APR 20 2025 | Road to the Cross: The Upper Room S1E5 | Easter

Sea Change Church · APR 20 2025 | Road to the Cross: The Upper Room S1E5 - Easter
John 20:24-28
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

We're so grateful, God, that we get to be reconciled to you. I pray for church unity. I pray that visitors would feel community here. I pray that seeds would be planted. And I pray that you will use every little bit of today's offering to expand your kingdom. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. The Gospel according to John, chapter 20, verses 24 through 28.

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 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 nail, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. 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. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here, and see my hands, and put out your hand, and put it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.

This is the word of the Lord. Last time we met, was a low lit room. We were as close together as a riding room. We ate the food. We drank wine. We drank wine. We drank wine. We drank wine. We drank wine. We drank wine. Everybody having a good time. Except you. You were taught about the end of the world. If I wasn't the pastor, I'd go to church here. That was goodness.

I'm not even lying. I would show up every week. I'd get my free donut, listen to that worship, hang out. Hey, I want to say hi to Sea Change in Claremont. I want to say welcome to you guys. Great to have you online today. Pastor Joshua is going to take over the second half of the sermon, about halfway through, so be prepared for him. In the meantime, if you guys have your Bibles, open up to John chapter 20, 24 through 28.

It's also in the notes. You'll have it there if you need it. And we're, the last multiple Easter's we've been looking at the resurrection stories of the people Jesus encountered after he rose from the dead. And you can just preach on the resurrection. He rose from the dead, the power of that, and the theology of that. But we've chosen for the last few years to really focus on the people and the relationships.

We were at the Garden Tomb last year, and for a few years we've been there. But this week, it's this Easter, we got another story that allows us to kind of look at the scripture as a microchasm of who we are. I believe that every biblical story has the ability to put it up against our lives and to find some commonality and some synchronicity in that.

And so we're with Thomas. It's eight days later. It means eight days after the crucifixion of Jesus, and we are back in the upper room. And there's a picture. Now, I have two favorite things. My favorite Renaissance painter is Caravaggio. Don't put it up yet. Well, there it is. There it is. Good job. My bad, Al. Just checking on you, Al. He's been here like 10 years.

We're working together. Favorite painter is Caravaggio, followed by Rembrandt. And one of my favorite words is the word incredulity. And this painting right here, there we go, Al, sums up this passage. It is called The Incredulity of St. Thomas. And in the picture, you have the risen Christ showing back up to the upper room, at least what scholars believe is the upper room.

And he's taking his fingers, and he's actually putting his fingers into the wound of Jesus. And as you heard this passage earlier, he made a bargain. He said, unless this happens, I will not believe. Take that picture down. Incredulity is a noun. It means a state of being unwilling or unable. I think that's important. Not just unwilling, but sometimes unable.

To believe something, it's skepticism or disbelief. Now, on the pantheon of people who turned away from Jesus, this is the least of these. You have the betrayal, right? That's Judas. You have the denial. Okay? And Peter, he gets reinstated after this event. And then you have doubting. And doubting is something that is common to all of us. Doubting is part of the human experience.

And doubt cannot, or excuse me, faith cannot exist. Belief cannot exist, or faith, without doubt. What I mean by that is the word faith means something that overcomes doubt. The scripture says that faith is believing in something that you can't see. Now, at the end of the passage there, remember, Jesus says to him, Hey, it's great that you believed in me, and I showed up.

But blessed are those who never saw me and who believe, who have this obstacle that is in the way, and faith is able to jump over that. If you've heard of St. Thomas, now, less and less people these days know the Bible. I had a friend come, I met him at the dog park this week, and he said, Hey, I came to your church on Sunday, and it was so cute to see the kids with the palms.

And then three days later, we were hanging out, and he goes, Hey, somebody told me that that actually is part of a Bible story. And I'm like, Yeah. You might think it's funny, but he says, I've never gone to church. And that's more and more true. But he said, I just actually loved it, and that story. And so, when I look at this idea of Thomas doubting, what I think is interesting, and what is kind of a shame, is that Thomas' entire legacy is wrapped up in his lowest moment, in his worst moment.

He's known, if you're new to the church, he has this nickname. And the nickname is Doubting Thomas, right? 2,000 years have passed. Generation of generation of Christians have gone through, and the name is Doubting Thomas. Just think about it. What if you were just known for your worst moment, your lowest moment? We don't want that, right? We want a comeback story.

We talked about a comeback story last week. And Thomas has a comeback story. We're going to look at that in a second. But I think when we begin to define Thomas, or ourselves, or others by sound bites, we lose the nuance and the complexity of the vast way in which God has created us, and who he has made us to be. And so Thomas is more than this.

We're going to look just quickly at Thomas. I want to just give you a few other verses. He's not mentioned a ton in the scripture, but he has mentioned some. You'll see in your notes that like you, Thomas is defined, not defined by a sound bite. He symbolizes the complexity of the spiritual person. And then in your notes, you'll see some places you can fill in.

The first thing is Thomas was loyal and he was brave. You're going to see that at the end of his story. He's loyal and he's brave. Most people don't know the end of his story. John 11, 16 says that Thomas, doubting Thomas, let's just keep calling him that for the moment. He says, let us also go with Jesus, because Jesus is talking about going to his death.

And Thomas is the first one to stand up. Now Peter says it later. But he's the first one to stand up to say, if he's going to die, let us go. Let's ride with him unto his death. Let's die with him. That's a little more complex than just being doubting Thomas, right? But the doubting happened afterwards. He's honest and curious. John 14, 5. He asked Jesus, how can we know the way?

Jesus is saying, I'm going before you. I'm going to prepare a place for you. And he's very curious. And curiosity is one of the hallmarks of a spiritual person. If you're a person who is spiritual, they consider yourself spiritual. We're all spiritual beings. And we believe in a spiritual relationship. The God of the universe wants to have a relationship with you.

You're going to be curious. You're going to be asking God questions. You're going to be seeking him because he says, if you seek me, he gives this promise, you will absolutely find me. Let me guarantee you that. If you seek God, you will find him. He said it, not me. I'm believing in his word. But he was honest. He was curious. And then we also know, as I said a moment again, he was absent and he was doubting.

John 20, 25, halfway through the verse says, unless, unless, it's contextual. I see his hands and the marks of the nails and place my finger in the mark, into the mark of the nails and place my hand into the side. I will never believe. If you have your notes, circle the word never. It's important. We'll get to it in a second. Here's the main point of the entire message.

Belief beyond, having the ability to believe beyond our obstacles and our doubts. Do you have the ability, and I believe we do, do we have the ability to believe upon the obstacles that have come in our life, the doubts that have been in our life? We've all had these complex stories, right? And maybe you, you've kind of, you know, mold your definition of yourself down to a soundbite.

You just, oh, I'm, I'm a failure, or I'm this, or maybe you think you're greater than you are. I don't know. You've kind of brought yourself down to a, to a soundbite. And what we, what we see here is beyond all those obstacles of maybe limiting yourself, he ends up having the faith to believe in Jesus' response to all those. I want to just quickly, let's look at him.

There's three types of obstacles that I saw in this passage as barriers to faith. And I think they're, they kind of resonate, we can all resonate with them. The first, sometimes there's physical obstacles. You just have physical things in your life, blockages, stops, things that have been in your, in your path. Giants in your path, rocks over your tombs.

You just, you can't get through it, and it's become an obstacle. Thomas had physical obstacles. We have emotional obstacles. More and more in our society. We just see these emotional obstacles. Reason we can't go on. Reason we can't believe. Reason after reason because of something that happened. And oftentimes those happen because of, of trauma and loss.

And then the third one that I have is a cognitive obstacle. It means, I just can't believe because it doesn't make sense to me. You know, I don't believe in leprechauns and I don't believe in other fairy tales. So Jesus seems like a big fairy tale to me. So I can't believe it. I just, I can't get past that. It's an obstacle. Thomas had some of that as well.

These are the three barriers. Let's look at them real quick. The physical things that he had. If you can go, go to verse 24. It says, Now, Thomas, one of the twelve, one of the Jesus' closest disciples. He was called a twin. He had a twin brother. Maybe he had a twin sister. Was not with them when Jesus came. Okay. I think one of the main reasons we limit ourselves, we have obstacles to believing, I can't believe in God because this happened in my life or that happened in my life or perhaps I missed out.

There's this thing that if it would have just happened in my life, things would have been different. But because it didn't happen. Because of the proximity of where I should have been or something I missed, there was a physical reason I wasn't there. That I can't believe in God because that thing didn't happen. We see that with Thomas here. He wasn't there when Jesus came.

Jesus shows up to all the disciples and he's not there for one reason or another. I don't know. Maybe he's getting food. Jesus sent people out for food on occasion. Maybe he just couldn't believe in the moment. But he missed it. Can you imagine? You've been hanging with Jesus. He's raised from the dead. All of a sudden, 11 other of your posse, they roll up to you and they're like, hey, Jesus, he showed up.

He showed up. And all of a sudden, you missed it. You weren't in that moment. And because you missed that moment, it's become a physical barrier to you. Or maybe it was your childhood or this thing. It's because of something physical that happened. There's a movie that I think is brilliant. It's called Napoleon Dynamite. I know. It's Easter Sunday.

I apologize. If you only see it as this ham-fisted comedy, you're going to miss the beauty of the nuance of the stories. And there's this tragic Madame Bovary, Bovarian type of figure in the movie. And his name is Uncle Rico, right? Okay, you guys know Uncle Rico. And this clip has a little bit of the stupidness in, and I'm going to show you, of the movie in it.

But afterwards, you see that this tragic character, Uncle Rico, has this idea that if he had only gotten into the game, his life would have been different. The coach didn't put him in. It was a physical obstacle. His everything would be different. He can never get over that moment. It is one of the best pieces of acting. I'm dead serious. It is like Brando-esque to me.

I apologize. Roll it. Back in 82, I used to be able to throw a pigskin a quarter mile. Are you serious? I'm dead serious. Watch this. What the heck are you doing? That's what I'm talking about. I better go. How much you want to make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains? Yeah. If the coach would have put me in fourth quarter, we would have been state champions.

No doubt. No doubt in my mind. I'm going to believe things have been different. I would have gone pro. I'd have had a heartbeat. I'd be making millions of dollars and living in a big old mansion somewhere. You know, soaking it up in a hot tub with my soul. I would have had a heartbeat. How many of us, because of a proximity, we missed out on a moment.

You look back. That high school sweetheart that got away. That job promotion that didn't happen. There was something that you missed. Thomas missed the moment. Not only that, did he miss the moment. Go to verse 26. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again with him. I like that he was there. Although the doors were locked. There's just barriers.

There's things that are in the way. I don't have enough money to do it. I don't, whatever it is, it's just this bear, these physical bears. And next is emotional. This is probably more relevant to our culture and something Uncle Rico seems to understand in that passage, in that scene. Verse 25. Verse 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. We oftentimes forget how traumatized the disciples were. Crucifixion was a bloody and barbaric act that was carried out in the first century, especially by the Romans. We believe that most of them were in eyesight of Jesus, that were near, they were hiding.

They had left Jesus because they were on the run. They were part of a group of outlaws at the moment. Peter denies Jesus, as we know, when the 15-year-old girl says, hey, you were with him. He calls curses on himself. No, no, no. He's on the lamb. No, no, no. Running. Thomas saw that. He had all these hopes, all these dreams, and now he has seen one of his closest friends, the one he believed was God, or perhaps God at least in the moment, has been crucified on a cross and he watched him.

Imagine one of your best friends being crucified in front of you. We oftentimes don't think about the human trauma and emotional trauma that these men had gone through, these women had gone through to see that. And so we see this in verse 25, because he understands that there's nails, and he says to him, I've seen the nails. He saw all of this happen, and there was this trauma in his life.

And trauma oftentimes brings a loss. Where trauma enters, hope often exits. And in a room this size, some of you experience some severe trauma in your life. Trauma seems to be the characteristic, a major characteristic of our generation. I was talking to a family member, a younger family member, and they said, you know, I'm one of the only people I know in my friend group that hasn't had a major trauma in their life.

She actually said, I'm one of the only friends in my friend group that hasn't been sexually assaulted. I was like, wow, trauma. It is part. He has gone through trauma. And I would say in a moment, Jesus answers that trauma. Where trauma often enters, hope exits. And maybe for you, you've just been hurt too much. You've gone through too much. You've seen too much.

And hope is exited. What would it take, as I said in the beginning, to be able to believe beyond your trauma? I'm not saying you don't address it. I'm not saying you don't look at it. I'm not saying you don't deal with it. I'm not saying run from it, hide from it. I'm saying to have the faith, to believe beyond it, that even though that happened, there's a resurrection story behind that.

And then the thing that really sticks out to me is hell often delights when our trials and tragedies turn us back towards that trauma rather than to Jesus. I'll just say that again. Hell delights when our trials and our tragedies turn us back to our trauma as opposed towards Jesus. Often it does that. Some people who have been traumatized the most have a tendency to go back to their trauma and to re-traumatize themselves or allow themselves to be traumatized.

You see a different story here. And Jesus answers that trauma in just a moment. And then the final one that we see is in verse 25. There's just this cognitive barrier. It's a head-level barrier. You just can't get over it. You just can't get over it. You're a scientist, right? It doesn't make any sense to you. Verse 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 and the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. The first thing is a second-hand testimony. Somebody else's story. I've had people say to me, Christians say to me, I grew up in a Christian home and I was just raised Christian.

And I always have wanted the story that you have or this story like you were going to die and something. And you did all these things, but God brought you back from the edge. I wish I had that story. Because then I could feel like I was rescued from something. But I kind of just grew up and went to church and it's always been there. I'm like, you don't want that story.

You don't want that story. But praise God for those that have it, that have come back and been called back. He has this cognitive things other people are telling him. He wants a personal encounter with Jesus and we serve a personal God. But he's not going to do it just because other people have told him. It's a cognitive stuff. And then the other thing, and I think this is really common to us, he has a conditional faith, a cognitive argument.

He's making a bargain with God. If you show up, if you do this and you let me do this, then I'll believe in you, but not until then. I have to get what I want, what I think, what I can believe. And at that point, once I have this conditional, this proof, once you prove to me, which is the opposite of faith. Because here's the thing about proof.

If an angel of fire showed up to you tonight and said, Jesus is Lord, if Jesus himself showed up to you tonight, I will guarantee you, within a week, a month, five years, you will ask yourself, did that really happen? That, you know, was it the stew I had the night before? Like, did that really happen? Faith is more powerful than proofs. Because faith believes, doesn't have to have something to be seen to believe it.

That's why faith, even a year from now, five years from now, in that same timeframe, will continue to believe and has more powerful. That's why Jesus says at the end here, blessed are those who don't see and believe. You get a blessing for that. Because miracles fade. Remember, Jesus says, as he goes to a place called Chorazin, he goes, woe to you, Chorazin.

Woe to you, because if the miracles that I had done in this other part of the country had been done here, they would have all turned to me. But I did all these miracles and you still didn't believe. He had this mental barrier that he had to transition from. And I would say, just finally, on the obstacles for him, when he says in the verse there, I will never believe, in the Greek, it's a double negative.

It is a negative that demands proof, but it says, I will absolutely never, ever believe. For no reason whatsoever. It is a double negative. It's not just, hey, you know, I kind of won't believe. He is adamant that he won't believe. With that, if you're in Claremont, Pastor Josh is going to come on and finish the response of Jesus right now. I hand it over to you, Pastor Josh, and bless you guys in Claremont.

Thanks for being here. In the midst of the myriad of obstacles, Jesus responds to Thomas. I love that it's not just an answer. I don't need Jesus to give me bumper sticker answers. Jesus gives more than that. He gives him his whole life. He responds in a myriad of way and he answers. Let me just show you. Every one of those three obstacles he answers here in the text.

Before, let me just say one thing I wrote. Your history cannot hinder him. Your habits won't halt him. And your heartache will never hold him back. He is a God that responds, that loves you, that wants to be in relationship with you. He didn't die on the cross to play hide and seek with you. He died on the cross that he might have relationship with you.

And we see that here with Thomas. He conquers all of his obstacles. He conquers them all. Go to verse 26. Verse 26 says, eight days later, eight days later, the 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. First thing I like is, Jesus comes in and stands among them.

But the doors were locked and Jesus was not hindered by them. Jesus is not hindered by stones on graves. And he's not hindered by the proximity. He's not hindered by the missed moment. He can redeem your missed moments. He can reinstitute his grace into those moments. And he shows up, it says, on the eighth day. That's important. Why? Because it is a day of a new week.

The eighth day is eight days away. Saturday, the day before would have been the day Jesus was crucified. This is one of the reasons we worship on Sundays. Is that he shows up and he comes back to the very room, to the place where he had missed out. He goes beyond the locked door. He shows up to that place. And when he shows up to that place, in the midst of it, he brings his peace to that place.

And he meets him there beyond the physical barriers to the place he had missed out. I have found in my life that God has taken me back to every place where I had some of my worst firsts or every place I had a major failure in my life. It's happened 10, 15 times, innumerable. One, my mom had a heart issue five, eight years ago. So I took her to Kaiser, down in Mission Valley.

And we wheeled in. Took her to this room. And I was familiar with the room because when I had my heart attack, when I OD'd, I was in that exact same area. And I was sitting there with my mom and I realized that there's just, all it is is a curtain, right? I realized right next to me is where I was when I was 19 years old. My mom showed up to the hospital that time she was with me.

And as we're there, we're there an hour and a half and things get stabilized and we're getting ready to leave. And as I'm walking out, the nurse comes to me and she says, hey, I heard you're a pastor. I'm like, yeah. She goes, could you pray with this kid? He's had a drug overdose. And I said, well, where is he? Where is he? Well, he's right next door.

Same bed I was in. Same place. That's just one. There's been 10, 15 times where God is taking me back to the very place where something has happened. And he's restored it because God is not bound by the things that you missed. He's not bound by the locked doors. He can redeem and restore and go beyond your locked doors. He's not bound by the physical proximity.

He's not bound by the emotional things as well. And he shows up here. It says eight days later, verse 26 again. Eight days later, the disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them. And he said, peace be with you. And then he said, Thomas. I like when Jesus shows up, he rolls in with peace.

When Jesus speaks about peace, it's different than like, hey, let's go chill out on the beach and just get his, like do some breathing exercises. That's great. That's great. In the Bible, the peace that Jesus talks about is a peace that transcends understanding that is supernatural. And when it comes upon you, you will know it. Jesus actually says that peace is something that you can actually leave.

He says, when you go into someone's house, take the peace that you have and let your peace rest upon the house. That when you walk in there, if you have the peace of Christ, you can walk in and you can drop that peace. Like a spirit, like it's a spiritual tool to bring peace to the environment. Do you know people that have peace? Do you know people that walk in peace?

Do you know people that walk in chaos? I was a person that couldn't have peace unless I had chaos. Make sense? I couldn't have peace unless I had chaos. If things are going too good, I got to self-sabotage this craziness. Jesus isn't like that. Jesus rolls up. He rolls up. And in a place where there was trauma, in a place there was doubt, in a place that there was fear, in a place where he felt like Thomas had missed out, he shows up and the first thing that he says is peace.

And you know what I like next? He says, Thomas. Thomas had missed. How would you feel if Jesus showed up and you weren't there? You would think, why? I said I would die with him. You got to realize in that, that he was there in that place. And Jesus shows up and he singles him out. Not to shame him. He didn't die on the cross to shame him. But to bring relationship back with him.

And he has a personal encounter with Thomas. Jesus knows your name as well. And if you seek him, you will find him. And he wants to have a personal encounter with him. I'm not going to, with you, I'm not going to say he's going to do the same thing he did with Thomas. I'm not going to say he's going to do the exact same thing. We all kind of want that, right?

Jesus to show up and, you know, and have this moment. It's going to be different. And like I said, there's a nuance and a complexity about each of you. And he knows just how to reach you. He knows, because he created you, just what you need if you will only seek him. And it's not going to be easy because, like Thomas did, there's one thing you're going to have to do.

You're going to have to show up. And Thomas shows up. It's one of the things I love about Thomas' response. I'm preaching ahead a little bit. But the fact that Thomas rolled back, you could see how easily he could have done what Peter did, right? Peter bounces. Peter goes to the lake and starts fishing again. And Jesus actually pursues him, right?

And then Peter jumps in the water. We know that story. It was preached not too long ago. But it says that he shows up. And he just, I just love, the grace in a name, Thomas. And he gives him this moment. And he offers to prove to him that he's important beyond his traumas, beyond the emotional breaking. And the final thing is the cognitive point.

He had said, he had made this bargain. He says, only if he proves his reality to me. You have to do something. And then I will believe in you. And I think it's really odd because people pray this all the time. And God, I have rarely seen Jesus, like, give people what they ask for. Like, in regard, like, you do this, Jesus, if you do. I've seen it happen some.

But it doesn't seem like it's the way Jesus usually rolls or God rolls. He tends to take us through these non-circuitous routes for one reason or another. But he says that he shows up. And so Jesus is like, okay, I got you. He shows up. Which I thought is amazing. Beyond, and he answers his cognitive questions. And he says to them, here I am. Go ahead and start touching.

And he shows up and meets him in that place. Because he gives him what he needs. And Jesus will give you what you need. You want to know the interesting thing? You want to put that picture back up, the Caravaggio? The first one? Yeah. You know that never happened? You ever notice Thomas never touched his side? He never did the thing that he said he needed to do to believe.

He actually just does it. He actually just starts believing. It was enough for him. And what I said, what will it take for us sometimes, whatever that faith is, to be able to say, you know what? I had this requirement that I had to have. And you know what? Forget that requirement. I'm going to step over that in faith. And so he's able to do that and he meets him.

And then he answers with this response. And this is a response of Thomas. He showed up. He doesn't have to touch Jesus in the end. And then verse 28. His answer is amazing. He says, my Lord and my God. My Lord and my God. And this is the point of the Gospel. The faith is this. Not that Jesus is going to show up. Not for all these other things. But the seed that will flower of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ died for our sins.

And that he is God. And that you would say, I want you to be my Lord. That's the whole message of the Gospel. And what's interesting is, if you look at St. Thomas, there's another picture of St. Thomas. People, this is by Rubens, Paul Rubens. And in this picture, he's being speared to death. Because he went to India. And he actually became doubting Thomas.

Remember him? Because he's a doubter, right? Never going to make, he's never going to manifest anything in his life. He goes all the way to India. If you go to India today and speak to Christians, he's the patron saint of India. He planted seven to eight churches in India. And they eventually, he was preaching Christ, they told him not to. So they took spears and they speared him to death.

And he became a martyr in India. That's doubting Thomas. If you only went by the sound bite, you never would have known that. I would say for all of us as well that have these obstacles to relationships. Some of you, it's not a relationship with Jesus, you have a relationship with him. But it's faith beyond. It's believing in a relationship that's dead that needs to be restored.

It's believing that God can heal the trauma in your life. It is that thing. There's all these obstacles to a deeper relationship with God. And the question is, in this sermon as I end it, the question is, do you have the ability to believe without seeing? Because like I said at the beginning, the scripture puts you in it and Jesus puts you in it.

You're in this story. Go to verse 29. And Jesus speaking to Thomas said this, Have you believed because you've seen me? Blessed are those who've not seen me and yet believe. That's you. That's us. And so, on this Easter Sunday, the call to you is to ask you whatever that thing is, that hurt, that wound, that physical barrier, whatever that thing is to relationships.

Maybe it is a relationship with Jesus. You haven't believed that he is Lord. And today you'll make that decision and say, you know what, I'm going to believe that because he's speaking to me. If Jesus is speaking to you now, you will know it. If he's speaking to you now, you will know it. But it is that call to say, can I step over that obstacle?

Do I have to touch those wounds? Or can I step over it in faith and move on to the next place in my life like we see him do? Because he ends up being a martyred Thomas, one who went all the way for Jesus, all the way unto death. Like I said earlier, he said he was loyal and he was brave. He proved it. Let's stand if you would. Chris is going to come forward.

Chris is going to sing a song. And as the worship band sings, you're going to have a moment to just reflect. I want to just give you a moment to reflect on this message and where you are. The gospel is preached not for the sake of the gospels. It's for you. The reason I want to speak is to see people's lives changed and to give you a moment to contemplate that.

And then afterwards, you'll have the ability. We have a prayer team that will come forward. I'll tell you about that in just a second. The prayer team will come forward and we'll have an opportunity for that. Chris, if you can lead us. That's my king. That's my God. That's my shepherd, protector. Sing with me. That's my Christ, and the one. I wasg, the one.

I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. I wasg, the one. That's my anchor, my defender That's my king, that's my girl That's my shepherd, my protector That's my king, that's my rock That's my anchor, my defender Who we're talking about, that's my king We deserve glory, give him all the honor Altogether worthy, who we're talking about That's my king, we deserve glory Give him all the honor, altogether worthy Who we're talking about, that's my king There's the one before you Yes, we will adore you All of this is for you Who we're talking about, that's my king Who we're talking about, that's my king Who we're talking about, that's my king Amen I do want to give you a, I'd be remiss if I didn't give you an opportunity To make a decision to know Jesus I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, jump up or anything like that But I do want to give you a moment to do that And it's as easy as just saying It's hard for me to believe in this But I believe that you are God And I want you to be my Lord It's that easy Just bow your heads for a moment with me For anybody who would want to join me in that prayer Just in your own heart, you'll know it Say, Lord, I can feel you speaking to me today I need a life change I believe, I've got a bunch of obstacles I'm going to step over those and believe that you are Lord I want to bless you I invite you into my heart To follow you In Jesus' name, amen If you may, I'm going to have the prayer team come forward If you prayed that prayer There is a next steps table in the back Go there And they have some information about Jesus We have a DNA class coming up And we have the new believers class That I believe Pastor Joshua or Joe spoke about Be a part of that Come check it out If you need prayer today If you've lost hope If your relationship If your marriage If you need some healing If you have a barrier Our prayer team's going to be up here We want to pray for you And with that, if you extend your hand I want to bless you today on this Easter Sunday May you go with the peace of Christ Who walks through locked doors And speaks to our doubts May his presence meet you in your pain And his voice calm your questions And may your heart echo the cry of Thomas My Lord, my God Blessed are you who believe when you have not seen Go in faith and in the peace of Jesus Christ Amen We love you Happy Easter If you need prayer, please come forward We don't have a good one We are the one Pongu And I can do the one for a que the one and the one and the one you is a ori I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one I can do the one ��tom ��jom ��jom ��jom ��jom njom ��jom