Believe!

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Daniel 4:34–35
• Hymn — O Father, You Are Sovereign
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Faith — Athanasian Creed
• Scripture Reading — Joshua 11:1–23
• Hymn — Come, Thou Almighty King
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Hymn — Breathe on Me, Breath of God
• Sermon
• Hymn — For All the Saints
• Benediction

---

Sermon Title: Believe — The Resurrection and the Life of Faith

Scripture: John 20:19–31

I. Believe That the Resurrected Christ Brings Peace with God

A. The world offers peace through surrender; Christ offers peace through victory over death

1. Jesus appears to the frightened disciples with locked doors and declares "Peace be with you" (John 20:19)
2. He immediately shows his nail-marked hands and pierced side — his credentials as Peacemaker

B. The resurrection is not a warm sentiment but a nail-marked reality that meets us in our fear

1. Eight days later the disciples are still locked away in fear; Christ meets them again with the same word of peace (John 20:26)
2. Christ's wounds prove he truly endured the wrath of God and conquered death — peace through conquest, not capitulation

II. Believe That the Resurrected Christ Brings Spiritual Life

A. Jesus commissions his disciples, passing the baton as Moses did to Joshua and Elijah to Elisha (John 20:21)

B. Christ breathes on the disciples and says "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22)

1. The Greek word for breath here appears only twice in the Old Testament: Genesis 2:7 (God breathing life into Adam) and Ezekiel 37:9 (breath coming into the dry bones)
2. Christ as Son of Man and Lord God breathes the Spirit, creating a new humanity and restoring the house of Israel

C. The authority to bind and loose — forgive or retain sins — is given to the apostles (John 20:23)

1. Parallels the binding and loosing language of Matthew 18
2. Marks the transition from old covenant to new: acceptance in the house of the Lord now determined by apostolic, not Sanhedrin, authority

D. As God's breath produces Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16), Christ's breath produces his church — the mark of his Spirit

1. Believers are made Salt and Light not by their own merit but by the indwelling Spirit
2. True faith always involves the Holy Spirit; to believe in the resurrected Christ is to receive the Spirit and become citizens of the kingdom of God

III. Believe That the Resurrected Christ Is God in the Flesh

A. Thomas's doubt and Christ's response (John 20:26–28)

1. Eight days later (the next Sunday) Jesus again appears through locked doors — demonstrating his resurrection glory
2. Christ, fully omniscient, is aware of every word Thomas had spoken in his absence
3. He invites Thomas to touch his wounds: "Do not disbelieve, but believe"

B. Thomas's confession — "My Lord and my God" — is the climactic declaration the entire gospel builds toward (John 20:28)

1. Kyrios (Lord) echoes the divine name Yahweh in the Greek Old Testament; Theos (God) is the only time a disciple directly ascribes full divinity to Jesus in the Gospel of John
2. The gospel is bookended: "the Word was God" (John 1:1) now answered by "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28)

C. The historical defense of Christ's deity — Athanasius and the Arian controversy

1. From the Council of Nicaea (325) to the Council of Constantinople (381), the doctrine of the Trinity was under serious threat for 56 years
2. Athanasius was exiled five times by four emperors yet continued to defend the full divinity of Christ
3. The Athanasian Creed's warning — "anyone who desires to be saved should think thus about the Trinity" — is simply the plain teaching of the Gospel of John

D. The purpose statement of the gospel: these things are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:30–31)

1. Faith, contra the AI definition, is not belief without proof — it is specific, evidence-grounded trust in Jesus Christ
2. Throughout the gospel John uses courtroom language: witness, testimony, eyewitness account (John 1:15, John 1:19, John 5, John 19:35)
3. The resurrection is the star witness — it makes clear that faith in Christ is faith in the God-man who conquered death, brings peace, pours out the Spirit, and gives eternal life