Welcome to our Together on Mission Podcast, where we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning, with scripture, prayer, and meditation, and then continue that conversation with them for all your day. You're a host of Stratus Aquinas, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. In this season of the podcast, we're going to be talking about scripture as in heaven, an epic that invites unique men and women to play their crucial role within the unfolding story. That is the case with Esther, Isaiah, Mary and Paul, and you and I.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Daily Together on Mission Podcasts. This is Travis, and we are in the Gospel of John, chapter 20, and the title of the podcast this morning is Doubt. And we're going to be talking about Douting Thomas, a pretty famous character throughout the history of redemption, and I think that Thomas gets a bit of a bad rap. And so we're going to try to sort that out a little bit this morning and see what this passage has to say about our lives, because Doubt is not a thing of the past.
Doubt is a very real reality that many of us wrestle with. And some of us maybe are listening to this podcast, and we doubt that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead. We doubt ourselves all the time. We doubt that people that should come through for us will come through for us.
We doubt that God hears our prayers. Sometimes we even doubt that God cares about what we pray. Or we look out in the world and we doubt that God cares about what's going on in the world, because if He did, there wouldn't be so much tragedy on the news. You know, we doubt that God has the ability to deliver us or loved ones from addiction.
We doubt that God has the ability by the power of His Spirit to move us through this difficult season in our marriage or our vocation or whatever it might be. We doubt that we'll ever get out of this darkness. We doubt that we could ever get over this guilt. We doubt that God will actually accomplish through us what He's placed in our hearts and what He's called us to do.
And on a very practical level, when it comes to the teaching of Jesus, we have a tendency to doubt that turning the other cheek will actually bring life. Or that giving generously first will actually bring life. We struggle with doubt, Thomas struggles with doubt, doubts the reality, and the whole point of the podcast over the last couple of days and the next couple of days is that it's really not anything about God's story that keeps us from giving a big yes to being caught up in God's story. In our story, whether it's pain or fear or doubt or whatever it might be, it's really our story.
And so what the Spirit of Jesus does is enters into our story, speaks or does what we need, spoken or done so that we can get out of our small story and get into the larger story. So here's the passage. John chapter 24, now Thomas, also known as Dittamas, was one of the 12th. So he was one of Jesus's close friends and disciples.
But he was not with the disciples a week earlier on the day of resurrection when Jesus showed up to them when they were locked up in the upper room. He wasn't there. So the other disciples told him, right? Because their friends, hey, we've seen the Lord he showed up.
The door was locked, he came in, you know, but Thomas says to his friends, you know, unless I see the nail marks in his hands, unless I put my finger where the nails were and I put my hand in his side, I will not believe. Well, the week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. And he said to Thomas, say, Thomas, come put your fingers here.
See my hands, reach out and put your hand in my side. Stop doubting Thomas and believe. And then Thomas said, my Lord and my God. And then Jesus says to Thomas, because you've seen, you've believed, a blessed are those who have not yet seen, yet they believe.
Such a great story, so practical, so powerful. And I don't remember if I said what I was going to title this podcast, but I think I'm going to title it in doubt, we opt out. And that is exactly what happened with Thomas. In doubt, we opt out.
And it always works that way. And so let's think about that practically for a minute. If we doubt that Jesus has been raised from the dead, and therefore that the story of God is underway, we are going to opt out of that story, and we're going to have to settle for a much, much larger story. If we doubt that God can and will bring about in our lives the vision of the purposes that he's placed in our hearts, if we doubt that we're going to opt out of actually trying to accomplish that for the glory of God.
If I doubt that I'm able to handle a conversation with my daughter about dating and boys, if I doubt that I'm going to be able to handle that or that I have what it takes to handle that, I'm going to opt out of that conversation. I'm going to settle for a much smaller story than the one I'm called into, because the larger story that I'm called into is being there for my daughter, having those conversations, even if I have to do it scared, and going for it. And in doubt, we're going to opt out. When it comes to any conversation that we must have, if we doubt that God has given us what we need for that conversation, we're going to opt out.
In doubt, we opt out. And so like Thomas, often we're going to find ourselves on the sidelines. The text says Thomas wasn't even there, because in doubt we opt out. And the way doubt works as well is that when we begin to doubt, whatever it might be, ourselves, others, God, doubt is contagious.
And so we tend to doubt more and more things, because doubt is like something that can just spread. And we're going to find it permeating almost every area of our lives. And when that takes place, and thank God it didn't with Thomas, we'll get there in a minute, but when that takes place, and maybe you know people like this, they end up, or maybe you've ended up, a doubtful person, a skeptical person, a hopeless person, a pessimistic person, a person that's always saying there's no way or that's impossible, because that's where the enemy wants us to be, because again, in doubt, in skepticism, in hopelessness, in pessimism, in there's no way, in doubt, we opt out. And there's the strategy.
That was the strategy with Mary. That was the strategy with all the disciples. That was the strategy with Thomas. That's the strategy the enemy has with you and with me, because the enemy wants us to opt out of the story.
And again, it's not God's story. It's not bits about God's story that keep us from opting in. It's bits from our story that keep us from opting in. And doubt is one of those.
So Thomas basically says, hey, I'm not going to believe unless I can touch, unless I can not only see but touch. And of course, Jesus shows up and accommodates Thomas. I love that about Jesus. Often Jesus, God, the Spirit of God will accommodate us in our doubt.
He will meet us in our doubt. And those are the opportunities to go from being a skeptical person to a person of hope, going from there's no way kind of person to there is a way, going from being a pessimistic person to an optimistic person, going from being a person that discourages other people to a person that encourages other people, a person that brings hope and life and light into the world. See, doubt is the opposite of hope. And so God is calling Thomas out of his small story of doubt into a larger story of hope and of life.
He accommodates Thomas. And then Thomas gives the most profound affirmation to Jesus of anyone in the gospel, my Lord and my God. Thomas becomes a person of hope. And that is exactly what God is doing with us and in us right now by the power of the Spirit through the Word of God.
And so the question that I wanted to kind of leave us with this morning is simply this. In what area in your life does God want to renew hope? In what area of your life do you find yourself doubting, maybe moving into pessimism, moving into skepticism, moving into a little bit of hopelessness? In what area does God want to breathe hope, accommodate your doubting request, and begin to shift things and shift perspective so that we can cry out in hope as opposed to opt out in hopelessness?
Because the truth is, as painful as it is to say and to talk about and to face, in doubt, we will opt out. But Thomas did not stay there, and we don't need to stay there because Jesus has been raised from the dead. We'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to the Together on Mission podcast.
We truly hope that you were blessed and encouraged by you today. If you had any questions about the Inland Vineyard Church, our ministries, or our Sunday services, feel free to connect with us on our brand new app, which you can find in the Google Play and the App Store, and check out our social media pages like Facebook and Instagram, or even check out our website at inlandvignard.org.