[Applause]
[Music] thank you
[Music]
[Music]
foreign [Music]
[Applause] [Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
foreign [Applause]
[Music] here in the love of Christ
[Music]
[Applause] alone righteousness
[Applause] [Music]
[Applause] [Music]
that's enough
and everything [Music]
[Applause] [Music]
[Music] alive
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
thank you foreign [Music]
please sing a random camera [Music]
like my Jesus [Music]
I want to pray
[Applause] [Music]
on my shelter
[Music]
let's see praise
[Music]
nothing [Music] you are crazy what a beautiful name it
is [Music]
[Music]
nothing compared to this what a beautiful name it is
[Music]
[Music]
[Music] was greater
words [Music]
what a name
what a wonderful name it is
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
depends on me foreign
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music] foreign [Music]
[Music]
thank you we pray for
blessings we pray okay
come back
[Music]
we pray for your Mighty hand to ease
[Music]
healing constances
[Music]
[Music] in the sky [Music]
thank you we pray for wisdom
your voice [Music]
cause if every promise from your word
it's not enough [Music]
[Music]
besides [Music] [Applause]
to know you're near [Music]
[Music]
when friends
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
what if my greatest disappointments for the aching of this
life
[Music]
[Music]
thank you all right
praise the Lord he's already been at work in our midst and I am grateful
all right simple mathematics Larry what's three minus three
go ahead what is it 3 minus three is what zero are you sure are you positive
Aaron what's 300 minus 300 are you sure yeah are you positive absolutely without
a doubt okay zero is not zero is like positive
and negative both right or something I don't know um so when we were kids we used to do in math
uh and they would give us sample problems and they would say well Johnny has seven apples
and you take away four apples and Johnny has three apples and then take away three more apples and how many apples
does Johnny have and the answer they were expecting was
zero apples three minus three take away three more apples to zero right they were expecting zero apples right
but how many apples does Johnny really have you say zero he has zero
Johnny if Johnny were real how many apples does Johnny really have left after he lost his seven apples
is it zero we're all adamant we all agree at zero is that your great Karina if Johnny had
seven apples and he lost seven apples how many apples does he have left zero okay so we all agree it's zero right
what if I told you that for most of existence that was not the correct
answer would you believe me grab your bibles if you would and go
with me maybe you'll say a little who to holler amen as we go to John chapter 20. amen this is God's word it is not my
word I did not write this word praise God it was written a long time and inspired a long time before I was ever
born and if it had not been I probably would not be saved is the truth John chapter 20 will begin reading in
verse 24. this is going to go by kind of quickly and all three points are
kind of dense they're powerful they they're packed so be with me and and let's
observe this and let's grow from it because it's really something okay so John 20 verse 24 you know already the
story to this point a little bit I hope Jesus has been resurrected and he appeared to his disciples on that day of
his resurrection that Sunday in verse 24 of John chapter 20 it says
this but Thomas one of the twelve called didymus was not with them when Jesus
came so he missed out on the first appearance of Jesus to the group there behind closed doors in the upper room
the other disciples therefore were saying to him we have seen the Lord so the disciples those who were called by
Jesus to follow Jesus to learn from Jesus to see Jesus to Witnesses Miracles and to tell the entire world the
Disciples of Jesus were telling Thomas we have seen him a lot but Thomas was struggling to believe
that that was so verse 25 again the other disciples
therefore were saying to him we have seen the Lord but he said to them unless I shall see 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 so this is a fairly radical bold
statement by Thomas now it's interesting we don't see a lot of Thomas talking throughout the gospels but there's one
other very significant place and time where we do see Thomas speaking up there's a couple of places where we see him talking there's one very significant
one where he does something similar to this it is upon the disciples hearing about the death of Lazarus who was their
friend and Jesus's friend and Jesus said okay now that we have heard the report that he has indeed dead we're going to
go there where he is and you know what remember anybody remember what Thomas said
he said no no they all were questioning that the disciples are questioning he may have said that but what he actually said in
response was this he said sure let's go there where he is so we
can all die with him that's what he's that's pretty bold statement isn't it see already at that
time Jesus was being hunted a little bit and to bring Lazarus back to life that
really set it on fire when Lazarus came back to life thousands and thousands of people believe that's an amazing Miracle
there is for sure life after death and Lazarus is alive and Jesus is The Miracle Worker and he has the power of
God in him no one can deny that and it was from that moment on as Thomas
predicted they began to truly in Earnest to kill Jesus and would have killed the disciples most likely given the
opportunity Thomas foresaw that and when he when Jesus said let's go there where Lazarus is Thomas said back to Jesus
sure let's go there where he is so we can die with him that's pretty bold right well now here is Thomas being bold
again if a little snarky and saying unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails and put my finger into the
place of the nails put my hand into his side I will not believe now remember that everyone in the room including
Thomas had the predictions about the death barrel and resurrection of Jesus they had been told even in the Book of
John we have multiple cases where John tells us they had been told it was coming and yet in the face of that Thomas is having a hard time accepting
that the disciples the other disciples have seen Jesus alive that's significant
and then makes this very bold statement ending with I will not believe unless
those pre-qualifiers 26 says and after eight days again his disciples were
inside now this could be confusing in modern modern teaching or whatever we
might not understand it remember that in the Jewish day they count the first day you're counting and the last day you're
counting so if I said in four days I'm gonna count today then there's Monday and Tuesday and I
mean Wednesday so in his four days includes today because there's plenty of today left and you'd be discounting all
the rest of today if you didn't count it that way so when they say after eight days they mean the eighth day which is
the next Sunday right so we had a Sunday instance and another Sunday instant now this is very interesting because I
studied up on this to figure out make sure I understood what was going on and I found out that in the first century
during the time of Jesus resurrection and following that Jesus is people the
people in the church and especially one prominent writer but there were quite a few of them that began to believe a
Doctrine called The Eighth Day Doctrine now we've not picked that up and carried it 2 000 years forward but I'm going to
tell you what it is and you'll like the idea of it I guarantee you this is what it was it was that after the seven days
of creation on the seventh day the Sabbath God rested right that after that there comes another day
and it is essentially the day of the kingdom of God it is when God's Messiah will come and if you will save everyone
if you everyone that's willing to be saved and begin the kingdom of God okay and so the Eighth Day Doctrine said that
on Sunday the first day of the week the day that he was resurrected that that was essentially The Eighth Day
from creation extended forward to the eighth day and from that point on we are living now in the kingdom of God that's
pretty cool isn't it think about it that way right so the Sabbath was Saturday that was the day that God would rest it
originally and they're celebrating his rest and they rest because he told him to recognize and honor the Sabbath and
keep it holy right and then on the Eighth Day the rest if you will of the kingdom of God ended now that Doctrine
doesn't really play out in all of scripture but in fact it was the Eighth Day from Jewish point of view the Sunday
that and what happened then because of that what did we do because of that well
we changed the day of worship right and there are those who will resist that and say well no the Sabbath
should still be and I submit to you that the Sabbath was about resting and focusing on God and you should have a Sabbath that's a lesson for another day
but the Lord's Day The Day The Eighth Day which was Sunday is also the first day of the week is the Eighth Day which
was Sunday should be recognized as the day of worship because it was the day that Jesus was resurrected was the day that
he met with them and he institutes his church and then from that point on they always worship on the day that they
first saw Jesus even James the brother of Jesus who was a devout Jew had had always worshiped on Saturday even while
he was calling Jesus a nut for thinking he was the Messiah had always done their worship on Saturday but after Jesus came
back to life he began to worship on Sundays pretty neat meet Doctrine neat stuff but not the majority of the text
and after eight days after disciples were inside and Thomas with them Jesus
came the doors having been shut so boom he's there in fact the word there
can kind of like begin to be in their midst or begin to exist amongst them right so he was suddenly there you could
say peace be with you he said and we know that he says a lot more about his peace
being with us in other texts so that's not our primary focus never dismiss the fact that he said peace be with you as a greeting but that's not our primary
primary focus here 27 then he said to Thomas so he turns from the disciples who've all seen him alive before to
Thomas the one who had not the one who made the Bold statement the one who was saying I will never believe unless I
what did he say see in his hands the input of the nails
and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side so
unless that happens I will never believe he said but then Thomas is confronted by the
living risen Jesus and Jesus says reach here your finger and see my hands and reach here your hand and put it in my
side he says and be not unbelieving but believing now I'm a huge fan of this
translation there are a variety of ways that's translated I'll try to explain to you when we break it down later why it's
like that but in the it doesn't carry its full meaning into the English and that's why we get a
variety of translations into the English but this is what Jesus told me go ahead do what you said you needed to do in
order to believe put your hand in my side and be not unbelieving but be believing
in other words be transformed be changed from your current position into the position that I want you in verse 28
almost done with the text Thomas answered and said to him my Lord and my God now no record in the text
here or elsewhere where it's where it's also written that Thomas actually touched
Jesus's nail scarred hands or put his hand in his side he didn't actually have to do that he needed to see the Risen
Jesus and in seeing it the evidence of his presence the necessary
interpretation of Jesus being there brought him to the conclusion that Jesus was Lord had right to be in control of
his life and really the entire universe and God not just the Messiah or the anointed one
although there were texts that supported that the Messiah anointing one would be God In the Flesh but this is clear he
leaps To The Head of the Class if you will leaps to the right conclusion and said this is God in the flesh
my Lord and my God he said Jesus said to him because you have seen me have you
believed blessed are they who did not see and yet
believe now that last part there might be in a format that you're mildly familiar with if you've read your Bible at all or been under some sermons or
whatever you know what that's called when Jesus says a blessed are they who whatever what's that called does anybody
know he's called it beatitude that's right so this is another beatitude similar to
what Jesus preached on The Sermon on the Mount okay when he stood up on the kind of rise and preached to the thousands of
people who were gathered there in the bowl and his voice was projected and maybe by a miracle Maybe by this Acoustics of the place but he preached
all of them and they all heard him and he gave the Beatitudes one after another after another you want to read them you can go to Matthew 5 and read them one
right after another you know blessed are the poor blessed are the meek blessed are the
um peacekeepers and so on you know the Beatitudes and here is the another if
you will be attitude and I submit to you maybe the prime directive beatitude for the star Star Trek fans in the house
blessed are they who did not see and yet believed
all right because you have seen me have you believed blessed are they who did
not see and yet believe now there's three things I really want to point out to you here that really kind of now I
will say to you there were like eight okay and I would kept praying through them and studying on them and the Lord
helped me kind of Widow that down so we could get down to a more manageable number so you could spend a lot of time
studying this text more I think than just reading the story and and learning from what's written there if you want to
the first thing I want you to notice in the text that God really laid on my heart was that Jesus can see
and or hear the quote unquote needs of those who quote unquote need to believe
in him in other words Jesus is not closed to your condition Jesus knows if your parents were not
Christians Jesus knows that they said things that hurt you Jesus knows if you've been frustrated Jesus knows if
you've been through difficult times Jesus knows when you're alone I think about I was dating a girl when I was 19
years old and she was like 23 and she was supermodel beautiful whatever and the night I went in the bathroom and I
said Lord don't get me out of the situation just please get me through it be with me and I was praying because I
had moved the little charm on my necklace and I always thought of that as praying to some mysterious God somewhere but God miraculously got me through that
experience with her and she didn't corrupt me and she drank all the time but I didn't become I didn't become addicted to alcohol even though I did
drink and I could have become addictive she did drugs and I never got involved with the drugs she was supermodel hot
but I never had any form of intimate relationship with her right so God got me through that relationship as I prayed
because God could hear what I was there in the bathroom in the mirror moving a little charm on my necklace thinking
there might be a god out there somewhere God can hear and he can see your needs he can hear and see the evidence that
you need I posted a little reel on Facebook this this week of me speaking saying God is
not afraid of your challenges of him we've got this idea that the god of the
universe somehow man he's going to be cut to the quick he's going to be caught with his hand in the cookie jar God is
not going to be able to address my one reservation my one question or my one
concern whatever I've got the topper I know there's been billions of people that have lived but even though there
have been billions I know how it is that God cannot answer me
what this is the god of the universe notice that in the text Thomas is in the room
with the disciples and saying I will not believe unless this happens and then
Jesus suddenly appears and he doesn't say excuse me Thomas I didn't quite hear you none of the disciples go running to
Jesus say oh Jesus right before you got here Thomas said blah blah blah they don't have to do Jesus heard Thomas's
words in the room of the disciples before he appeared now you might want to gotta minimize that some you might say
well Jesus was probably there but they just couldn't see him he was like invisible but it doesn't matter you
minimize it all you want the fact is that God can see and hear the needs of
those who need to believe in him before they believe in him before you have
decided we have to remember that God the Father God the son God the Holy Spirit now that Jesus lived died and rose again
and it was true before he lived and it was true in some sense while he lived but the point is they are Eternal beings
not Eternal like they were never created and will never die right you're thinking of like Rip Van Winkle or something fell
asleep woke up was really old God's not like that God's been Eternal always and always will be so the moment you walk
into heaven if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior the moment you stand before God and are
potentially judged for what you decide to do with Jesus who was the Christ the moment you stand before God having not
accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior and are found to be still in your sin whatever that might be God is in a
sense already there God was there when you had questions God
was there when you were hurting God was there when the time was so dark you didn't feel like you could see him God
is there the god of Heaven can see and therefore Jesus who is God can see and hear the
needs of those who need to believe in him but here's the big butt
in the story it is absolutely a reasonable expectation of God for you to believe
because you were told because what you were told was true
he's watching a detective show on the Roku channel is one of those free channels we can they have different
episodes on there and I watched this show called The Mentalist I kind of liked it and there's no foul language and no nudity no sex scenes I'm like
this is it and you get a police drama with Mysteries no nudity no foul language no sex scenes and I'm like I
was on cloud nine I loved it it was great the only bad thing I had maybe occasionally not look at dead bodies but
they really didn't do a lot of gross stuff with that which a lot of shows do but anyway so watching it and he sits
down they're sitting they're having this very meaningful conversation the mean the um main character and another
character who are pretty much a main character and he says that this is the truth and the other guy says to him
why should I believe so why should I believe you you've lied to me you've deceived me and tricked me in the past it's clear that you could be
playing why should I believe you and he says because
it's the truth there's no other reason not based on my character now you can believe God based
on his holy honorable and perfect character he always keeps his promises
but even though you can believe God based on his holy and honorable character he always keeps his promises
you're not being asked to believe God when one of the disciples or somebody who's a follower of Jesus tells you and
that's where it was Thomas was being told by the disciples who were humans who might lie
they might have an agenda right so but he was being asked to believe and it was
completely reasonable the expectation that he would believe their testimony because why because
their testimony was true why is it we have so much trouble believing the truth because we're so
indoctrinated with lies because constantly throughout our lives all the time there are things that are
it's you'll be so happy if you go buy this 25 000 car and you'll jump up and kick your heels together
right and then you go buy a 25 000 car or maybe not quite so expensive because that's a lot of money or or maybe more
expensive you think you really need to go over whatever and you're not happy you'll be healthy if you eat or drink or
don't eat or drink this it'll it's every it solved my problem I lost 100 pounds in a year
and then you try it very Faithfully that doesn't have the same effect for you after you spent
hundreds and hundreds of dollars on it it's ongoing the world is full of lies in fact the world is a kingdom of Lies
Who's chief liar is Satan himself and he has taught all of his children
how to lie read about it in Scripture rely because that's the works of your
father he is the master deceiver he is the liar and the world is full of it and where do
we live we live in the world and so it's all around us all the time and so you've got built into you
the ability to detect and to resist a lie in fact
you're so good at detecting and resisting a lie that your first response to something that seems a little bit not what you
expected is to assume it's a lie as a people that's a Human Condition
it's what we are it's what Adam and Eve assumed God was covering up the fact
that they could be like him if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil they assumed he was covering it up
God it's The Human Condition and so we're real good at accepting that things are
lies but the bottom line is it is completely a reasonable expectation
for anybody that if they tell you the truth you will believe them no matter
how bizarre that truth might be and if you don't then it's on you it's not even on them
and so while Jesus can see and hear the needs of those who need to believe in
him it is a completely reasonable expectation that those people who need
to believe in him will believe when they are told about Jesus because frankly it's true
which is one of the reasons why we have this guaranteed insurance policy if you will that you can go out and tell anybody about Jesus because if they
choose not to believe that's on them I don't know what you're waiting for I don't know what the church is waiting for I don't know what we're waiting for
to tell anybody and everybody about Jesus it's like we're waiting for you know I got to get this polished argument
that people won't believe what I'm saying I have to be prepared to answer all of their challenges that they might
come up with if you tell somebody the truth about Jesus and they don't believe and they come back with 17 challenges
you know how many of those challenges you're responsible to answer where do we start
zero none you're not responsible to answer the challenges to the truth
because the truth is the truth if you go to somebody and say don't jump off that Cliff you will fall and die and they go
or they jump off the cliff and they fall and die it's not your fault you told them not to do it
and you expect that in everything else but in Salvation in the truth of the Gospel we go oh they asked me not to
talk about it oh I don't have the answers to all of their questions and we make excuses the bottom line is the
disciples are called to deliver this truth and all they are called to do is to deliver this truth and it's delivered
the question will you believe and in believing people gain get life
let me finish this point and that's essentially the next one it is extremely rare
but not unheard of for people to get saved through miraculous intervention you know what I
mean by that most people get saved because somebody told them
about Jesus and asked them if they believed maybe ask them to believe you can
believe this based on my character frankly in Christ I'm a pretty good guy
I don't lie and if I catch myself saying something is wrong like a lie of ignorance I try to fix it
right so you could pretty much believe what I say because that's who I've become but that's in contrast who I was before so you also have to believe in
Jesus and his changing power in order for him to get me from who I was before to who I am now is a guy I went to high
school with back in the day a game with back in the play games with back in the day and he come to New Heights and he said I had to come to new house because
I know who you were when you were in high school and I had to see that God had changed you he was a Christian back
then when I wasn't and he said I had to see the change that God had done in you for
with my own eyes and that's what we're living we say seeing is believing you
ever hear that before seeing is believing when I was a young kid maybe like eight nine years old I
brought my grade card home from school and it was in my bag or backpack or whatever I had and I told my mom I said
Mom Straight A's and she said I'll believe it when I see
it and we got the great card out of my backpack and sure enough Straight A's
and then she was happy but she wasn't happy when I told her I got straight A's she was happy when she saw it but the
very truth of Jesus is this not seeing is believing but wait for it
believing is seeing that's the truth of Jesus believing is
seeing I sat in the basement of East Toledo Baptist Church after Vacation Bible School with teenagers there was a
young man there who was a professor Muslim his parents were professing Muslims he came from a Muslim family and they were
devout his family was devout he would not so much he was at vacation bible school at the church building but they didn't know where he was at and I didn't
know they didn't know where he was at I don't know that I would have done anything if I did know that but he was at Vacation Bible School and afterwards
he says I have just one thing I hear what you're saying about Jesus and he said and quote I want to believe unquote
however our family is Muslims we are Islamic and my parents
are devout and if I make this decision I will be walking away from that I'll have to hide in my own house and eventually
I'll probably be found out because I'll have to learn about Jesus and so on and they'll kick me out of the family and
maybe even I'll be killed and he said so can you tell me why if
that's true I should believe and you know what I said
you do by now I said well you should believe because it's true
I know it's true it happened to me the girl that invited me to Vacation Bible School said I said ask her is it true
yes it's true so what evidence do you need he said well I need God to move in my heart and God to do something in me
God changed me in some way I said well he will as soon as you believe
that's how it works he has a com and I didn't say it this way but I now understand this language he has a
completely reasonable expectation of you to believe because it's true God does
not have to do a miracle for you so that you can believe God does a miracle for you when you believe
until then you're essentially putting your hand up and saying God no thank you no miracles for me today
but if you insist and do one anyway I'll believe that you're there and let it
affect who I am what do you see the logic it's like the logic
of the world with the target constantly moving our my heart is the target God hit it go
ahead that's what we're doing is completely reasonable for God to
expect us to believe when someone tells us because true
and believing is seeing not the other way around if you were alive when Jesus walked the
Earth heard him heard him testify get this you'll love this if you were alive when Jesus walked the Earth and you
heard him testify about how he would die and be buried and rose again wait for it
you wouldn't believe it until you saw it
even though Jesus is teaching believing
is seeing he's calling us to Faith your faith
literally opens up the channel between you and God your faith in Jesus Christ busts a hole in the barrier that your
sin creates between you and God and the salvation of Jesus by grace of God flows through it that's what Ephesians 2 is
talking about when it says by grace through faith think of a giant straw that's your faith going to God and
you're taking a tiny sip of Grace that saves your whole soul and your whole life and everybody in it
it's a completely reasonable expectation for you to believe and G and Peter says as much then in uh First Peter chapter
one where he basically says you are believing and in your believing earning the Salvation that God has for you not
earning us that's the wrong word there but you're receiving the Salvation that God has for in the grace that he has delivered so Jesus can see and hear the
needs of those who need to believe in him but it is completely a reasonable expectation of God that they would
believe simply because it's true when told what is right and true
this belief then is life it is life
it is openness and acceptance and Trust directed toward God in Jesus Christ
oh but wait in the modern world usually when we say belief we mean
I think it's true I'm fairly sure yep I'm going to carry this thought
around with me I'm not going to just let it go just because somebody throws up a roadblock or something I kind of believe
it's true I hold on to this like like I hold on to my family or like I
hold on to my wife or like I'm cautious about some guy trying to sell me something right so that's what we mean
when we say believe and that is not at all what we're called to by Jesus rather we're called to an openness and
acceptance and Trust directed toward God in Jesus the truth is that the events of
Jesus Christ Life Death burial Resurrection the events of the kingdom of God the events of what God has done
in his church over the the Millennia require a decision you have to decide
what do they mean and what am I going to do about it but people don't want to decide what do
they mean because then that's going to con concern what they're supposed to do about it it's going to affect what I'm supposed to do about it so we're going
to Blind our own eyes we're going to look at anything else we're going to focus on entertainment or
whatever but if you would do it right then you will say to God okay God this event means something I can see that
it's important now let me think about what I'm supposed to do okay now I'm going to do what it
is that I'm supposed to do and if you read a beatitude blessed are
they who did not see and yet believed you could start at the the end of it and work backwards and get what it is that
you want you want to be blessed right okay I want to be blessed so what do I do I believe even though I have not seen
that's what you do if you believe in though you have not seen then you're blessed and what does blessed mean it means that God will speak good into your
life not just that you'll be happy that's a horrible translation by the way it means blessed it means God speaks
good into your life which will make you happy but to say that they're happy is to fall
short the word of the disciples would go out to many that is what Jesus was authoring
that is the kingdom of God the our word our teaching the truth of God through us going out to many and many would believe
this way understand that the 12 people in that room they got it first and then somewhere a little ways down
the line you and I got it or maybe today
right the word of the disciples would go out to many and many would believe this way that is to say that they would see the
events they would see the interpretation of the events and they would respond to them
this beatitude undermines the seemingly greatest
argument against the truth of the Gospel people say I'll believe if I see
right so let's take math and apply it to that same thing seeing is believing does anybody
remember math class when you see is what mathematical sign do you substitute for the word is
equal sign so is is gone seeing equals believing now if seeing equals believing
what's the funny thing about equations you can always flip them so now if the world argues
seeing equals believing as long as it's an equal sign both sides are equal then
you can flip it and you can say believing equals c so all the world is arguing seeing equals believing and wait
a minute guess what they're actually right they're just choosing to do the seeing without the believing they're used
they're saying C equals believing believing equals seeing okay I get that but I choose not to see because I choose
not to believe that's exactly what Thomas was doing and it's completely a reasonable
expectation of God that we would then believe based on the
interpretation of the events and the response that is required of us which is to believe
the world can say seeing is believing but in so doing they're actually saying believing is seeing which is the same thing that Jesus was saying and really
what they need to do is believe now I I feel like sometimes
I got to run the short track you know what I mean by that the lane on the inside when you're
racing the lane on the inside is because by the time you go all the way around the track is considerably shorter than
the lane on the outside that's why if you watch the Olympics they stagger where the runners start so that they can end at the Finish Line
where everybody's watching because if you run on the inside track it's shorter you're on the outside track it's longer
so that that person on the outside track they get to start seems like they're starting way ahead of the person on the
inside track right and I feel like I kind of got the inside track since I became a Christian at least because I
was present the day that the electrician came to this building and we thought well we're not going to use the building because we can't get power 26 000
estimate and we gotta buy a miracle miracle that's what it was and miracles Ron ran
into an electrician the old one that he used to know and the guy said well if you need anything give me a call and he gave his number and I said Ron do you
have to you have to know this guy's numbers like yeah I just ran him to the grocery store last night so we called him he came out he said yeah we can do it we can do it for a lot less and get
the price down we can get businessmen to donate we can get some donated materials we'll get the price down and then he said we're gonna need a stretcher
machine that pulls the cable out of the ground because you've got conduit running all the way out the street 126
feet or whatever it was and he said we're gonna need this fancy machine it usually costs thousands of dollars to rent one but I might be able to get it
donate they said well I wasn't able to get it donated was it we'll have to rent one he said come over here the week
before we're gonna pull it out of the ground and replace the electrical wire and he walked over to the box and he said well let's just see if there's any
slack or what happens and he pulled it out of the box and it came out a few feet and he said well that's neat and he pulled it out it
came out like five feet and he turned around he put it under his line and under his arm and he started walking and he walked that 126 foot cable that's
this big around first of all that's heavy if nothing else but it was supposed to be bound together with the other cables even bound together by wire
or or melted together because that's what they do when they're in the ground together for so long they literally melt together and he pulled that cable out by
hand himself walked the whole thing on the ground and he came back and you know what he said to me he said well I'll tell you
one thing I know for sure and this guy's not a Christian he said one thing I can tell you for sure God is with you
because that can't happen what I just did right there and event after event after event like
that took place in the birth of this church building to be our place of meeting so it's part of how we know and
those of you who are involved at that time or you saw something you saw God do something miraculous and amazing or God
healed your relationship or it could go all the way back to God saved your soul and came and took up residency his holy
spirit began to live in you and you went man God has done something you know what that is that's the inside track now you
said I believe now you see and now you believe in believing becomes like second nature but then the world is constantly
battering you trying to get you to quit but life is in the believing that's how it comes
we believe we have faith and Grace is delivered to us we don't earn it with
our faith right God Abraham kind of did that right he believed and God said I see your faith I count it to you as righteousness
but life is in God and life is in Jesus and Grace is delivered to us when we believe so it goes like this this is the
thing and then we're in the conclusion it goes like this first of all Jesus can see and hear the needs of those who need
to believe in him but it is completely reasonable expectation of God
that you should believe that they should believe because you were told and because it's right if it was right and
no one ever told you you could claim ignorance but if it's right and you were told you're responsible to believe it
just makes sense and in believing is the life God is life
Jesus's life Jesus died on the cross to pay for sins believing in him his life it's how you get saved
and then that brings us essentially to the conclusion
we've got to get on with it we've got to get on with it when it
comes to believing you need to get on with it every new thing that comes into your life that challenges your belief
what you should do is believe Thomas believed while Jesus was alive he
was at the the last supper and said oh I don't I'll never betray you Lord he said he sided with Peter and said I'll die if
necessary but I'll never betray you right and he didn't he fled but he didn't betray him
he didn't say he wasn't a follower of Jesus he just got away right
which is what Jesus essentially told them to do now he needs to get on with it Jesus is
Alive and he needs to believe that Jesus is alive he's told by the disciples has a responsibility to believe because he's told the truth and he refuses to believe
saying I will not until I see Jesus shows up and says you say you wouldn't until you see now you've seen you
believe but greater blessing for those who believe though they had not seen
we need to get on with it there's a phrase that is in this text that I mentioned to you is hard to translate it
doesn't translate super well into the English and there's a reason why it doesn't translate super well into the English
because our verbs don't do very well what the Greek verbs do in certain cases and it is where he says
and be not unbelieving but be believing okay be not unbelieving but believe me
now if you're looking at a different translation you're going to see something a little different when Jason said his um
Bible verse this morning uh or sorry Caleb said his Bible verse this morning he says no longer
disbelieve but believe okay so there are differences but
there's it's always about the difference between unbelief or disbelief and believing so I dug into the language and
here's what I found these words are in what in the Greek and what's called the perfect present tense which means
start believing and never stop proceed forward believing continue believing
right so if we substituted uh the word continue to do so in words continue to
do so and the text it would say something like this and be not continuing toward unbelieving but rather
be continuing believing see it doesn't sound very good does it that's not how we speak in English
we don't talk like that but you could but you know when you're translating a book into English you want to make it so
that people don't get bogged down or struggle with it or whatever and and so it's not poorly translated be not
unbelieving so in other words you're continuing to not believe don't be like
that so it does say the right thing it does say what's there but we wouldn't necessarily know that without going into
the background a little bit but rather be continuing in your belief
right be believing so that does make sense it says exactly what it says in the Greek but we're not
thinking of it that way when we read it in the English so in other words what Jesus was asking you to do is stop
trending toward disbelief and instead always Trend toward belief
so when you hear the truth believe it when the Bible says that you should do X believe it
what don't lie Ty sir love how about that one right
love in other words care about other people when it says have this mind in you which
was in Christ Jesus right care more about what is happening to
other people than about what's happening to you if you're truly on the way to heaven and others are on the way to hell
that should bother you pretty much more than anything more than whether your bills get paid more than you get fed
right because if they go to hell they will spend eternity in hell you will spend eternity in heaven so how
much ever suffering you may endure during this life as bad as it might seem you're eventually going to get a final
reward that blows it all away and so are they but for you it's a
positive final reward for them it's a negative one that matters that's huge so
what do we do we testify and tell the truth and ask them to believe if they choose not to that's on them
if we're waiting for some kind of big moment it already came It's Already Done Jesus rose from the
dead and made salvation available to anyone who would receive him just go ask them to believe and if they
choose not to that's on them and they may a week later a month later or six years later decide to believe what you
told them way back then but if you never ask them the question is how can you care so
little about the fact that you are going for the gravy Glory vacation guaranteed you've already won the lottery of all of
creation and they're going for eternity in hell and you're doing literally nothing about it
but we're all afraid of what someone might think or we're all say well they can't see God so they're not going to
believe seeing is believing which means also believing is seeing and they can't believe how will they believe unless
someone goes and tells them Roman says so we tell them we've got to get on with that the reason
we're not telling them is because wait for it we're struggling to continue in
belief and Jesus would say this to you knock it off I've done everything necessary I saw all
your questions and I answered them and I gave you my Holy Spirit to be with you forever who Longs he's with you always
longing for nothing more than for other people to come into the right relationship with me
we've got to tell and to ask we have to it doesn't matter
what you look like what you feel like what happens to you because of it because you're going to heaven for an eternity so at that point you've got to
tell the truth is
when you get on with it eventually the thing that you built you're getting on with it on
becomes so well known to you so common that it's just the answer in
other words you believed open the channel of Faith to God grace delivered you're saved and when you get on with it
when you're believing it then everything that you encounter it will be your natural reaction you go I believe I believe God's got a plan this is going
to work out something's gonna happen maybe a miracle what are we waiting for let's pray let's get right on that let's pray about it right now not I'll pray
with you if I think about it but let's get on it right now and pray because God might do a miracle God is with us God Is Watching Over Us God cares about us
God's our King God's in charge of everything and it becomes common place that's the answer every time let's
believe remember I mentioned zero to you at the beginning and everybody in this
room everybody here accepted that zero is the answer to 3 minus three now but
somebody went oh he's got something up his sleeve something's not right he's obviously up to something
so zero as we know it did not become commonplace in society
until sometime between 300 BC and 30 BC
which means at this point in time where we are and you can this is another discussion we ended debating but I but
I'm a firm believer that the Earth has been here maybe about six thousand years now you can believe whatever you want to believe but the Bible calculates out to
that amount of time and the best studies and everything line up with that the astronomical charts that
they do can line up with that all of that right so that being said if that's true that means that four wait for it
four thousand of those years zero was not the answer to three minus
three does anybody know in Roman numerals what the symbol for zero is
there isn't one in the Greek number system previous to
the Hellenistic period which is the time that we're talking about they calculated all their numbers negative or positive didn't matter they calculated all of
their numbers with a different set of numbers so in other words the ones column had a whole different set of
numbers for the ones column than had for the tens column then had for the the hundreds column yeah then half of the
hundreds column right a different set of numbers not one two three four five six seven eight nine for the ones column and one two three four five seven eight nine
for the defense column and so on they didn't do that they had a different set of numbers then when you got back into
the thousands that's ones of thousands and you would use the number for ones and you'd repeat and you can do big
numbers out to a billion or whatever but you had three different sets of numbers that you had to know you see math has
not always been what you think it is but somewhere along the line somebody came up with the idea and there's a couple people credited with it a guy in India
supposedly brought it to our society and that not until much later
620 8 right so now we're talking about we have so accepted zero as a concept
except that three minus three equals zero we can all unify on that point even though it's only been around for
fourteen hundred years in our society in English European Society brought over by uh Indian man
not American Indian but from India all right and he gets the credit for it but we have so accepted that concept that we
would all agree on zero the correct answer by the way is 3 minus three is nothing not zero zero is a symbol of
nothing if you have three apples and you lose all your apples what do you have you have nothing you have your clothes yourself whatever there's no apples
there's no reason to even think you have zero Apples because all the apples are gone that we're here they're gone and if
somebody comes and looks at you and says how many apples you have to say well none why would you even ask me how many
apples you have she doesn't have any Apples because a minute ago he had apples and they took them away from him and now he has zero apples no he doesn't
he just has no apples there's no I don't see any apples why are you talking about apples there's no apples here
right but we've accepted the concept of zero and when you accept the concept of
believing like that which is what Jesus called Thomas to and the disciples too and the church too then martyrdom is on
the table and miraculous healings are on the table and belief in the crazy things that God can and does do on a daily
basis they're all back on the table are you trending toward believing are
you trending toward disbelieving I submit to you that in American society if you are an American citizen the
tendency is going to be to Trend toward disbelieving because you're assailed all the time by stop that wants you to
believe that doesn't make any sense and you know it's not right you're being told all the time which is why we have to not be conformed
to the world but transformed by the renewing of our mind to spend time in the word you need to pray to be in church the senator preaching and
teaching you need to serve you give you act out the kingdom values
because in Kingdom values you will find in yourself the ability to go on for the
rest of your life believing and Desiring nothing more than to believe and wait for it when you believe
you will see get on with it
and when you get on with it long enough it'll become like habit it'll become like zero
God's the one who said it God original listen we still see stars in the sky
and he started that the very beginning it still rains and he started that in
Noah's day whether or not God made zero we can debate that
but this is what's true God is asking you and he's asking me to
get on with believing to begin and to never end and to never
lean back and to never Trend away from and to make believing part of our everyday existence all the time
so that when the Antichrist or demon or an evil teaching or something comes in
your life you should readily go ugh that's not me believing
that's not me leaning into believing I recognize it right away and I want nothing to do with
it because I am a person getting on with believing
not for one and committing myself to that I was present I may have the inside track I have seen people miraculously
healed I've also seen it when I prayed and people were not miraculously I've seen demons cast out
I seen dark spaces in people's eyes so dark they look in there and it's like outer space was in their head
and then demons cast out not able to say the name of Jesus and then they can and
a half dozen or tanned situations I've seen people and some of them are in this room
transformed completely from the inside out by the presence of God
that's the inside track you want to see it believe
New Heights Stuff