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(upbeat music) - Welcome again to our look through John chapter 20 and daily
drive time devotions. As we look at verses 28 to 31 today, we are looking at the
end of the story of doubting Thomas who becomes faith-filled Thomas. And we're
looking at the answer to how do you have faith?

When you're struggling with doubts, when you're not sure what's next, when
everyone around you seems to be able to believe and you're the one who can't
seem to believe, how do you have faith in those circumstances? Well, first you
have to recognize your doubt and Thomas did that. The second thing you have to
do is redirect your will.

You have to believe in a new way. That's what Jesus challenged in Thomas's life
when he said, "Stop doubting and believe. " Thomas, there has to come a point,
this isn't going to happen automatically where you decide to believe in a different
way.

And once that happens, that's not the end of the story. Once that happens, there
is a third thing that has to happen. You have to renew your confession because
faith is not just what you think inside of you.

It's what you say and what you do as a result of that belief, how you express
it. So listen to what happens in John 20 verse 28. This short verse says this.

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God. " He renewed his confession. "My Lord
and my God," he says to Jesus Christ.

This is one of the greatest confessions of faith in the entire Bible. Now
notice, it's pretty apparent here that Thomas didn't touch the wounds in his
hands or have to put his hands into his side. The very things he said, "I have
to do this "if I'm going to believe," once he sees Jesus, that all drops away.

And he says, "My Lord and my God. " He renews his confession. Now, confess is a
positive word.

We often see it as a negative word, something you do in a police station. You
confess to the wrongs you've done. But confession is also a positive thing.

Baptism is a confession of faith that's showing others what I believe and that
Jesus Christ has come into my life. And my Lord and my God is Thomas' confession
of faith. Each word in this confession is an important word.

My Lord and my God, my. When he uses the word my, he reminds us it's a personal
confession. It's not just about other people.

Thomas is saying, "Jesus Christ, you are my Lord. " And that's the second word,
you're my Lord. You're the director of my life.

You're not just my friend, not just the one I followed for three years. I
realize you are the Lord, the very director that I need for my everyday life.
You're the one that I bow my knee to.

My Lord and, the word and here is important because it's a connection. Jesus and
all that Jesus is cannot be contained by one word. And we're going to see, as
Thomas goes on, that he says Jesus is so much more.

My Lord and my. He uses the word my twice in this short confession. Not only
personal confession, it's a powerfully personal confession.

And then he ends the confession with the name God. My Lord and my God. Jesus is
the creator God.

Thomas's confession is one of the clearest confessions of Jesus being God in the
entire New Testament. The Bible tells us that confessions are important. Romans
chapter 10, verses nine and 10.

If you use your mouth to say Jesus is Lord, and if you believe in your heart
that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved. We believe with our
hearts and so are made right with God. And we use our mouth to say what we
believe and so we are saved.

Now, this isn't saying that if somehow you're not able to speak that you can't
be saved. Don't take it to mean that literally. It's meaning that you have to
make a confession to others of what God has done in your life.

Thomas's confession here teaches you and I three things about confessions of
faith that we all need to know. It teaches us that confessions are vital,
confessions are personal, and confessions are visible. Confessions are vital.

Without them, faith isn't alive. Faith inevitably results in confession. If you
can keep it to yourself, if you can never tell anyone else, you don't really
have it.

You cannot keep true faith in Jesus Christ to yourself. We read that in Romans,
we see that in the example of Thomas, and you see that again and again and again
in the New Testament. There's no such thing as a private Christian, a secret
agent Christian that no one else knows about.

If you can keep it to yourself, you've never told anyone else, then I'd have
great concern about your faith in Jesus Christ. You should have personal concern
about it because confessions are vital. What's the answer to that?

Tell somebody else. Confessions are vital, they're also personal. The Bible's
idea of a confession of faith is a personal declaration of belief.

Sometimes when you hear confessions of faith, they are these statements that we
read in church together. And I think it's good to read historical confessions of
faith and what Christians have believed down through history and things that we
agree on together. Those are all good things.

But when the reading of that becomes just a rote exercise, and I don't think of
the personal meaning in my life, when it becomes just a poem that somebody else
has written and I don't think about how it's impacting me in an everyday way,
I've lost what a confession is really all about. It is a personal declaration of
my belief, my Lord and my God. If you're in a church or a congregation where you
regularly read a confession of faith, I would encourage you, the next time you
read it together, to hear the word my and me, and I am making this statement of
belief as you read through it.

Confessions are vital, they're personal, and confessions are visible. Again,
others know. You confess with your mouth.

It's a vocal confession so that others can hear about it. Jesus is Lord, Jesus
is God. You write it down so that others can see it.

You let other people know what God has done in your life. Thomas renewed his
confession, and because of that, a fourth thing happens in his story. As we head
towards the end of Thomas's story of how you and I can renew faith in a time of
doubt, we find that you begin by recognizing and removing your doubt.

The second thing that Thomas did is he redirected his will. Jesus told him to do
that, stop doubting and believe. The third thing he did was he renewed his
confession.

He confessed before everybody else's belief in Jesus Christ. Maybe that's the
step that you're at right now. And once he'd done that, the fourth thing
happened.

He received God's blessing. God's blessing in the words of Jesus Christ, and
also our blessing, John 20, 29 to 31. Then Jesus told him, because you've seen
me, you have believed.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Jesus did many other
miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in
this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. The result
of faith is blessedness.

That's the Bible word for it, a life of blessedness. Because you've seen me,
you've believed. Blessed are those who've not seen and believed.

People who live a life of faith, live a life of blessedness. Now, what does that
mean, blessedness? Well, it's the satisfaction and fulfillment that we're all
searching for in life, and it's found in faith.

To be blessed is to be connected to Jesus Christ, and to know him personally,
and to live out his life as a part of everyday life. Now, some people attach
blessedness to material things or to some circumstance working out like they
would like it to. And sometimes God does bless us materially, and sometimes he
does answer our prayers about circumstances working out like we would like them
to.

But that's a very shallow form of blessedness, if that's all that you're looking
for. The true blessedness of life is knowing him. The true blessedness of life
is knowing that even though I'm poor in spirit, he meets the needs of my life.

Even in times when I mourn, he is there with me to lift me up and strengthen me,
that I'm never alone, he is always with me. Blessed are those who've not seen me
and yet have believed. We would never have heard those words except for Thomas's
confession of faith.

I'm glad he confessed his faith. The result of faith is blessedness, and the
result of faith is also life. Jesus says, blessed are those who have not seen
and believed, and then in verse 31, he says, John says that by believing, you
and I have life in his name.

When people trust in Jesus Christ, their lives are transformed. When you trust
in Jesus Christ, your life is transformed. And so you live in his name, his kind
of life, his quality of life.

The result of faith is eternal life as we look forward to heaven and abundant
life on this earth. Not perfect life on this earth. You still have problems.

Jesus says in this world, you're going to have troubles. But in me, you will have
peace. There's the abundance.

The abundance is in him, in that daily relationship with him. Now here, as we
come to the 31st verse of John chapter 20, this in many ways would be a perfect
ending to the book of John. I've written this so that you can believe and have
life in his name.

What I love about the gospel of John is that it does not end here. We get an
entire extra chapter on the resurrection of Jesus Christ than in any of the
other gospels, and get to hear about his meetings with people and his teaching
of people and the resurrection life that he wants to give to us. So make sure
you join us this next week as we finish this gospel of John together and look at
the resurrection life.

As we close today, I'm going to give you some homework and then pray together. You
want to have faith, here's how. You gotta remove your doubts.

And maybe you need to write down your doubts on a sheet of paper. And then at
the bottom of that sheet of paper, write the words, the prayer, Jesus, I ask you
to give me your answers to those doubts. Put it in a drawer somewhere and wait
for God's answers.

Someday you're going to pull it out and be amazed. To walk through this journey of
faith, you have to redirect your will. There's gotta be a day where you decide
to have faith.

And maybe that's your homework. You've been studying it, you've been thinking
about it, but you know that any more study is just putting the decision off.
Now's the time to decide.

To have faith, you and I need to renew our confession. And I encourage you to
start your day, each day this week with a confession of faith. You can find them
here in Thomas's Confession.

You can find them all throughout the Book of Psalms. Start with your own
confession of faith, my Lord and my God. Maybe first thing is you wake up in the
morning and then you receive his blessing.

I want to encourage you to take 20 minutes, 10 minutes, sometime this next week to
sit down and just make a list of what you have in your life because of your
faith in Jesus Christ. How life is different because of your faith in Christ.
And if you're not yet a believer, if you haven't crossed that line yet, how life
could be different.

Begin to think about that. The blessing that God wants to bring into your life
as you give your life to him. Let's take a few moments to talk to him together.

Jesus, we thank you. We thank you that you understand our doubts. And just like
you did with Thomas, you meet us at the point of our doubt to help us to have
faith.

And I pray you do that for us. For the big doubts that we have in our lives, the
doubts that are keeping us maybe from living the life that you've given to us.
Lord, help us to hear your answers.

I also pray for the little doubts. Just the day-to-day moments where instead of
trusting you, we trust ourselves. Or instead of listening to you, we listen to
someone else.

Those little moments where we have an opportunity to have faith, but instead we
doubt. And we trust someone else, something else. Jesus, I pray for those little
moments today.

For my life, for our lives together. That you'd help us to have faith in those
moments. To, by a decision of the will, say, I'm going to trust in Jesus Christ.

Because we know that your blessing comes into our lives through our trust in
you. We're not looking for the blessing of things. We're looking for the
blessing of you.

Knowing you, understanding you, seeing you at work in our lives. Thank you for
the new life that's in our lives because of the resurrection. Help us to live
that life today, we pray.

In your name, amen.