Sermon Tone Analysis

There are doubters in our midst.

They’re us!

Have you ever come across something that is just too incredible to believe?

We pass on information all the time that is simply preposterous.

We don’t believe it!

My cell phone buzzes a couple times a day with pre-recorded voices promising me something, like a free trip somewhere or an interest-free loan.

My favorite – if you’re allowed to have a favorite robo-call – is one where a woman starts by saying, “Do not hang up.”

I’ve never gotten past that to hear the rest of the recording.

We doubt more than just telemarketers.

Sometimes we doubt the people we interact with.

A car salesman in the city of Bodoe, Norway, lost a sixteen-car sale because of his doubt.

A young man in a sweater, overalls, and rubber boots entered the car dealer’s shop in this city just north of the Arctic Circle.

He asked the salesman if they kept cars on hand, and the salesman said they certainly did.

Then the man said, “I want sixteen cars, if I like the model.”

Well, the salesman was annoyed, because no serious person would ever want sixteen cars.

So he said, “I have no time for jokes—buzz off.”

So the man did.

He buzzed across the street to another dealership, made the same request, and paid the equivalent of $77,000 US for the new fleet.

He belonged to a sixteen-man crew of a Norwegian trawler that caught record quantities of herring last season.

Each fisherman netted a lot of money during the season.

They decided to buy new cars and to buy all sixteen at once, to get the highest possible discount.[1]

Sometimes people are telling the truth.

We also doubt the ability of others.

I heard a story about a woman in Kansas City who was cooking her first Thanksgiving Day turkey for her husband and son, and she was very self-conscious about it.

She told them, “Now I know this is the first turkey I’ve ever cooked.

If it isn’t right, I don’t want anybody to say a word.

We’ll just get up from the table without comment, and go down to the hotel for dinner.”[2]

Later that day, at dinnertime, the woman emerged from the kitchen with the turkey.

As she brought it to the dining room table, she saw her husband and son seated there, already wearing their hats and coats!

We don’t always trust that people will come through for us, that they will be able to handle our need.

But then we doubt our own abilities, too.

We have an example from an oilman who bought a house outside Palembang in Sumatra.

Since he needed to learn the Indonesian language, he attended the Berlitz Schools of Language in New York.

Charles Berlitz, a vice-president of the school went out to Sumatra with the oilman.

Berlitz urged him to plunge right in with the language.

While they were in his office together, the oilman took a phone call from one of his newly-hired servants.

“Just goes to show you,” the oilman said when he hung up, “you think you know the language, but when you get here you find you don’t know a thing about it.

Sounded just like he said a tiger was in the house, chasing the cook’s dog.”

It turned out that even though the man doubted his language decoding abilities, he had, in fact, heard right.

There was a tiger that had gotten into the house, and it was chasing the cook’s dog! [3]

We have to admit then that there are doubters in our midst.

They are us!

We doubt in many ways, sometimes to our own detriment.

Some of you have come here today, and you have your doubts as to whether this is all really true.

That’s okay.

Or maybe tragedy has struck - perhaps family turmoil or a foreboding diagnosis - that introduces some doubt in your faith.

“God, why would you have me go through this trauma?”

It’s okay to ask those questions.

Or maybe you’re like that guy in the Bible whose son Jesus healed from demonic possession who cried out, “I believe.

Help me with my unbelief!”

Even followers of Jesus deal with seasons of doubt.

God knows our tendency to doubt.

Thankfully, he has provided examples in his Word to help us work through our doubts.

One example is the Apostle Thomas.

We are looking at his life today.

Part of his story is in .

Go ahead and turn there now.

We get to look at the crescendo of John’s Gospel this morning.

It’s what the entire book builds up to.

In a Gospel about Jesus, you might say, “Isn’t that the resurrection?”

Not in this case.

John’s climax is not the resurrection of Jesus but rather our response to it.

How we respond to Jesus matters.

As we connect with Thomas, he is going to teach us this truth: A faith-filled response to Jesus brings us new life.

Let’s read .

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Okay, let’s take care of the elephant in the room.

Thomas had a nickname.

And that nickname was…the twin!

Yes, that’s the nickname the Bible gives.

Thomas was apparently a twin, but we don’t know the identity of his brother or sister.

We’ve given him a different nickname.

If I were Thomas, and I were picking, I think I’d stick with being called “The Twin” over “Doubting Thomas.”

There’s a little more to it than that - “Twin” was more of a name than a nickname - but this is a good reminder that there’s more to Thomas than meets the eye.

We are going to focus on his doubting moment, but we’ll try to get a well-rounded picture of who Thomas was.

Thomas’ name is only mentioned in Scripture 11 times, and 8 of those are just his name in a list of the other apostles.

Everything we know for sure about Thomas’ personality comes from just 3 verses.

The picture we get is that Thomas was kind of gruff and grumpy.

In his book, Twelve Ordinary Men, John MacArthur writes that if Thomas were a Winnie the Pooh character, he’d definitely be Eeyore!

If you are a matter-of-fact kind of person; if you consider yourself a realist; if you look around at other people - Christians even - and get sick of what looks like syrupy sweetness or shallow sentiment; if you have ever sat in a meeting and wanted to stop discussing and make a decision already; if these things resonate with you, then Thomas is your guy.

So what can we learn about Thomas?

Thomas was an “all-in” disciple.

The first recorded line from Thomas is in .

This is where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

But you might remember that Jesus got the word about Lazarus and waited until Lazarus actually died before going to see him.

Waiting made sense to the disciples, because Lazarus’ home was in Bethany, two miles outside Jerusalem.

The last time Jesus was there, he ticked off the Pharisees so much that they attempted to kill him.

That was why Jesus left with his disciples.

It was why they crossed over to the other side of the river.

And then Jesus’ dropped the bombshell that he was going to visit Lazarus, who was already dead.

The disciples were already trying to talk Jesus out of traveling there, because they didn’t like getting pelted with deadly stones.

I imagine their stunned silence as they crowded around Jesus, confused yet again by what their Master told them.

And then Thomas spoke:

Thomas had a nickname.

And that nickname was…the twin!

Yes, that’s the nickname the Bible gives.

Thomas was apparently a twin, but we don’t know the identity of his brother or sister.

We’ve given him a different nickname.

If I were Thomas, and I were picking, I think I’d stick with being called “The Twin.”