LAUGH 'N LEARN

An Encouragement Ministry of Verde Valley Christian Church
Of Cottonwood Arizona
http://www.vvchristianchurch.net/

Issue # 280,    March 30,  2008

LAUGH

The 10-Speed Bike

Jim’s Manuscript
March 30, 2008
“Locked Doors”

Gospel of John Series

Text:  John 20:19-31

Sometimes Truth SOUNDS Suspicious

In 1993 FBI agents conducted a raid of Southwood psychiatric hospital in San Diego, which was under investigation for medical insurance fraud. After hours of reviewing medical records, the agents had worked up an appetite. The agent in charge of the investigation called a nearby pizza parlor to order a quick dinner for his colleagues.

According to snopes.com, a site dedicated to determining whether internet stories are true or merely unsubstantiated urban legends, the following telephone conversation actually took place.

Agent:        Hello. I would like to order 19 large pizzas and 67 cans of soda.

Pizza Man: And where would you like them delivered?

Agent:        We're over at the psychiatric hospital.

Pizza Man: The psychiatric hospital?

Agent:        That's right. I'm an FBI agent.

Pizza Man: You're an FBI agent?

Agent:        That's correct. Just about everybody here is.

Pizza Man: And you're at the psychiatric hospital?

Agent:        That's correct. And make sure you don't go through the front doors. We have them locked. You will have to go around to the back to the service entrance to deliver the pizzas.

Pizza Man: And you say you're all FBI agents?

Agent:        That's right. How soon can you have them here?

Pizza Man: And everyone at the psychiatric hospital is an FBI agent?

Agent:        That's right. We've been here all day and we're starving.

Pizza Man: How are you going to pay for all of this?

Agent:        I have my checkbook right here.

Pizza Man: And you're all FBI agents?

Agent:        That's right. Everyone here is an FBI agent. Can you remember to bring the pizzas and sodas to the service entrance in the rear? We have the front doors locked.

Pizza Man: I don't think so.

** Click **

 source: www.vasthumor.isfunny.com; and www.snopes.com

Today we will study how the apostle Thomas was a lot like the Pizza man.  He had difficulty believing the other apostles story about Jesus resurrection, how he suddenly showed up in the upper room even though the doors were locked. 

Why People Are Suspicious Of The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

The evidence for Jesus' resurrection is so strong that nobody would question it except for two things: First, it is a very unusual event. And second, if you believe it happened, you have to change the way you live.

—Theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg

Wolfhart Pannenberg, in a conversation with Ron Sider, Prism Magazine (March/April 1997); submitted by Bill White, Paramount, California to preachintdoday.com

Focus:  The tomb could not hold him in; locked doors can’t keep him out.

I.  Locked Doors Can’t Keep God Out (20:19, 26)

Jesus Came Through Locked Doors

John 20:19 (ESV) On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

If Jesus can suddenly appear in a locked room, then there was no need to open the tomb door for his sake.  That didn’t have to happen for him to be able to leave.  The tomb door was not opened for him to get out, but for the apostles and other eyewitnesses to go in, and see that it was empty.  The tomb door was opened for our sake. 

This appearing in a room when doors were locked happened twice (20:19, and 20:26).  Once on Sunday, then a second time on the next Sunday (8 days later).

He Showed His Healed Wounds

²⁰ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

This is evidence enough for me that the swoon theory is ridiculous.  His wounds were healed!  He shows up in power, not in a weakened state which would have been the case if he was buried alive mistakenly.  It is obvious from the testimony here that something supernatural took place.  He was bodily resurrected.

The scars also are unnecessary for him.  God could have healed them completely without a trace, but he left the scars for the eyewitnesses to examine.  These also are left for our sake. 

Jesus’ body changed in many ways.  He appeared through locked doors.  He suddenly disappears.  Yet, though his body is imperishable, never to die, eternal and glorified, he has scars.  Perhaps, the marks of love which were voluntarily obtained are also voluntarily kept for eternity.  They are reminders of glory and grace. 

We serve a God with scars.  Scars upon him that we inflicted.  A God with scars understands.  A God with scars has them because he did something about our pain.  He absorbed our pain into himself, buried it, and invites us to hold his strong, loving, understanding, healed, powerful yet scarred hands.  When I say hold his hand, I mean he told us plainly how we can enter into covenant with him. 

A.  Jesus Is Here to Send us (20:21)

²¹ Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you."

He was scarred, so expect to be scarred yourself.  Because of our commissioning we will also be wounded and scarred.  “AS the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”  In the same way, go.  Go to the world of hurt, carry someone’s pain.  Enter their world.  Serve them.  They may turn on you.  They may hurt you.  Love them and forgive them and serve them anyway.  As the father has sent me, I send you.  See these scars.  Don’t be afraid of them.  Look at me. 

Paul understood this.  He was commissioned and he understood that the calling may require suffering. 

Colossians 1:24 (ESV) Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,

Look at that verse again.  What could possibly be lacking in Christ’s afflictions?  Wasn’t his suffering sufficient to save?  Yes…and no.  It sounds like I’m speaking heresy, but I’m not.  Look at Paul’s words again.  What is he saying?  What does he mean by “I am filling up in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions…”  Christ’s sufferings were sufficient to save anyone; yet, all the suffering that is required to reach your neighbor has not yet been suffered.  To take the love of Christ to your neighbor requires that you are sent AS he was sent to serve and love and perhaps suffer for him or her.   

B.  Jesus Is Here to Empower us (20:22-23)

²² And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld."

The second aspect of the commissioning is the empowering.  To be sent as Jesus was sent is to be empowered as Jesus was empowered.  Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit.  He was “the anointed one” anointed by the Holy Spirit.  “AS” Jesus was fully human in his incarnation AND empowered by the Divine Spirit, we also because of his work accomplished for us are commissioned and empowered by His Spirit to do the work of God.

This is what John the Baptist said of Jesus.

John 1:33 (ESV) I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'

THIS IS A Different Kind of Unlocked Door

In his book The Pressure's Off, psychologist Larry Crabb uses a story from his childhood to illustrate our need to delight in God through adversity:

One Saturday afternoon, I decided I was a big boy and could use the bathroom without anyone's help. So I climbed the stairs, closed and locked the door behind me, and for the next few minutes felt very self-sufficient.

Then it was time to leave. I couldn't unlock the door. I tried with every ounce of my three-year-old strength, but I couldn't do it. I panicked. I felt again like a very little boy as the thought went through my head, "I might spend the rest of my life in this bathroom."

My parents—and likely the neighbors—heard my desperate scream.

"Are you okay?" Mother shouted through the door she couldn't open from the outside. "Did you fall? Have you hit your head?"

"I can't unlock the door!" I yelled. "Get me out of here!"

I wasn't aware of it right then, but Dad raced down the stairs, ran to the garage to find the ladder, hauled it off the hooks, and leaned it against the side of the house just beneath the bedroom window. With adult strength, he pried it open, then climbed into my prison, walked past me, and with that same strength, turned the lock and opened the door.

"Thanks, Dad," I said—and ran out to play.

That's how I thought the Christian life was supposed to work. When I get stuck in a tight place, I should do all I can to free myself. When I can't, I should pray. Then God shows up. He hears my cry—"Get me out of here! I want to play!"—and unlocks the door to the blessings I desire.

Sometimes he does. But now, no longer three years old and approaching sixty, I'm realizing the Christian life doesn't work that way. And I wonder, are any of us content with God? Do we even like him when he doesn't open the door we most want opened—when a marriage doesn't heal, when rebellious kids still rebel, when friends betray, when financial reverses threaten our comfortable way of life, when the prospect of terrorism looms, when health worsens despite much prayer, when loneliness intensifies and depression deepens, when ministries die?

God has climbed through the small window into my dark room. But he doesn't walk by me to turn the lock that I couldn't budge. Instead, he sits down on the bathroom floor and says, "Come sit with me!" He seems to think that climbing into the room to be with me matters more than letting me out to play.

I don't always see it that way. "Get me out of here!" I scream. "If you love me, unlock the door!"

Dear friend, the choice is ours. Either we can keep asking him to give us what we think will make us happy—to escape our dark room and run to the playground of blessings—or we can accept his invitation to sit with him, for now, perhaps, in darkness, and to seize the opportunity to know him better and represent him well in this difficult world.

Larry Crabb, The Pressure's Off (WaterBrook Press, 2002); pp. 222-223; submitted by John Beukema, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

II.  Jesus Unlocks the Skeptic’s Heart (20:24-28)

²⁴ Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe." ²⁶ Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." ²⁸ Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

God does not abandon you just because you have doubts.  Doubt is not the same thing as rejection.  Doubt is also different than closed mindedness.  If you are an honest doubter, God will help you.  Just don’t stop seeking. 

Thomas’ confession, "My Lord and my God!" is the climax of the Gospel of John.  This is a remarkable confession for a Jew.  Thomas was looking at a man, human in form, and calling him God.  John started out with the proposition: John 1:1 (ESV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.   John showed us the evidence along the way, and gives us the conclusions of the disciples.  Then asks in effect what about you?  Jesus speaks of the blessings that will come to those who believe even though they are not given the opportunity to see as Thomas was given.

A.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet Believe (20:29)

²⁹ Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

The demand for primary evidence will not be given to everyone.  Jesus will bless those who believe based on the evidence already given and passed along to us.  This secondary evidence is the bulk of what we have. 

We Believe what we cannot see…

This should not be too difficult for people like you and me.  After all, we already believe in many things because of secondary evidence, not because we discovered primary evidence ourselves.  We believe in electricity.  We believe in wind.  We believe in germs.  We believe in black holes.  We believe in gravity.  And we cannot see any of these things.  We have come to explain our experiences according to the world view we have been taught.  It is not much different when it comes to believing in Jesus. 

I don’t see him, but I see his handiwork often.  I have watched hundreds of people change because of what he has done, because he is real. 

I have seen thousands of prayers answered.  Some more unexplainably than others. 

Let me make it clear again just in case you need to hear this today.  Christianity is not merely a code of conduct or a philosophy of belief.  It is based on the real facts of history that Jesus really did rise from the dead bodily.  He really did conquer the power of death and the power of sin.  Because he has done this He really can set you free also.  Because he has done this, his claims are believable! 

1.  If you want to be blessed, Study the Signs  (20:30-31)

³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; ³¹ but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

These signs John has told us about were real events of history, the greatest of which was the resurrection from death.  He presents reliable eye-witness evidence for us so that we can believe even though we ourselves have not seen.  Though we have not seen these events, we do not have to throw out reason to believe it.  All the evidence suggests that it is the reasonable thing to believe.   

The Christian faith can withstand intense scrutiny.  Do not be afraid of your questions.  Christianity can take it.  Ask away.  Search.  Seek.  You will find. 

But you might want to seek in the right places.  It does not help to ask the tough questions to the atheist college professor.  That’s the blind leading the blind, and you will soon be thinking there is no light.  Ask someone who has come into the light to show you the answer to your tough questions.  See if they have satisfying answers.   

Feel the Bubbles

I have never been scuba diving, but I'm told that it's a blast. Strapping on those life tanks and exploring the water world below sounds like fun. I had a conversation once with a former navy diver about diving deep—really deep.

He told me that he had been in situations so deep and dark that it was almost impossible to keep from becoming disoriented and confused. What a terrifying feeling—being under water, unable to see your hands in front of your face, not knowing which way is up, panic engulfing you. I immediately interrupted my friend, "So what did you do?"

"Feel the bubbles," he said.

"Feel the bubbles?" I asked.

"That's right. When it's pitch black and you have no idea which way to go, you reach up with your hand and feel the bubbles. The bubbles always drift to the surface. When you can't trust your feelings or judgment, you can always trust the bubbles to get you back to the top."

[As Christians] we need a way to determine what is real and true. Sometimes in life we get disoriented and desperate. At other times, we find ourselves drifting aimlessly. God knew that we would need advice and instructions about how to live. In the 66 books of the Bible we have a reality library—stories, letters, guidelines, and examples from God that tell us what is true and real.

Terry Carter, Scott Duvall, and Daniel Hays, Preaching God's Word (Zondervan, 2005), p. 41-42

Keep something else in mind.  After all the evidence is in, it still requires faith.

2.  By Believing You May Have Life in His Name (20:31)

The episode with Thomas, the skeptic, should be an encouragement to modern cynics and skeptics, and for that matter it is an encouragement to believers also. 

The disciples were not gullible people who easily believed something audacious.  These were people like me and you.  They were very familiar with death, perhaps being exposed to death more closely than we are in our culture.  We take people to medical professionals to take care of dying people.  They watched people die while sitting with them.  They knew death.  They are as skeptical as we are when it comes to these truth claims. 

But what do you do when you meet someone like Jesus?  You do what Thomas did.  You bow and worship.

It is not just the reasonable choice to believe, it is also the necessary choice if we are to receive what Jesus has to offer us.  We cannot receive until we believe.  AND we will not follow until we take a step. 

3.  “Believe” is an action verb (20:27)

²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe."

If you want to build up your faith where should you go?  To the desert to be alone and meditate?   Being alone didn’t help Thomas much.  In fact because he was alone with his depression he missed one opportunity to have his faith built up 8 days earlier.  He was alone and depressed and stuck.  If you want to learn how to surf you go to the ocean.  If you want to learn how to mountain climb you go to the mountain.  If you want to learn more about faith you go to where the faithful are!  It really helps to hang out with people of faith. 

A Single Coal

Thomas was like a single coal removed from the presence of the hearth and fire.  Suddenly his passion and faith is cold.  He is despairing.  He is alone with his doubts rather than with the community of faith during his struggle.  This is a very dangerous place for him. 

The good news of this episode is that even if he is having trouble believing anymore, Jesus still believes in him and takes the initiative to strengthen his faltering faith.

It is no accident you are here.  Open your eyes.  See what God has been doing, as he takes initiative in your life.  Don’t be unbelieving but believing.

B.  A Purposeful Empowered Life Is Open to Us, Will We Step Through?

The Door Object Lesson and INVITATION 

Jesus says… do you live with a locked door?  I have the authority to unlock it.  [Unlock the door].  Now that it has been unlocked, you can walk through.  Will you?

What locks you out of the life you dream of living?  Does it have to do with a terrible past?  Was it something you regret?  Is it the patterns of your life you can’t seem to change? 

God wants to unlock that door, but it is up to you to walk through the door He unlocks.  Believe is an action verb.  Will you get up from where you are and walk through to freedom?  Will you walk through to forgiveness?  The locked door of sin that closed you in is now open, come out.  The locked door of fear is open, come out.  The locked door of skepticism is unlocked.  Will you walk through to see that a relationship with God is open to you and available?  Perhaps you are still skeptical.  Even with your skepticism are you willing to put the question of Jesus and his claims on the front burner?  For you today, maybe walking through the door represents a commitment to study the signs.  Every one of us can move from where we are right now, through the open door of opportunity closer to where God wants us to be, but it takes a commitment to take a step. 

If you have already made a commitment to God in the past, but you know you need to take some steps away from where you are, and toward where God wants you to be, before you walk through the door will you take a moment now with God in honest confession.  Walking through the door represents for you the willingness to walk away from the stuff God wants you to walk away from, and toward him.  Be specific about what you are doing.  Maybe you can write something specific down on your notes before coming up and walking through.  “Lord, I’m willing to leave such and such behind and follow you.”  If you have never made a commitment to Christ this would be a good time to do so, and between you and God maybe that is what this means for you.  You are ready to walk with him and you want him to give you life, forgiveness, freedom from you stuck patterns, and help and empowerment to live a life that pleases him. 

Will you do it now, while the worship team leads us in worship together? 

-------

Care Group Discussion Questions

John 20:19-31

OPEN IT

1.      What friend or relative that you haven't seen for a while would you be overjoyed to see again?

EXPLORE IT

2.      What clues are there in this passage that for the disciples life with Jesus after his resurrection was going to be different than life with Jesus before his resurrection?

3.      Was Thomas’ skepticism unwarranted?  Was it different than the skepticism of the other disciples before they saw Jesus?

4.      When Jesus commissioned and empowered his disciples he used the comparison word “as” (20:21).  What noteworthy points of comparison do you see?

5.      What did Jesus say about seeing and believing?

GET IT

6.      What sort of evidence for the truth of Christianity has John given us?

7.      What did Jim mean when he said “believing” is an action verb?

APPLY IT

8.      With whom do you want to share your joy in Christ?

Laugh 'N Learn Archives