Sadducees and a big mob shouted "Crucify him" to Pontius Pilate and they flogged him and they killed him. This is their leader, their rabbi, And then it's been a couple days and they're part of his main crew. So the Scripture tells us they were behind locked doors for fear of the Jews.

They're, They're fearful. Anyone ever like been laying awake at night? Or you fall asleep and then you wake up and you have this weird feeling: "Did I lock the doors". You know, No, Nobody. That happens to me quite often.

 Cuz Hannah and I, we forget to lock doors, which is not a good thing to say in a room full of people. I don't know. But don't come to my house, cuz I got a. That's a lie. I don't want to lie and say I have a security system.

It's, But it would be safer that way. I have a security system. Someone gave me a gun that's not loaded. I've just No, I am. I'm going to get robbed Cuz I, I just can't.

I, I can never tell a lie. Goodness gracious, I dug a hole here. We are talking about tombs today. So Stop, Stop it, Matt, Get back on track. But I'll be laying awake at night sometimes and I'll be like "Did I lock the door" And then I'll get kind of this fear Like "Dude, what if someone breaks in", Like the, the.

The next thought after I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm kind of like barely awake and I'm like "Did I lock the door", And then the next thought is someone breaking in and killing me and my kids and my wife. You know, Like so this? I know it's dark, but that's the thought that comes And then I'm like [panting], anxious, and then I go down and I lock my door and we're good. This is kind of in this visceral emotional spot that the disciples are in. We don't know the full extent of what the persecution could be for them if they're not behind the locked doors, but they're locking these doors.

They are in a very difficult state. They're stressed out, They're scared. It's great that they're gathered together- This is what they should do, but they're very scared and what happens is someone shows up inside the room when the doors were locked, And it's Jesus, Which most of you, when you're reading the Scriptures, you're overlooking this kind of stuff. There are times where it says he, he evaded the crowd, and it's like "How did he evade the crowd? Did he like, put on a Harry Potter invisibility cloak and, like, walk through it.

How did they get in the locked door And how are they not noticing this person? It's like, are they all hooded like fire tuck? I have no clue what's happening in this room, but they're all scared and they let some dude in. They need a security team like ours. Amen, Jason, Amen David, I'm just kidding.

They let everybody in As the Jesus comes in this locked door and he immediately he shows them the, the piercing in his side, and the, the, the nail scars in his hands. This is a disciples moment. In the midst of their fear. They weren't at the tomb with Mary. They weren't in the garden weeping with Mary.

They were. They were in a locked room in fear, and Jesus met them there. And whatever your fears are- maybe it's religious persecution- just struggle with religion in general. I need you to know that Jesus is willing to meet you there. But for some of us it's even different than that, because here's the next passage of Scripture.

It says this in John, chapter 20, 20, verse 24. Now Thomas, also known as Didymus, one of the 12, 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". And this is where I really, I really connect.

I've I've not, to my knowledge, been in a locked room. You can tell them to lock the doors right now. Yeah, lock the doors. No, I'm just kidding. Y'all don't seem to think that was funny.

There's a whole TikTok video where someone said: lock the doors. A pastor did it and it wanted people to give her and whatever. I've not been in that situation. I've not been in the situation that I'm aware of where Jesus was a gardener and I turned around and recognized and then he called my name and I looked around and was like, "Oh, it's Jesus, Rabbi, come on". But I've been in Thomas's situation, where other people have experienced something, but for some reasons I wasn't there, And that's a really difficult place to be.

It's a painful place to be. If I'm Thomas, you got to think about who Thomas is in the Scriptures. What do we typically call this Thomas person in history? What do we call him? What kind of Thomas, Doubting Thomas?

I don't like that. I feel like they call me doubting Matt when they call him doubting Thomas, cuz I've asked similar questions. I think it's an unfair name that we've given him. Maybe questioning Thomas? Maybe he wants to see a little bit more proof, Thomas, Maybe he just very logical person, Thomas, I'm not sure.

 But doubting Thomas isn't, isn't quite fair, because there's at least one scenario earlier in the book of John where Jesus is talking about going to the cross and Thomas says: "We will go with you and offer up our lives". Now, that's a paraphrase, but Thomas is the one You got Peter, rejecting him, cutting off people's ears, getting all emotional, running slower than John. You know. You got Peter doing his thing. You've got John, who's next to his mother when he's looking at him upon the cross, But you got Thomas, before any of this happens, says: "We will go with you".

This is Thomas, is faith, faithful Thomas. Now, he didn't understand everything that Jesus was going to do, but he was. He was faithful to Jesus. I don't. I don't think it's fair to call him a doubter, But a lot of us we do struggle with doubt, don't we?

It's like I wasn't there when you saw it. I need to see it myself. I wasn't there when he rose from the grave I'd like to see about, see, see it myself. And it's like how you prove a resurrection Body's not there. You can't go find his blood stuff.

And then you got all this stuff in the news about the- what do they call it? The, the thing with his face blood imprint on it- Huh Yeah, the Shroud of Turin. I'm not going to burst your bubbles or anything. I'm not saying anything negative about it, but you're not going to convince somebody else. It makes you excited, but you're not going to convince somebody cuz it's like that's anybody's imprint.

You know That. That If you're doubting and questioning, you're looking for proof. And you may not find that proof, but it but it's a legitimate question. He said: "You guys were in this locked room. You already scared, You were looking for something good.

You saw the nails in his hands and the scar in his side. You saw all that stuff. I wasn't there. Unless I see it, I'm not going to believe". And I think Thomas has this logical question about the resurrection- He was with Jesus And he says: "Maybe the way I mourn is a little bit different than the way you disciples, plus Mary, are going to mourn.

I was with him. I was going to die with him. I was going to go to the cross with him, But then I looked upon it and he just died And I thought this was the Messiah And if he resurrected? I didn't see it Could be logical. But, like I said earlier, logic is usually a mask for something deeper.

And if I'm Thomas, I don't know what Thomas was doing, but I know there have been times where something happened with a group and I wasn't there for it. And I have seen people go on trips where they had the spiritual experience but for some reason I wasn't able to go. I have seen people experience worship in a different way than I did I've. I've heard people talk to God in prayer in such a way that it's like I, I feel like you've experienced him differently than me and sometimes I'll be real frustrated. I'll look up at the Lord and I'm like, why, Why, Why did?

Why did they get that experience and not me? Like, if you're real, like everybody says you are, why haven't you revealed yourself to me? And it continues past faith Like I'm. I'm a follower of Jesus. I've been that way since 15 years old and he's brought me through tons of stuff and he has confirmed it over and over and over, but this feeling hasn't fully shifted.

I grew up in a family that moved a lot. I grew up in a family that didn't necessarily go to church early on. I grew up in a family where none of my relatives were, to my knowledge, praying for me or pastoring ahead of me. Yet I'm in a group of people- most of my friends- that are in pastoral ministry. They'll their grandmothers who prayed for them.

They'll talk about their fathers or grandfathers who were deep into the ministry, And so they've learned things. I'm a first time pastor in my family, So run, Huh, Just run away. I'm just kidding, hopefully, But these other guys have experienced it. I'm like "Lord: why not? Why not?

Why not me? Why were the other disciples there and they saw you, But I never experienced it? Why do they have parents who did that? Why do they have grandparents who prayed for Why? Why them and not me?

If I'm Thomas, I'm like Lord. I was Lord. I was in a locked bedroom. I went to bed and I locked my door and you could have shown up there too. I wasn't with the group, but I was in a bed You should have.

Why didn't you show up? I think at a deeper level. Thomas is frustrated, not not simply because he's got a logical difficulty with the resurrection, but because there's a pain attached to him not experiencing something at as deep a level as somebody else. I think that's many of you. You don't struggle with the idea of a resurrection.

I mean, the resurrection's a hard thing to believe, but so is a big bang 13 billion years ago. Ain't nobody proved that? I mean, it's all hard to believe. It's hard to believe that someone evolved from something else. It's hard to believe half the stuff that you hear these days.

I was watching the dinosaur documentary on Netflix and they said it rained for a million years. I was like "Huh, You guys have a hard time with a 40-day flood. What in the world". It's like it's all hard to believe. It's hard to believe that we're just human beings on a space rock in the middle of an infinite nothingness.

It's hard. I don't think it's the logic of the resurrection that's that difficult, other than the fact that you grew up in an empirical society. I think what's so much more difficult. What's difficult is the fact that Jesus hasn't shown up for you in a way that you're looking for yet. But I need you to know something.

If you're like me and you struggle with kind of the questioning that Thomas has struggled with, I need you need you to see a couple things. First off, I don't know what you're looking for. You might be looking for a relationship. It's like, "God, if you love me, why haven't you shown up in this way". You might be wanting to have kids and you're not there yet and you're like, "God, if you love me, why haven't you shown up in this way", Or any number of items, And you're frustrated with God because he hasn't shown up in the specific way that you're looking for.

I need to remind you that just because he hasn't shown up for you in the way that he did for somebody else doesn't mean he didn't rise from the grave, It doesn't mean he's still dead, It doesn't mean any of this is untrue. In fact, there are so many things in this world that he has already done to prove to you that God is real, that he loves you and that he wants you to have a relationship with him. I'm just going to end this message with a few quick things. First off, when, when you're encountering this frustration with a waiting period, waiting for your turn to experience God and you have doubts, don't shade them. Don't shade the doubts, Don't cover them up.

Come with your questions. The Bible says: seek him where he can be found and he will be found by you. I quote that all the time because I want you to know it deeply. Don't shade, Bring them to him. He can answer your questions.

He did it for Thomas. At the end of one of Thomas's statements we get one of the best Scriptures in the Bible: John 14. He says: "I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me". This is after a Thomas question And in this one you'll see in a moment that Thomas's questioning actually brought greater disclosure about who God was. I.

I think it's amazing to believe without doubting. I also think it's amazing to have doubts and still believe. So bring your questions. Don't shade them, Don't hide them. Hiding keeps you from God, But if you bring these questions, you might be surprised about what the answers are.

You'll see that Thomas brought his questions and Jesus met him with the answer. Secondly, don't miss the mundane. Don't miss the mundane. We're looking for the miraculous occurrence, but don't miss the mundane miracle. Jesus might come as a gardener.

Jesus might show up randomly in a locked room. Don't miss him. But even if he doesn't show up in one of those weird miraculous occurrences, he did show up 2,000 years ago And he did communicate the word of God. He did die on a cross And, based on all the historical data we look at, that is better than most of the historical data you're reading. If I die, I'm going to tell you about it, Based on that historical data.

He is, he is risen And that is all the miraculous occurrence you need. I had one scholar. He said: "It all hinges on the resurrection". If you can believe in the resurrection, you're not stressed out about Genesis 1. If you can believe in a resurrection, you're not stressed out on whether something's literal or figurative.

If you can believe in the resurrection or the resurrection, all things are possible with God. So you're not stuck in the natural, You can actually elevate to the supernatural. Don't miss the mundane. And point number three: don't skip the opportunity for faith. This, I think, applies to everyone in this room.

Don't skip the opportunity for faith. Think about Thomas. Jesus shows up to Mary. Peter and John had already left that scene. Jesus shows up in a room that's locked with the disciples.

I don't know what his deal was, but Thomas wasn't there. Maybe he was scared, Maybe he was busy, I don't know what it was, But when it happened he wasn't there. And I can tell you this honestly: if you're not where it happens, when it happens, you're missing an opportunity. And I can tell you this with even greater confidence. Whether it's church, whether it's the Scriptures, whatever it is, God speaks through it.

I want you, I, I don't want you- to be like Thomas. I want you to be there when it happens. And so Thomas he's. You can talk all the mess you want to about him, but after this moment, when he says he has to see the nails in his hands or the nail holes in his hands and the scar in his side, a week later, a week waiting for his turn, he's in the locked room as well. So his doubt didn't cause him to bail.

His doubt actually drew him into the place where the miracle was going to happen. Thomas didn't say: "All right, he didn't show up for me, so I'm going to do my own thing". No, Thomas said: "He didn't show up and I want to see it". He didn't go to sleep longer. Take some Xanax and sleep his sorrow away.

No, he showed up in the locked room, And that next week. Here's what the Scriptures tell us, Verse 26, : "A week later, his disciples were in the house again. 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, Put it into my side, Stop doubting'.

That's his perfect passive participle. All that means it was a continuous action. He says: "Stop doubting". Present active participle: My bad, My bad guys, "Stop doubting and believe". Jesus met him in the midst of his doubt, but he met him kind of in a middle ground.

He didn't meet him in his bedroom, He met him in the locked room full of the disciples. I want to encourage you who came here today- whether it's been a long time or whether it was just a struggle to get here, God can meet you in this place right now, And when God meets you, after you have asked him the questions, I promise you Revelation will come. I'm not saying it's better, but I've learned in my life that when I ask a difficult question and God meets me with the answer, it is crazy valuable. We can talk all the mess we want about Thomas doubting Thomas, But when Jesus said this to him and showed him the very thing he was asking for, here's what Thomas says in verse 28. Thomas said to him: "My Lord and my God".

This is the most theological and direct statement that says Jesus is God in the entire Bible, Definitely in the entire book of John. I know Paul talks about it very vividly and clearly, but when it comes to the Gospel accounts Matthew, Mark and Luke, they kind of leave it as kind of a. It's clear, but it's not as direct-, - as John. And so what John says throughout his Scriptures is so direct: that Jesus is God. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

And at the end we have this, this kind of full circle moment, where a doubter looks at Jesus and realizes "My Lord and my God" Not Caesar is Lord, Jesus is Lord. It is the most theologically saturated and direct statement in the gospels that Jesus is Lord. And then Jesus said to him: "Because you have seen me and have believed, or you have believed, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed". But in order to believe without seeing. We have to make the opportunity, not skip it.

We have to look in the mundanity of life-, - and say, "Where did God work". We have to look back at the historical documentation and say, "You know what? Maybe there was a resurrection". I got to read a little history and it's mundane, but it's there. And in order to get the answers we have to bring the questions.

So don't shade the doubt. How you make your turn is by stepping in, even when it doesn't make perfect sense. But I want to give you your big idea, because we've been waiting for our turn way too long. I-, . In fact, Luke, chapter 15, tells us at the end of one of the parables.

He says that there is an, . There is joy in heaven, Like crazy joy. It's the same word that's used when it said: the disciples were overjoyed when they saw Jesus just a moment ago in the locked room. It says: heaven is overjoyed when one sin, one sinner, turns. Now I say turns when the Bible says repent.

Why? Because the word for repentance metanoia. There it actually means to turn. It's a military term. You were facing one way and then you face the other way.

So if you want to make your turn. You can do it at any moment. Stop waiting for it, Because God's already proven himself in the Scriptures. And it's a beautiful thing, because when I stopped waiting for my turn and I made the turn, confessed my sin before the Lord and allowed him to take over my life, then he put me on a mission and assignment: to turn toward others. And now it's not just heaven that's overjoyed.

When a sinner repents and comes to the saving knowledge of Jesus. I get pumped. This is why we talk about it every week. I want to give you the opportunity right now, not just to wait for the Lord to show up in your upper room, your locked room, your garden moment, but to do it in a basic, mundane moment where you're filled with questions. And the Bible says: anyone who confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead can be saved.

So all you have to do is confess and believe to make your turn, And I'll give you that opportunity. Really briefly, So if anybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, I want to lead you in a prayer, Say: "God, I believe that Jesus is your son, I believe he died on the cross and rose from the grave. Forgive me of my sin, Make me new, And I commit to follow you". In Jesus' name we pray, Heads bowed, eyes closed. If you made the decision to turn toward Jesus today, would you just make eye contact with me really briefly?

Let me know about it. Amen, Amen, Amen. And there might be two types of people. Maybe you trusted in Jesus for the first time, Maybe you did it a while back, but you're recommitting your life to Christ. If you would grab a card right now and let us know about the decision you just made, drop it off at one of the tables, We want to celebrate that with you, just like heaven is already celebrating.

In fact, can we celebrate everyone who just made a decision to follow Jesus?