NEW BEGINNINGS: Part 3
We are continuing with our sermon series on “new beginnings.” The past two Sundays, we covered the “new beginnings” that several of Jesus’ disciples experienced when they first accepted the call of Christ. This morning, let’s take a look at the disciple named, Thomas. But, the Gospels do not tell us anything about Thomas’ initial call to be a disciple. And yet, there is much to consider about Thomas. As we will see, it may well be that his true new beginning did not occur until late in Jesus’ ministry. It is interesting that Thomas was nicknamed, “Didymus.” (John 11:16; 20:24) Didymus was Greek for the Hebrew name of “Thomas.” Both the Hebrew and the Greek mean “twin.” We don’t know anything about Thomas’s twin. But, I have to wonder if Thomas even had any siblings. Perhaps, Thomas’ nickname may have reflected his spiritual personality more than referring to a brother or sister. He may have been one of those people who are like two-sided coins. On one side of the coin, Thomas appeared to be a committed follower of Jesus. But, on the other side of the coin, he was nothing more than a mere “fan” of Jesus. The pastor and Christian writer, Kyle Idleman, gives a very clear picture of what a “fan” of Christ is like. Idleman states: “[Fans] don’t mind Jesus making some minor changes in our lives, but Jesus wants to turn our lives upside down. Fans don’t mind Him doing a little touch-up work, but Jesus wants a complete renovation. Fans come to Jesus thinking tune-up, but Jesus is thinking [major] overhaul. Fans think a little makeup is fine, but Jesus is thinking make over. Fans think a little decorating is required, but Jesus wants a complete remodeling. Fans want Jesus to inspire them, but Jesus wants to interfere with their lives.”[1]
So which one was Thomas? Was he a committed follower of Jesus or just a “fan”? Well, a passage in John’s Gospel is quite favorable in suggesting Thomas’ commitment to Christ. Toward the end of His ministry, it became evident to Jesus and His disciples that the Jews in Judea wanted to kill Jesus. At the same time, news reached Jesus that His good friend, Lazarus, had been stricken with some illness and was near death. The problem was that Lazarus’ home was on the outskirts of Jerusalem which was the very center where Jesus’ most bitter enemies resided. And yet despite the danger, Jesus announced that He was going to Lazarus’ home. Some of the disciples tried to dissuade Him from going, but when it became obvious that Jesus had made up His mind, it was Thomas who turned to the other disciples and declared: “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” John 11:16 (NIV)
These don’t seem to be the words of a mere fair-weather “fan,” but rather was the cry of someone deeply committed to Christ—even to the point of death.[2] So, again we ask: Is it fair to call Thomas a mere “fan” of Jesus? Sadly, at least momentarily, the answer appears to be “yes.” You see, even though Thomas was willing to die for Jesus, he was still lacking something. And what he was lacking kept him stuck in that category as a mere “fan” of Jesus. Thomas’ faith was genuine enough—but only to the extent that he understood Jesus to be a great rabbi, teacher and miracle worker. In that regard, he recognized that no one could compare to Jesus. But he—like many people today who call themselves “Christians”—needed to move beyond such a limited understanding of Christ that is led solely by their heads in an intellectual sense.
You can’t merely follow Jesus with your head. To be a true committed follower, you must follow Him with your heart also. At that point in time, Thomas’ head was right, but not his heart. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, we can see what this means better if we examine another exchange between Jesus and Thomas. This one occurred not long before Jesus was tried by His enemies and condemned to die on the Cross. As that time approached, all of Jesus’ disciples were deeply troubled. They sensed that Jesus’ enemies were about to descend upon Him. And, of course, they feared for His life, as well as their own lives. In response to these dire circumstances, Jesus gave his disciples these words of encouragement:
1 “‘Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.’ 5 Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?’ 6 Jesus said to him, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” John 14:1-6 (NKJV)
We can see from Thomas’ response to Jesus that he was a very inquisitive person. He liked to ask questions when he did not understand something. For a Christian, that can be a very good thing. We want our faith to be based upon what we can understand. If we don’t ask questions and diligently seek the answers, we can never grow in our faith. And if you let the Holy Spirit guide you, you can rest assured that you will find the answers. 7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV) This is a promise of Christ and is surely true. But, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to have faith in Jesus Christ. As it turns out, that could have been Thomas’ occupation if he had lived today.
Thomas had the mindset of a scientist when deriving his answers to any questions that confronted him. If he did not have concrete evidence and absolute certainty, along with a complete understanding of something—well, he typically would not believe it. Despite seeing Jesus perform many miracles, Thomas seemed to retain such a mindset. A great many people are walking around today who think like Thomas. Similarly, some revered people of the past thought like that as well. When I think about people who have adopted such an attitude, another “Thomas” comes to mind. But, he didn’t hail from ancient Palestine. No, this man lived at Monticello and founded the University of Virginia. He wasn’t Thomas the disciple—he was Thomas the President. In the history books, we know him as Thomas Jefferson.
Both Thomas the disciple and Thomas Jefferson were kindred spirits who were plagued by a common spiritual deficiency. Although we do not know who Thomas the disciple’s twin was, Thomas Jefferson could have easily substituted as his twin. These two “twins” had a mindset that adored Jesus as a “good man” and “great moral teacher,” but they could not conceive of Jesus as the divine Son of God. They both suffered from a faith-based deficiency whereby they could only believe in those things that are explainable through concrete physical evidence. For both of them, “seeing was believing.” They could not understand that, with God, it is the other way around: “Believing is seeing.” If they could not see something with their eyes and conceive of it in their minds, then they rejected it outright. Faith, however, calls us to “see” quite differently.
Faith requires us to see with our hearts, not merely with our eyes. When you see Jesus only with your limited human senses and intellect, you will never see Him for who He really is. That was Thomas the disciple’s mistake for much of His time with Jesus. Unfortunately, that appears to have been Thomas Jefferson’s mistake for all his life. Like his “twin,” Thomas Jefferson adored Jesus as a man, but failed to see Him as God. In a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, dated August 10, 1787, Jefferson gave his personal assessment of Jesus as follows: “I believe. . . that Jesus was a great moral teacher, perhaps the greatest the world has witnessed.”[3] But in a letter to his associate, William Short, written toward the end of Jefferson’s life, he clearly denied Jesus’ divinity and stated he was convinced that Jesus was not the Son of God.[4]
You see, Thomas the disciple (up to a point in time) and Thomas the President (apparently for all his life) were only “fans” of Jesus. Neither could conceive of Jesus as anything but human. They could not go the extra crucial step and acknowledge Jesus as being the Son of God. Because of that, they could not see Jesus through the eyes of their hearts as truly being “the Way, the Truth and the Life” to whom they must submit as their personal Lord and Savior. Until a person does that, they can never be saved. Fortunately, Thomas the disciple’s spiritual eyes were eventually opened. I pray that was the case for Jefferson as well, but there is little, if anything, that indicates such a spiritual awakening ever took place in his heart. Six short years after writing that letter to William Short denying Christ, Jefferson died on July 4, 1826.
You know, it really doesn’t make sense when some people approach Jesus with closed hearts that refuse to acknowledge Him as God’s Son. Those who reject Jesus in such a way seem to take a very odd attitude. They appear to take the position that, unless they can fully understand the miracle of Jesus’ incarnation in the sense that one would understand some physical phenomenon on earth, then they must reject the deity of Christ. Hence, the miracle of Jesus’ divine nature is unacceptable to them. But the strange thing is this: They would put the miracle of Jesus’ divinity to such a test, but would never think of doing the same for anything else in their lives. Billy Graham has pointed out that even though miracles may be a mystery to us, that doesn’t mean that they are untrue. And the miracle of Jesus being fully human, and yet at the same time fully divine, is one of the greatest miracles of all! Rev. Graham once said: “Most people don’t understand how electricity operates, but we know that it lights our homes and runs our televisions and radios.”[5] We could add to his statement that electricity is what powers our laptops, computers and smartphones, and makes the “miracle” of the internet possible. But just because the average person doesn’t fully understand electromagnetic wave theory or the nuances behind the flow of subatomic electron particles, they still believe in the reality of TV’s, radios, light bulbs, laptops, computers, smartphones and the internet. Nevertheless, they contradict themselves when it comes to matters of faith. Why is it that they so readily accept the reality of worldly things that they really can’t make sense of, yet reject the miraculous reality of Jesus being the Incarnate Son of God? There are just so many “Doubting Thomas’” today!
Now, that doesn’t mean that people with minds of a scientific nature must give up their inquisitive mindset to believe in Jesus as their divine Lord and Savior. In fact, Luke was a physician. For his day, Luke certainly had a scientific mind. Yet, Luke was a disciple of Christ and wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. I love the way Billy Graham puts it in one of his devotionals: “[Luke] was one of the most brilliant men of his day; he made the startling statement about the resurrection in the Book of Acts: ‘He [Christ]... presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days.’” (Luke 1:3) Rev. Graham goes on to say: “These ‘infallible proofs’ have been debated for two thousand years. Many people have come to know the truth [about Christ] while they were trying to prove Jesus’ resurrection a lie. Others ignore the facts recorded in the best-selling book of all time, the Bible. The bloodstained Cross is gruesome, but the empty Cross is full of hope.”[6]
Fortunately for Thomas the disciple, Jesus had great compassion and patience with him regarding his spiritual blindless. We see this very clearly after Jesus’ resurrection when He made His appearance to the disciples. In John’s Gospel, we find the following:
24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he [Thomas] said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe it.” 26 A week later His disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. STOP DOUBTING AND BELIEVE." 28 Thomas said to Him, “MY LORD AND MY GOD!” 29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN AND YET HAVE BELIEVED.” John 20:24-29 (NIV)
Yes, Thomas finally declared Jesus to be his Lord and his God once Christ showed him His wounds suffered on the Cross. But, because it took so long for Thomas to make that decision for Christ, he has been dubbed, “Doubting Thomas.” Before concluding, it’s important that we consider something about doubt. Again, I turn to Billy Graham, because he said something that we need to understand whenever we are confronted with doubts: “The devil will do everything in his power to sow seeds of doubt in your mind as to whether your conversion is a reality or not.”[7] That is certainly true about Satan. But, remember this: The Scriptures assure us that Satan’s power is limited to this world. 1st John 4 guarantees us that we can overcome all the evil forces of Satan and the doubts they may try to instill, “because the One who is in you [Jesus Christ] is greater than the one [Satan] who is in the world.”[8] And with that great truth in mind, you might even say that doubt can be a good thing.
Yes, doubt can be beneficial if you allow it to be a steppingstone to a closer relationship with Jesus. If some matter of doubt confronts your faith, don’t just give in to it. Rather, confront doubt with God’s Word—for therein you will always find the answer to any doubt if, through prayer, you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you. Think of doubt as if it were like the colds and flu that little children get as they grow up. Colds and flues are not pleasant things to go through for little children. But, they are the very things that build up their resistance to disease and ultimately make them stronger as their immune systems develop. So it is with Christians. When you first come to Christ, you may have doubts to deal with. But as you delve into the Scriptures and call upon the Holy Spirit in prayer to resolve those doubts, your prayers will not go unanswered. Your spiritual immune system will start to develop and little by little the disease of doubt becomes less invasive. Even mature Christians who are strong in faith, now and again, might have a sniffle or two. But as you pump in the vitamins and nourishment of faith as found in God’s Word, your recovery will not be long in coming. In the end of each bout, doubt falls away and your faith grows even stronger. Don’t let Satan use doubt to defeat you. Rather, depend on the Holy Spirit to deal with whatever doubts Satan may try to use to ambush you.
Jesus understood what evidence Thomas needed in order to remove his doubts and come to a true faith. Jesus understands our weaknesses as well. He knows what you need to strengthen your faith. Remember what Jesus said to Thomas: “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:24-29 (NIV) We are blessed by believing in Christ. Actually, we have no excuse not to believe. In fact, it could be argued that we have an advantage over “Doubting Thomas.” We have God’s Word as fully presented in all the books of the Old Testament. We have all of the four Gospels, and all of the letters written by Paul, Peter, John, James and Jude. We have the Book of Acts and the Book of Hebrews. And, finally, we have the amazing Book of Revelation. And most importantly, we have been given the Holy Spirit whom Jesus requested God the Father to send as our Comforter (KJV), Counselor (NIV), Advocate (NLT) and Helper (NASB) in all matters of faith. Who could possibly ask for anything more! Because of this, the Apostle John declares: “Those who obey His commands live in Him, and He in them. And this is how we know that He lives in us: We know it by the Spirit He gave us.” 1st John 3:24 (NIV)
So, no one can use Thomas’ excuse. No one is justified in taking the attitude that they refuse to believe in Jesus as Lord unless they first see His wounded hands and feet, or touch His pierced side. The problem for such unbelievers is that, if they wait until then, it will be too late. And it will be too late because they will see those wounds of Christ quite clearly when they stand before His Judgment Seat. Thomas cast his doubts aside and accepted Jesus as the Son of God and his Lord and Savior. When he professed his faith in that manner, Thomas came to his “new beginning.” If you are merely a “fan” of Christ today—if doubts stand in the way of your full commitment to Christ as your Lord and Savior—then now is the time for you to have your “new beginning.” You see, when Thomas stands before the Judgement Seat, Jesus will surely say to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant! . . . Come and share your master’s happiness!” Matthew 25:23 (NIV) But for those who are nothing more than “fans”—for those who could not get beyond accepting Jesus as anything more than a “good moral teacher,” the response is going to be agonizingly different. For Jesus will turn to them and pronounce a clear verdict: “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” Matthew 7:23 (NIV) Sadly, those “evildoers” will have their own “new beginning.” Unfortunately, it will be an eternal one in a place that you surely do not want to be!
Let us pray.
Darvin Satterwhite, Pastor
Forest Hill Baptist Church
January 15, 2023
©2023 All Rights Reserved as follows:
Anyone is at liberty to use this sermon or any portions thereof for educational or religious purposes, with or without credit. The pastor believes the material presented herein to be true to the teaching of Scripture, and desires to further, not restrict, its potential use as an aid in the study of God’s Word. The publication of this material is a grace ministry of Forest Hill Baptist Church in Louisa, Virginia.
[1] Idleman, Kyle. Not a Fan. Grand Rapids: Zondervan (2016), p. 31.
[2] “Who was Thomas in the Bible?” Gotquestions.com.
[3] Wikipedia contributors, "Religious views of Thomas Jefferson," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Religious_views_of_Thomas_Jefferson&oldid=1131155609 (accessed January 12, 2023).
[4] “Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 13 April 1820,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-15-02-0505. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 15, 1 September 1819 to 31 May 1820, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018, pp. 538–541.]
[5] Graham, Billy (Billy Graham Literary Trust). Peace for Each Day. China: Thomas Nelson (2020), p. 8.
[6] Ibid. p. 12.
[7] Waters, Mark. Christian Living Made Simple. Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2002. WORDsearch CROSS e-book.
[8] “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (NIV)
