Moments: From Awe To Intimacy

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the message podcast of High Ridge Church, Longview, where our vision is to help you know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and ultimately make a difference. We are so glad that you're here, and we pray that this message impacts your life as you apply the spiritual truths from God's word in practical ways. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Let's listen in. Welcome to church. I'm so glad that you are here. Are you happy to be here this morning? I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. You ought to be a little bit excited. Come on. Thank you. There's a lot of reasons to be excited. First of all, we are in the presence of Jesus Christ this morning. We get to read his Word in a fantastic country. That's a good enough reason that somebody ought to get a little bit excited. If that doesn't help you, let me just tell you, it is. What? What is it, like, six, seven degrees this morning? It was fantastic weather. Come on, somebody. This is fat boy weather, baby. I've been waiting for this all year long. This is my time to shine. Come on. Football is back. My Baylor Bears won yesterday, so we're gonna preach a good message today. If they had lost, we would be fire and brimstone. Let me just tell you. No, no, no. I'm so glad that you're here. Grab your bibles. John chapter 20 is. We're going to spend all of our time today as we get into a brand new series called Moments. Say that with me, if you wouldn't mind. Moments. God has fantastic moments for you. Over the next eight weeks, we're going to take you deeper into God's presence than you have ever been. We're going to hopefully take you on a journey where you will move from just participating, just from. From just observing into a deeper and more intimate relationship with the Lord than you have ever had. Let me just start off the series with this question. Let me. Let me just ask you to be honest with yourself for just a moment. Ask yourself this question. Am I closer to God than I've ever been? Am I closer to God right now in this moment than I've ever been in my heart? My hope for you is by the end of this series, you would say, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, I am closer to God that. Than I've ever been in my life. I have a deeper, more intimate relationship with the Lord than I have ever had in my life. Over the next eight weeks, God's gonna begin to reveal himself in some powerful, divine, defining moments. Now I'll adventure guests. If you look back at your life, you have some defining moments. You don't remember every single day of your life unless you're some sort of savant that can recall every moment of every day of your life. Most of us would say there are periods of my life and some moments I choose to forget. And I'm thankful that when I grew up in the 70s, 80s, early 90s, there were no cell phones or video cameras around. I'm thankful that there is no proof for some of those moments. But you have your defining moments of your life. I have my defining moments. Life happens in moments. If you look back on the points of your life, you can say, I have great memories or bad memories from this time. There were these moments that really define who I am. In the same way, your walk with Christ will have divine defining moments. Moments where you could say, I walked into the room this way, I left a different way. Now, you might not know it at that time, but you would look back five, six, seven months or years later and say, that was an incredible defining moment for me. Go back in your mind for one moment, say, what are those divine moments that I've had with the Lord? What are the times where I knew God was saying something? He was calling me, he was correcting me, he was pushing me, he was loving me, he was showing me his grace. What are those divine moments? And over the next eight weeks, those moments are gonna increase. It's time for you to have a moment with the Lord. Your life really is defined by moments. As I was thinking back and processing through some defining moments of my life, I happened to be looking at some pictures a while back and I looked at this one picture and I asked my mother a while back, who is it? It looks like a tiny little, like a Mexican Michelin man. What is this? He said, that is you. I want to show you this picture. This is me taking my very first steps. How about that? Look at that. And the moment that I see this picture, it takes me back. I can almost remember that moment of my mother holding out her hands to me as little, you know, 11 month old, young Pastor Tim is taking his very first steps on the front porch of my grandmother's house. I can almost go back and smell what it smelled like to have that massive dirty diaper on in that moment. You know, I'm thinking as I'm looking at that, at that moment of my very first steps, you know, I would walk for the rest of my life and I'm grateful to be able to walk. I don't think I've crawled until college. I didn't crawl again until. That's a different defining moment of my life. That's one of those. I'm thankful there are no cameras. But there are moments in your life where you look back and say, I was one way, I became something else. It was a different season of my life, marked by a moment. Now, maybe that moment for you was a wedding day. Maybe that moment for you was the moment you got your first car or the moment you had your first kiss. The moment somebody asked you to marry them. Or maybe the moment where you experienced loss or grief. Maybe it was the first time you experienced death. Maybe it was the first time you experienced anxiety. And there's those defining moments where you're like, something changed in my life in that moment. Life happens in moments. These defining moments that we may not even realize the power of those moments at the time because. But they go on to define us. Here's the good news. Those moments that we're not proud of. Jesus redeems those moments. And those moments where God meets us right where we are. He uses those moments to push us into the next season of our life, to help us understand him better. Here's what we know for a fact, is that God always invites us into a deeper relationship with Him. And God is still inviting you into a deeper relationship with Him. Now, unfortunately for many of us, life gets in the way. Life gets busy. We don't hear Him. Our emotions speak really loud. Our offenses speak really loud. Our anxieties, our worries, our doubts speak really loud. And we will miss that moment. The moment where God was connecting you to a body of people, and you miss it. The moment where God was stirring on your heart to move from consumer to contributor, and you miss it. We have things that stand in the way of divine moments. Our own choices, our own strongholds. Over the next eight weeks, we're going to deal with divine moments. Look at your neighbor and say, don't miss your moment. Don't miss your moment. Pastor Slim Shady said, you only get one shot. Here's what we know is that I believe there are many, many more defining and divine moments in our life, in our future to come. I think there are a lot of moments that the Lord is speaking to his people every day, every single day. I believe that the Holy Spirit is knocking on the door of your heart saying, can I speak today? Can I use this day? Can we not waste this day? Can I lead you today? Can I talk to you today? Can we Correct this today. Can we go in this direction today? And I believe life gets better. Life gets busy. Life gets hard. Life is full of schedules and full of school, full of things. And often those things will drown out the voice of the Lord. Here's what we know about the Holy Spirit. He's a gentleman. He's not going to force you. But the Lord is asking each of us to step from observer to participant, to move from awe to intimacy. And this week we're going to talk about what that looks like. We when Jesus is standing at the door of our hearts and knocking. This is found, by the way, in Revelation, chapter three. Jesus says, here I am. Here I am. Where are you, Lord? He says, I'm right here. Where's that? He says, I'm standing at the door of your heart. He said, I'm standing right at the door. He says, I'm knocking. And I want you to notice the next two words. If anyone. Somebody say that word with me. Anyone. Say it again. Anyone. It doesn't say if the good ones will listen and open up. I will get to know them better. No, it doesn't say if the really, really bad ones will open up. I'll ch. No. He says, if anyone. That means you, that means me. If anyone, he says, hears my voice. John, chapter 10. Jesus says, My sheep hear my voice. They hear me. I'm calling to him. He said, I'm standing at the door of your heart. I'm knocking. I'm knocking. I'm knocking. All I'm asking you to do is listen to me. Give me your attention. He's saying, hear my voice. And he says, if you open that door, he said, I'm going to come in. My hope is that over the next eight weeks, you will open the doors of your heart. And you could say beyond the shadow of a doubt, I am closer to God than I've ever been in my life. I know him more intimately than I've ever known Him. God is always inviting his people into deeper intimacy with Him. You have to believe that everything we do over the next eight weeks will be set up on the foundation of that simple statement. God is calling you deeper. God is calling you to know him better. He's calling you to walk closer to him than you've ever walked. And that's not dependent upon anybody else. That is 100% dependent upon you. Your intimacy with God moves at the speed of your obedience, your willingness to submit, your willingness to invite him in. You are as close to God as you allow yourself to be. Notice Jesus Says, I'm standing. I'm here. I want to meet with you. I want to talk to you. I want to speak into your life. I want you to have divine conversation with me. He said, if you're listening to me, if you hear my voice, open up your heart, open up the doors to your life. Let me into your schedule, he says, and I will come in. That is a divine messianic promise given to every single person that's willing to listen. He says, I will do it. I promise you I will come in. So I think most of us would say that I have had defining moments of my life as far as God. Divine moments. They're. They're kind of limited. They're in short supply. There. There's a few moments. Maybe I was at Grandpa's church and somebody gave an altar call and I. And I responded to that. Or maybe I was, you know, got invited to a Bible study and something kind of clicked in my mind and I took a little step of faith. Maybe you had an experience in an altar or at a camp or at some big revival service. Whatever it may be, you have divine moments in your life where God spoke to you in a profound way. And we have a tendency as we get a little older to kind of write those moments off as well. That was an emotional experience. Anybody ever done that, or is it just me? Surely that wasn't that big of a deal. But, but, but I know I felt something. I know God spoke to me. And I try to write it off to say, oh, surely God wasn't speaking to me. Surely, surely I was just emotional. I was just maybe having a mental breakdown. Maybe I was just having a rough day. But God says, I'm right here. I'm right here. Don't write these off. Listen to me. Let me have a relationship with you. So how do I recognize a divine moment? I want to take us there with point number one, recognizing divine moments. I'm so hopeful over the next eight weeks, you'll start recognizing that God is speaking way more than you give him credit for. That the Holy Spirit is speaking into your life way more often than perhaps you give him credit for. He is speaking. He wants to speak to you in a way that you can understand. It's a matter of us positioning ourselves and learning how to recognize those divine moments. How do we do that as believers? How do we recognize that more in our relationship with the Lord? Here's what I want you to see, is that sometimes those moments happen in just the mundane activity of a normal day. You just Doing your job, you just waking up in the morning, if you're open to God speaking, any normal day can become a supernatural day. Think about this Moses on the backside of nowhere, watching over his father in law's sheep. And he sees a bush caught on fire. It's not that abnormal for a bush to catch fire in a place that reaches 120something degrees. Things catch fire. And as a good shepherd, he walks over to this bush to make sure that the fire isn't going to spread, be a danger to the sheep. And then he notices something unusual out of an ordinary day of him just doing his job. That bush isn't being consumed, it's not being burnt up. There's something unusual happening here. When God begins to speak to your mind about something that you're noticing, that's unusual, Ask him, lord, is this you speaking to me? Do you want to show me something here? It happens in the course of everyday life. Think about Samuel. We find that God speaks to him in the repetitive over and over, Little Samuel from 5 years old hears the voice of the Lord calling his name. He doesn't know that. He thinks it's the high priest Eli. And so he gets up from just sleeping and says, are you calling me? Eli finally realizes that it's not me calling this kid, it's God speaking to him. He's having a divine moment, he just doesn't know it. So he teaches him how to respond by saying, Samuel, next time you hear that voice calling your name, say lord, speak. I'm listening. Those words are still the perfect response for us as believers today. Lord, I'm listening. Speak to me. And by the way, when God began to speak to five year old Samuel, he did not speak to him things that a five year old would normally want to hear. He spoke to him things that would define the rest of his life. All Samuel was doing was sleeping and God began to speak and he began to respond in a powerful, divine defining moment. God still speaks. He's still moving in the lives of those that are willing to listen. And what it helps us to see that just if you're, if you're on the job, God can speak. If you're taking a nap, God can speak. We see multiple examples of different things that God spoke into in the mundane, ordinary parts of days. What does it help us to know today? I want to make sure that you see this, is that God doesn't need perfect circumstances to speak. He just needs your attention. He just wants your attention. He's saying, I'm standing at the Door and knocking. Here I am. All I'm asking you to do is to give me a moment, and I'll give you divine revelation. So maybe it's marked by something unusual. Maybe multiple confirmations of the same thing. Maybe you're seeing something over and over and over. You ever had that moment where you're talking about something with somebody? The next thing you know, your phone starts showing you a bunch of advertisement commercials for it. You've been there. You're like, okay, is this a divine moment? No, no, no. That's called technology. And your phone's absolutely listen to you. And 24 7. I know that we had a conversation about Ozempic. Next thing you know, I've got every single commercial from everything telling me you're fat and need to lose weight. Like, I've worked all year long on this, on this body. I don't need the shot to tell me I'm beautiful. No, no, no. When you start noticing things over and over and over again, it's more. It's not just your phone listening to you. Could it be that the Lord's showing you something? God spoke to Samuel over and over again until he was willing to listen. Perhaps he's still speaking to you today. It could look just like an answer to something that you've been praying about. You know what's crazy? As I found so many people that would. That would come to me at some point, say, pastor, I'm struggling in this area. Or would you pray about X, fill in the blank, whatever it may be. And then a week later I say, hey, you know, last week we prayed about this and has there been anything happening? What's the Lord been doing? Like, oh, yeah, that completely got taken care of. It was awesome. Like, very cool. Did you tell the Lord, thank you? Like, no, no, no. Everything just worked out. It was fine. I didn't need the prayers. Like, you missed your moment. That's a divine moment. The Lord answered your prayer. How do you. Oh, things just work out for me. That's the way it works. Like what? They don't ask me to pray. Remember back in the old days, those of you that have been raised in church, we would have the prayer request night, and people would say, unspoken. Unspoken request. Remember that? Unspoken means unprayed for. That's what it means in my book. If you ain't gonna say it, I ain't praying for it. Come on, somebody. But when God begins to answer prayers, you've had a divine moment where God heard you and responded and answered. And our response to that moment should be, thank you. Let me have another divine moment where I'll begin to thank God for how good he's been in my life. Here's what we know over and over. Old Testament, New Testament, God showed up in powerful, divine defining moments in the lives of tons of people. And there are some markers that we can prove that was a divine moment. Not just that it's recorded in God's Word, but we can prove it in our own lives. Here's what we know. I'll put this on the screen. Divine moments are marked by a profound sense of God's presence or his guidance or revelation. I would even add to that his correction. He corrects me. He leads me, he guides me. He tells me, this is another season. This is what's coming next. This is what you need to do. You need to go back and say you're sorry. He convicts me of things that I'm wrong of. Those divine moments are marked by profound sense of. This is not just me talking to myself, but the Lord leading me. And here's what we know about those divine moments, and this is important, that they will always keep with the nature and the character of God. You'll never find divine moments from the Lord that you can say, they're calling me into sin. And I've seen people do this. They'll say, I just felt like the Lord leading me to tell this lady that her husband is now gonna be my husband. Whoo. I don't think that's the Lord. Why? Because that's not keeping with his nature. That's keeping with your sin nature. That's not the voice of the Lord. That's the voice of your loins. Settle down. That's not a divine moment. That's a divine mistake. How many people will take their sin and say, oh, it's a divine moment. Lord, give me no sign. Let your will be done. But we have a tendency to try to create moments where I heard from the Lord, he was making me do this, and like, is it sin? Then that's not God. The more that we understand about God through His Word, the more that you read His Word, you begin to understand his character. You begin to understand his nature. You begin to understand his voice. And so that helps us to distinguish between lucky or coincidence and to. That's a divine moment. Let me pay attention to this, because I see this happening in God's word. I've seen it before. And it keeps with his nature. It keeps with his character. Divine moments will never call us into sin or be Outside of God's word. That's important for us to know. Everything that you hear and see or think or are amazed by is not necessarily God, but God is speaking way more than we give him credit for. And simple time spent with him, a longing to be closer to him, more intimate in our relationship with him, results in a more. In a more clear relationship with God. And, by the way, without the power of the Holy Spirit. And so many denominations have taken the Holy Spirit out of the whole thing. They've treated the Holy Spirit as like the bronze medalist of the Trinity. You know, I get it, but I understand why they would do that, because people will blame things on the Holy Spirit and make it weird real quick. The Holy Spirit's not weird. The Holy Spirit is critical in the lives of believers. To help us distinguish between what the Lord is saying and what my flesh is saying. The Holy Spirit, Jesus calls him our advocate. He calls him our teacher. As a matter of fact, In John chapter 14, Jesus says this about the Holy Spirit. He says, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will. What is he going to do? He said, he's going to teach you all things and remind you of everything I've told you. So it shows us very clearly that the Holy Spirit helps me to remember and helps me to learn. I start recognizing things when God's word begins to show up in my everyday life. Like, whoa, I remember that I was reading a scripture about that and here it is playing out in my life. Okay, Lord, this is a divine moment. What are you saying to me? What does this mean to me? And the Holy Spirit is critical in the life of believers that want to become closer to the Lord. He helps me remember, he helps me learn. And so over the next eight weeks, we're gonna spend a ton of time in just the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And look at these divine, defining moments in people's lives where they walked into Jesus presence one way and they left another way. And whether it's at a wedding underneath a fig tree, whether it's on the side of a mountain, or whether it's at the cross, here's what we know with Jesus. One moment can change everything. Everything. And my hope for you is that you would look at your life and say, lord, is there anything that you want to change about my life? Because what you want is more important than what I want. Meet me here in this moment and help me to become what you've called me to be. Is that, okay, everybody, defining divine moments, let's move on, if he would, into the scripture, John chapter 20. We're going to talk today about a man named Thomas. Now, you may have heard Thomas mentioned in the course of the nickname that people have given him over the centuries, and that's Doubting Thomas. You ever heard that? Doubting Thomas. People have always called him Doubting Thomas. He's known for his doubts. And that's a hard thing to kind of put up on somebody's life. That's a hard word to kind of define somebody by for the rest of their life. And I think that there's gonna probably come a day where all of us are sitting in heaven. We're gonna watch Thomas throw hands with some people that call him Doubting Thomas. Because that's not the whole story. But in this moment in John chapter 20, where we find John, where we find John's gospel, is he's writing about a time that was very difficult in Thomas life. Very much like a season that many of us may find ourselves in today, if we're gonna be honest. Thomas is in a season of dealing with his religious doubts, dealing with a faith crisis. You see, Thomas had all of his hopes pinned on Jesus Christ. And even though Jesus had told Thomas and his disciples multiple times, I'm gonna have to be crucified, you're gonna watch me die. But Thomas, take heart. It's not the end. I'm going to come back to life. When it actually happened, all of them were like, what? As was Thomas. Think about this in the context of what it means to watch your friend be tortured. Thomas saw them put nails in his hands. He watched them place a crown of thorns on his head and nails into his feet. He watched them beat him and spit on him and throw him up on a cross in front of the entire city to see as they began to make fun of him and mock him and spit on him. I don't know about you, but any friend of mine that I see that happen to him, that's a defining trauma moment for me. When you know that there's nothing you can do but watch a human being be tortured in that way. Don't just breeze past and call him Doubting Thomas. Put yourself in his shoes of what he had to experience watching his friend, watching this man that did nothing but love people, heal people, meet people's needs, never did anything wrong. And then for them to treat him like the worst of criminals. Notice this, that Jesus had multiple illegal trials. It's illegal. Like, how are they even doing this? It's not legal. What they're doing to him. And he watched Jesus beg for water because he's thirsty and for them to give him vinegar. He watches Jesus care for people like his mother and his friend John. He watches Jesus lead one more person to salvation with the thief on the cross. That's a traumatic day. I don't care who you are. That's a lot to process. This is not something that you just get over in five minutes on a therapist's couch. This is deep trauma, deep wounds. And here we are three days later, that all of a sudden, people start spreading a rumor that Jesus has come back to life. For somebody like Thomas, that's cruel, because he's just now prom. He's just now processing through what he's seen happen. I thought he was the Messiah. How could this happen? And even though Jesus told him it would happen, when he's actually walking through it happening, that's a different story. By the way, that gives me hope, because there are plenty of times in my life where God has spoken, saying, you're gonna be okay. I'm with you to the end. I will never leave you. I'll never forsake you. And then you walk through times where you feel incredibly alone and you doubt his word. You ever been in those seasons where you're like, I don't know. I don't really know if I can trust the Bible right now. I'm walking through a difficult time. I get it. And Thomas would get it. Cause even though Jesus said it, we all walk through times where it's hard to believe it because life has gotten difficult. So the rumor has spread that Jesus has risen. Several disciples see him. As a matter of fact. Now there's like, 500 people that have seen Jesus, like, in the flesh. That person that was crucified, the person that we put into the grave, he's not dead. And so he shows up in the room with some of the disciples, and he says, peace be with you. That would freak people out. But Scripture says Thomas wasn't there when that happened. And so now that they're telling him the story, he's like, play with me. That's not funny. This is a traumatic moment in my life. And what you're saying to me. I know you guys are acting like you're excited, but I'm not there. Here's what I think we miss sometimes when we're reading this story. Even though Thomas was full of doubts and full of trauma, full of anxiety, full of pain, hear me. He still showed up. He still came. And for many of us, that's our story. I may be struggling in my faith. I may be struggling in my marriage, struggling in my health, struggling in finances. It may not be an easy season for me, but I'm here. But I came in spite of my worries and doubts. At least I'm here. I showed up. And here's the good news. God met him there. He met him there. A divine moment in the life of Thomas. Look at this. In John, chapter 20, it says now, Thomas, also known as Didymus, one of the 12, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So. So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord. And I love the honesty in Thomas's response. I love the authenticity. He doesn't put a mask on. He says, I am not there. Look at this. He said to them, unless I see those nail marks in his hands, until I put my finger where those nails were, until I put my hand to the side where that spear went, I will not believe he's describing the trauma of that moment, of what he's seen. I watched him put the nails in those hands. I had to see that. He said, I watched at the end when they came to break the legs of all the men that were hanging on these crosses. Then they get to Jesus and see that he's already dead. So they took a spear and they jammed it into his side, all the way up into his heart cavity. Thomas says, I saw that happen. They said, blood and water flow. And there's so many prophetic things I wish we could get into that are happening in this moment. Because in the. In the midst of all that horror and trauma, Jesus is still preaching. His blood is still flowing. There's still power in those wounds. Even though Thomas couldn't see it. He said, I saw it with my own eyes, and it traumatized me. So I'm telling you, it's not funny what you're saying. And until I put my hand in that wound, until I put my hand inside of his chest cavity where I saw that spear go, I'm not believing that. He says, unless I put my hand into his side, I'm not going to believe. But a week later. A lot can change in a week. Isn't that right? Come on. A lot can change. A week later, the disciples were in the house again. Look at this. And Thomas was with them. He's hurt, he's got his doubts, he's got his issues, but he's still here. I love that Thomas was with him. Look what happens. And though the doors were locked, Jesus shows up. Don't Lose the power of that moment right there. Think about this. They're looking around like Jesus just came in here a few minutes ago, and those doors are locked. Like, did you lock them? Those doors have been locked the whole time Jesus walked through walls. So obviously, Jesus has not lost any power. You know what's insane to me? What's a beautiful thing that I didn't really notice until I read this scripture? Even though Jesus is showing up in the midst of a room that the doors were locked, he still has his wounds because his wounds served a purpose. They were for Thomas, and those wounds were still there for people like me. His wounds tell a story. Your wounds tell a story. Your wounds on the inside tell a story of a defining moment in your life. They may tell a story of your doubts and your anxieties, your worries, your trauma. Here's the good news. Jesus understands because he was wounded as well. And he speaks to Thomas in this divine moment. Look what happens. He says, peace be with you. And then he turns to Thomas and I love this. Jesus looks at him and says, put your finger here. See my hands? What does this mean? He's saying, I heard you last week when you're saying you couldn't believe. I heard you when you were spewing all of that trauma. I heard it. That's good news for people like me. It's good news for people like you that Jesus still hears. I heard you when you say you wouldn't believe unless you had these things. Well, guess what? Peace be with you. Come here. Look at these. Look at these wounds in my hands. Come put your finger through my hand. It's still there. I could have healed myself, but I'm wearing these wounds to help you. Put your finger here. See my hands? Then he says this. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. There's no other place in scripture, no one else that Jesus ever said this to anyone except for Thomas. Take your hand and put it inside where they shoved that spear all the way up into my heart. Put your hand in here. I saw you in your trauma. I saw that you saw me. And now is a defining divine moment. We start dealing with your wounds. He looks at Thomas and he says some powerful words. Stop doubting and believe. Those same words are still spoken to people like me and you today. Stop doubting. It's time to believe. It's time to step into your purpose. It's time to start walking in the path that God has for you. Stop doubting. Start believing. I love that in that moment, Thomas didn't have an argument with God, he simply responded and said, my Lord and my God, this messianic declaration, you are more than just a teacher. Notice this, that when Jesus comes back and reveals himself to others, they say, my teacher Rabboni, the teacher's here. That's not Thomas. He said, you're the Messiah. You see me and I see you. You're my Lord, you're my God. And then Jesus looks at Thomas and says, look, because you've seen me, you've believed. He says, I recognize you. Believe you're with me. And then he, Jesus, prophetically declares a blessing over you. He said, blessed are those who don't get to see, but they still believe. Now, unless you've seen Jesus Christ in the flesh, and I don't think any of you have, you might want to shake your meds on that. You have never seen Jesus Christ in the flesh. But there's a blessing for us that choose to believe. Even if we never got to put our hands into his side, even if we didn't have this conversation. Where Jesus walked through walls to get to you, he still meets us where we are. He said, there's a blessing for those of you that can listen to this story and say, I believe in you. I choose to not doubt anymore. I choose to find healing. Here's the second key. I want to see if you're a note taker. Write this down. Number two. Jesus uses divine moments that meet us where we are, right where we are. And he speaks to Thomas right where he is in his doubts and his confusion, in his messed up day, in his pain. God meets him right where he is now. The good news is Jesus doesn't only meet people in their doubts and pain. He meets some people on their good days, on their bad days, on their weird days, on their normal days. He meets people when they're sleeping or when they're taking a nap. He meets people that are having a dinner at a wedding. Think about people like Peter taking a nap. And God gives them a vision and he tells them, don't just, just call everything unclean. I'm calling it clean. And he changes his mindset in a divine moment, in the everyday, in the mundane. Paul was just on his way to work now. His job was persecuting Christians. But he's on his way to work and God knocks him off his horse and says, I want to speak to you. I'm going to change your life today. Think about the Ethiopian eunuch a few chapters later that's just on his way, traveling, reading God's word as he travels. And God says, I'm going to reveal something to you in a way that you can understand. What does that mean to me? Today? I want to make sure that you see this. Here's what we know. That God isn't waiting to speak to some future, cleaned up, perfect version of you. Never let it enter your mind that God is waiting for me to get all the circumstances right, to get all the sin out of my life before he can ever use me or speak to me. That is not true. Because if that's what we were waiting on, no one would ever qualify. God speaks to people, meets them right where they are, and he's meeting Thomas right where he is. As a matter of fact, as we even look at the name Thomas, by the way, that name means twin. Not only in the Hebrew, but also in the Greek. It says Thomas called Didymus. Didymus in the Greek also means twin. It's kind of where we get our English word ditto. You ever remember saying that somebody would say something? Ditto means. I recognize that. I'm saying the same thing. I'm repeating what you're saying. Ditto. It comes from the word didymus meaning twin. There's two. Now, we don't know of Thomas ever actually being a. A fraternal twin or identical twin, but we know this is probably more of a nickname. They're saying he's a twin. And many scholars would say the reason why they call him twin is because he has great seasons of faith and great seasons where he's just not okay. He looks the same on the outside, but on the inside, he's got some ups and some downs. You might call that bipolar. You might call that good times, bad times. You might call it whatever you want to label it as, but he's known as the twin. He has times of great faith, times of great doubt. And here's what we see, is that Jesus isn't afraid of my honest doubts. And I'm so proud to be pastoring a church where you can come here and say, this is a place where I'm welcome with my doubts. You don't have to believe to belong. But you're gonna cause Jesus is too good. He's too good to leave you where you are. He's gonna deal with your doubts and your doubts and your hurts and your anxieties and your worries, your stresses, your pain, your offenses, the things that might have been done to you by another church or another pastor. I grit it. We all come into this place with our own doubts and insecurities. We all come in with our own baggage. But Jesus meets us where we are. And he is not afraid of your honest doubts. He's saying, I'm here to deal with them. Here's the thing. God loves you too much to leave you where you are. He's saying, can I have a divine moment where we deal with this once and for all? Where you're not defined by your scars, but I begin to redeem them, I begin to repurpose them and use them for my glory, not just as an excuse for you to not connect. All of us have reasons to never connect to the body of Christ. I've got them. You've got them. I love that Thomas still showed up and Jesus wasn't afraid of his honest doubts. Jesus didn't get mad at him for doubting. Jesus called him into a more intimate relationship than anyone had ever experienced on the planet. Think about this. Peter got to walk on water. Nobody else experienced that except for him. And Jesus, what a powerful moment. But Thomas says, I put my hand into his chest cavity. You don't get closer to Jesus than that. But it's not just some weird story. It shows us a pattern that Jesus deals with wounds by inviting people into his wounds. And this is the point that I'm trying to make. You've got your issues. You've got some divine defining moments that you would say, those are my wounds. Those are my scars. And Jesus says, I get it. I see you. I'm meeting you right where you are. How are we going to deal with this Jesus? He says, let me invite you into my wounds. I love what Hebrews says in chapter four, says, we don't have some high priest that can't empathize with our weaknesses. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our struggles. He knows my pain. I don't serve some God that doesn't understand what I've walked through. He's been there. He saw it. He recognizes I'm damaged goods. I've got my issues. And he deals with them by inviting me into a deeper relationship with him, inviting me into intimacy, saying, I understand because I was beaten to, I was betrayed to, I was lied to, I was lied about, I was tortured. I was hung on a cross for everyone to see. I understand. I want to invite you into my wounds so that you can find your healing and not be stuck in a moment that you can't get out of. Here's what we know in Philippians chapter 3. The apostle Paul says, oh, that I might know him. I want to know Jesus, he says, and the fellowship of his suffering. Why? Because the more that I understand about what he went through, the more healing I find for myself. We see this play out, by the way, in Isaiah, chapter 53. That tells us, he was what pierced for our transgressions. They put a sword in his side. Why? That was for me. That was for Thomas. There's a reason that it happened. Jesus is still preaching in the midst of being tortured, he says, and by his wounds we are healed. So when Jesus invites Thomas to put his hand into his side, he's saying, there's healing for you, Thomas. Stop doubting and believe. I'm here. I see you. There are powerful divine moments that bring healing. If you let Jesus take you deeper into intimacy with him, if you're willing to pull your mask off and be honest about where you are, instead of saying, I can never change, this is just the way I am. Now Jesus is saying, can I have that? They treated me the same. Why don't you let me heal you and repurpose that Jesus Divine moments, meet us where we are. Here's the third and final thing I'll share with you. Number three. Every divine moment is followed with a call to action. Jesus's divine moments never left people where they were. He always gave them a call to action. Now not everybody responded. Many people in the Bible and to this day will have a divine moment where Jesus challenges you or corrects you. And you'll say, you know what? No, thanks. I like me. I like where I am. I like the moment that I'm in. I get comfortable right here. Think about the rich young ruler. Jesus gives him a clear call to action. He turns around and walks the other way. I wonder, what would you do when Jesus meets you in moments, he's going to start meeting you in moments. You got to believe that. Get your faith up, get your hopes up. God is going to start meeting me. When he gives me the next step, what is my response? I've always challenged you as the pastor of this church to give God your preemptive yes. And welcome to the wild adventure. He wants your yes. Here's the thing about Thomas. When we look at Thomas life and you call him a coward. Thomas wasn't just some doubting coward. Remember this when we look at his word in John 11. Jesus is about to go heal Lazarus. And the disciple says, you cannot go back to that city where that funeral was. You can't. They just tried to kill us there. You know who speaks up? Thomas speaks up and says, John chapter 11, verse 16. Let us go that we may also die with him. Love that baller. Don't just call Thomas a coward. He's not some coward. Now. He does have his twin moments, full of faith, full of doubt. You see that Thomas wasn't just some doubter. He's also a loyalist realist. Let's be real. We're going to go there and die. You know what? Let's die. And God takes Thomas in his good days and his bad days, in the wins and the losses, has a divine moment with him where he heals him of that trauma and calls him to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of the Gospels, it records that Jesus is standing there with the disciples. And right before he ascends into heaven, he looks at each of them and says, now, giving you a divine call to action. That call to action was not just for them. It's for me and you today. He says, now go. Go into all the world. Preach the gospel. You have a mission. Go do it. And you know who took that seriously? Every single one of them. All of them went forward knowing that this is going to cost them their lives. And Thomas moment was unique because he understood Jesus in a more intimate way than the rest of them. Thomas took that call to action seriously because of what Jesus wounds had done for him. On that night in that room, remember this? Jesus wounds weren't erased at his resurrection, they were redeemed. Jesus chose to appear with all those wounds so he could redeem those wounds for people like Thomas, people like me, people like you, and say, I understand. Now put your hand inside these wounds, stop doubting and believe. I'm here. I did it. And now I'm giving you a call to believe with the rest of your life. Every divine moment is followed with a call to action. So church history tells us that Thomas took that seriously and he began to spread the gospel. He went all the way to India. He went farther than almost anybody else, to a place that had never heard the gospel and founded the very first church there was actually martyred for his faith. It's so interesting that Jesus healed him. He said, put your hand into my side. That spear wound. You know how Thomas died? They speared him to death. The very thing that signaled the end of Jesus life was the beginning of Thomas ministry. And the thing that caused him so much doubt became the symbol of his devotion until the day of his death. And when Paul says stuff like, oh, that I might know him in the fellowship of his sufferings, Thomas can sit right Next to him. I know him in the fellowship of his sufferings. You know that spear wound? That's what they got me with, too. I know Jesus a little bit differently than everybody else. The same wounds that took him out healed me, and I gave my life. I'm not afraid of it anymore. This is the beautiful thing that Jesus takes inside of his own wounds and what he does inside of your wounds. He takes those moments of pain and doubt and anxiety and worry and. And fear, and he redeems them. Says, I want you to use those wounds that you had to help people know me. Use your story of what I've done for you to help people recognize that I can do the same for them. Here's what I know in my own story, in your story, that because of Jesus, what used to be my pain has now become my purpose. What used to be pain is now my purpose. And for those of us that have walked through those dark seasons of our life, when Jesus begins to redeem those, you know what you have a heart for? For people that are walking through the same dark season of their life. Because you say, I've been there. I understand, and there's hope for you. There's light at the end of the tunnel. It's not just some train coming back at you. I'm telling you there's light at the end of the tunnel because I've been in that tunnel, and I know what it looks like on the other side. Have some faith. Let me tell you, Jesus still heals. It's part of my ministry. I recognize that what God can do with an addict like me is use my story to help people break free. It's why people that are alcoholics find a call to that sort, that. That type of ministry to help people get off, get away from alcohol. Why? Because God set me free, and I know it. He healed my heart. I can help people do this. Let me ask you what's. What's yours? God takes those wounds, and with one divine moment, he gives you a call to action, to help other people walking through something similar to what you walk through. This is how he redeems our pain. Every divine moment with God, every divine moment is an invitation to move from seeing to believing, from doubting to declaring, and from wounded to a witness. That's my heart for you over the next eight weeks that you'd recognize that God's gonna start speaking to you. And if you can be honest about your doubts, about your worries, about your dark times, whatever you might be walking through, if you be honest about how you feel. Jesus is not gonna condemn me for those honest feelings. He's gonna say, I hear you, I see you. Now get to know me better. And let's take that and use it to bring people into relationship with me so that they can find the same healing that I gave you. Isn't that good, everybody? Is that all right? Go ahead and put away your Bibles, if you would. As we finish up right there, I want you to know that this is gonna be an eight week series. I've been so excited to bring this series to you. It's gonna be fantastic. And if you're watching online, don't miss. There's so many great things happening. Also, there's some fantastic groups that are launching tonight. If you didn't get into a group, I want you to know that most of our groups completely filled up the moment that we asked for you to sign up. There are just a couple of spots left. But let me just say this to you right now. If you want to get into a group, if you wait until the last second, shame on you. But we will find a spot for you. We want you to be in a group. You need to do this. We've got some books available for you. During the week, you're going to be walking through a Bible study that we've prepared just for you to take you deeper with your relationship with the Lord than you've ever been. You need to be honest, you need to process through some stuff and allow the Lord to begin to speak to you. It's going to be fantastic. I cannot wait for you to walk closer to the Lord than you've ever walked with Him. Get your hopes up, get your faith up. God's speaking, you're going to listen. He's calling you from where you are into something better. He's calling you from awe to intimacy. Would you bow your head and close your eyes? As I'm speaking about wounds and doubts, as I'm speaking about seasons where you have very little faith, as I'm speaking about dark moments of your life, how many of us would say, with a simple lifting of our hands with nobody else looking around, how many of us would say, pastor, in all honesty, you're talking to me. That's where I am. Could you just lift up your hand all across this place? That's what I thought. So you could put your hands down. If you're watching online and that's you, would you type something in the chat, say, that's me? Because we're going to pray for you right now. And in this moment, with the combined faith in this room, I believe what happens next is you're going to sense the power of the Holy Spirit. Invite him in. Invite him into the dark days. He's not scared. Ask him to heal you and watch what he can do. With heads bowed and eyes closed all across this place, let's begin to pray for the dozens and dozens of those that are in this room today that raised their hands. The others that are watching online. Come on, let's pray together right now, out loud. Come on. Father, we ask for your help. We ask that you would come meet us at the point of our needs right now in this place. Lord, we need your help. Lord, many of us are walking through difficult, problematic, hard seasons. But, Lord, you are God of the mountains, and you're God of the valleys. God of the good days, God of the bad. You see our wounds, you see. You see our anxieties. You see our darkness. You see the moments of doubt. You see the pain. You see the sin. And you love us just as we are. And you also love us too much to leave us there. So, Holy Spirit, we invite you in right now to begin to speak, to begin to correct, to begin to show us what to do and how to do it, to show us how to persevere or how to walk out. Show us, Lord. And we give you our preemptive yes. We say yes to you right now. Father, would you help my friends strengthen and encourage them? But I pray that today's service would be a breath of fresh air to them. They would walk out of this place with their head held high, feeling encouraged and strengthened and saying, lord, you got this. You've got this. I give this to you. Thank you for helping me. Now with heads bowed and eyes closed, perhaps you came here to this place today and you were saying, pastor, if I'm going to be honest with you, I don't have a relationship with the Lord. Pastor, I'm so far from God right now. I need to come home. Maybe, like me, you were even raised in church, but you've gotten so far away from God, my friend, you came here today, though you showed up, and I believe if you could see it, right now, God himself is reaching down his hand to you, saying, come home. Come home. For others, you've never had a relationship with Jesus. Today is your day. So with heads bowed and eyes closed all across this place, I want to invite you to take a step of faith. It starts with a prayer. I'm going to say the words, I'm going to help you to say this prayer, but I want to invite you right where you are to say this prayer with me, this defining divine moment where you confess your sin, where you repent and ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life. As a matter of fact, all of us in this room are going to pray it out loud together so you don't feel singled out in any way. I'm not here to make fun of you. I'm here to help you. Let's pray this together out loud. Come on. Every believer, just say, jesus, I believe you're the son of God. I believe that you came and died. I believe you rose from the grave so that I could have life, so that I could have forgiveness, so that I could have grace. Please forgive me of my sin. And I'd give my life to you right now with heads bowed and eyes closed if you prayed that prayer and you meant it. Let me just see your hand. All across this place. Nobody else is looking around. Let me see your hand. Good. Good for you. Good for you. Good for you. There's a couple more of you. I know that Lord's speaking to you. Come on. That's you. Yeah, there you are. Good for you. Perhaps you're watching online. You're like, that's me. Type it in the chat. We're gonna pray for you. If you responded, you're saying, that's me. I want you to notice that there is a number that's appearing on your screen, right? The screen behind me, the screen that you might be watching from. I want to invite you to text me. Text that number. Type in the chat. Type I prayed into the chat. Type it into the text as well. And I'll send you back the link to some things that will help you understand what just happened in your heart and what to do next. Take a step and let us help you. High rise family, go ahead and look up at me if you would. Then let's stand to our feet together. We already have 16 people responding to the gospel. I think that's a pretty big deal. Come on, somebody. God is still good. He's still helping people and I love it. We have our elders and their wives stepping forward. These guys are going to be available to pray for you about anything that you might need prayer for. They're going to stay right here as this service ends to pray for you. I also want to remind you this is Unite Week. If you waited for the last moment to buy some tickets, those are going very, very fast. Unite is happening at the Belcher center on Thursday night. I cannot wait for you to be there. We have Taryn Wells coming in live and in person to do incredible music. Cannot wait to see what's going to happen when Tarn Wells gets here. Let me just tell you if right now the tickets are 20 bucks or 10 bucks for a student, type the word student into the promo code and you get tickets for 10 bucks plus some fees. If you can't afford 10 bucks and you still like to go, maybe you're walking through a difficult financial season. Let me just tell you there are some other generous people here that have paid for some tickets for you. And so, Pastor James, where are you at today, Pastor James? Right here. Pastor James has some extra tickets for you. These are my tickets. You can have them if you can't afford it. They are for you. We would love for you to be there, but don't say I can't afford it to be there. We want you there. It's going to be amazing. I can't wait for that to happen for you then for everybody else. Let me pray for you and bless you. We're also going to pray for my Dallas Cowboys father. I pray that you bless my friends with an incredible week. Would you bless them, Lord, as they go? Would you help them to experience divine moments all week long? Speak to them clearly, encourage them, correct them, challenge them, push them, strengthen them. Oh God, I pray in Jesus name and all of us said together. Amen. God bless you as you go. Have an amazing week. [00:53:02] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening in today. Our prayer is that you are encouraged and strengthened by the message. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review wherever you're listening. [00:53:13] Speaker B: If you want to be a part. [00:53:14] Speaker A: Of our online community, connect with us through Facebook or Instagram with the handle hyridgelv or you can check out our [email protected] lastly, if this ministry has impacted your life and you'd like to support its work, visit highridgelv.com give we appreciate your support and we're believing with you today for God's best in your life. Have an incredible week and we will see you next time.