Strengthening Faith Through Trust, Prayer, and Giving

I say it again, why not believe again?

God, we thank you for this time. God, we thank you for this moment that we've entered—another moment where I get to be an oracle. I need you to speak through me. I need you to hinder all flesh, all ill intention, all negativity. Satan, we don't pray to you, but we know that you're listening, and we bind you. We take your hands off of the ears of the people.

Lord, let us leave here with a new revelation, a new heart, and a new posture for believing you again. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

I like to watch the Olympics sometimes, and I was intrigued by the story of a young lady by the name of Simone Biles. Now, Owens, y'all remember Simone? The same lady they were talking about at a wedding and in different spaces. She was this amazing gymnast—almost superhuman. She could do things with her body that most people could not do. She could flip and twist and turn, and her strength was incomparable.

In 2021, as she's walking out to compete again, she looks up and quits the competition. Yes, I said it. She walks in, looks at the competition, and quits, saying, "I can't do it." A world-class athlete, probably training the majority of her life for this one moment, after winning years prior, enters this new space—this one competition—after training for it, after probably doing this feat many times, and says that she cannot perform the task.

This makes me ask the question: If a world-class gymnast struggles with believing in her own ability, what can happen to us? I myself know what it's like to not believe. Can you believe? I was not a good student in school. As a matter of fact, I failed a lot. I had to go to summer school a couple of times. I spent most of my time at church and singing, and I was good at English. I was in the sixth grade reading at a ninth-grade level, but if you asked me about algebra or any form of math, I couldn't help you.

I spent most of my life in fear of education. As a matter of fact, most children in urban communities are afraid of certain levels of academia because they're not prepared appropriately for school. It wasn't until I was 16 that I discovered that I had a learning disability. As a matter of fact, I had complications with math and I had severe ADHD.

The crazy thing is, the therapist sitting across from me looked at me and was shocked, asking how I got through school without having any behavior problems. As a matter of fact, my dad was baffled. He said he couldn't possibly have ADHD because he "beat it out of me." I remember dealing with all of this, and she said he had to force himself to present well in school while having a ton of energy.

Can you imagine? ADHD is like electricity; it makes you want to do something. Can you imagine first grade all the way to tenth grade, somebody holding all of that energy? As a matter of fact, I still deal with anxiety because of it, and this allowed me to go to college believing that I was dumb.

As a matter of fact, in my senior year, 2014—almost 10 years ago—don't say nothing, we're gonna keep moving. In 2014, I had completed every course except math. I had somehow weaseled my way around to keep from taking a math course. The school had even come up with a plan to give me a special class that I could take to get my degree.

I remember walking to class feeling petrified. I did all of this work, and I might fail again—unbelief, not believing in myself or even in the word God had spoken over my life.

As a minister, I find it very difficult in the 2020s to minister to a generation of people who don't have an issue necessarily with giving, who don't have an issue with showing up at church necessarily, but they have an issue with belief.

What do you mean, Byron? What does that mean? Many of us don't mind bucking. If I cut the click track on right now, I could guarantee you seven people that would hop up and give Him the best praise from the deepest part of their soul. As a matter of fact, I have people that if you ask them for ten dollars, they'll give you their last ten dollars.

But what happens when you don't believe—not just in giving, not just in yourself, but believe in God? As a matter of fact, studies have shown, according to Pew Research, that there has been a 25% decrease annually in people that believe in the message of Jesus Christ. Can you imagine that? Over the last 10 years, we have seen a 40% decrease in church attendance because people have stopped believing.

You see them on social media; you see them like I do—people believing in everything under the sun. They believe in everything they could possibly put their hands on, every book they could possibly read, but struggle in believing in God.

I had a conversation with a well-known instrumentalist. He came and sat down with me over coffee and said, "Byron, I love playing at church, but I don't really believe in the God they sing about." As a matter of fact, he was so anointed that if he got to play y'all just saxophone, y'all would flip over this pew. He's extremely gifted, but he struggled with believing.

He said, "Byron, I have sat in many churches, and I hear them talk about a God I've never seen do anything." I took the moment and I apologized to him. I said, "I'm so sorry." I don't say this person's name, but I'm so sorry that you went through what you went through. I'm so sorry that you never witnessed the miraculous moves of God. I'm so sorry that people preached to you and didn't believe in the things they were really talking about.

I'm very, very sorry that we had church but never were church to you. Could it be possible that we have an issue in the church—not our church, the universal church—with unbelief?

Unbelief. The Urban Dictionary describes the term "doubting Thomas" as a derogatory term for spiritual people to describe someone who has been around spiritual things but doesn't believe in spiritual things or is questionable about them. But in the scientific community, it is a celebrated term to describe someone who is able to question the things that they believe.

This term derives from this passage in John 20, starting at the 24th verse about Thomas the twin. I often wondered, why do they call him the twin? Could it be that he had a double mind? As a matter of fact, the Bible says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Could they call him a twin because he and Jesus were both carpenters? Could they call him a twin because his first name is really Judas? What's amazing to me in this story is that these disciples have gathered in a space after the crucifixion of Jesus. We usually preach this message around Easter, but they've gathered in a space because the truth of the matter is they're afraid.

Have you ever been afraid? Have you ever been worried about the persecution that comes along with being a Christian? Don't play with me; don't look at me that dry because you and I both do it. As a matter of fact, when you have your gospel music playing at work and you're on your way, and then when you pull in the parking lot, what's the first thing you do? You cut that thing down because you don't want to be offensive to anybody.

Or maybe you don't want to wear that Jesus t-shirt or that church t-shirt to work because you don't want to offend nobody. And so they're scared. You know, I want to be filled with this. He's done all these miracles. He said he was going to rebuild the temple, and now he is gone away from the people he said he loved.

Some of us are dealing with grief—not just grief of a person that is living, but grief of an experience. We talk about church hurts. Sometimes leaving a church can cause grief. Sometimes leaving a friendship can cause grief. Sometimes being in a relationship that you thought was going to work can cause grief.

So we have to show doubt in Thomas just a little compassion and a little grace. They're sitting in a space trying to figure out what to do next. We've spent three years—can you imagine?—three years following somebody, three years watching him open blinded eyes, three years watching him heal leprosy, or today, heal COVID.

We've spent three years watching him give money, raise the dead, heal a woman with an issue of blood, challenge political leaders, and challenge the religious leaders. And now he's dead.

Now all of us who left our jobs, and all of us who left our careers and our families and everything that we know, we're sitting here trying to figure out what to do next. A doubting Thomas.

The funny thing is, Thomas is not like Judas, but he's a part of the same simulation. Remember the communion table? You remember the last meal on the night of which he was betrayed? He said, "One of you will betray me." That's what he said. Then he said, "Another one of you is going to deny me."

I don't know who that is; I ain't never seen him a day in my life. I don't know nothing about him. But we never talk about doubting Thomas. Poor Jesus, because not only does he have to deal with a betrayer, not only does he have to deal with somebody who doesn't even claim him—have you ever seen somebody that was in your DMs and then you see them in public and they can't speak?

Not only is he dealing with someone who's phony, he's dealing with somebody who doesn't believe in him. And only three of those same disciples were at his death.

But what do you do when the people you trusted, the people you garnered, the people you provided for—as Pastor would say, the folks who put their legs under your table—when they betray you, when they desert you, and then they don't even believe in you?

As a matter of fact, doubting Thomas, the only time we really hear of him is when he's getting ready to go raise Lazarus, and he says, "If we go, let's go with him." The same folks who said, "We ride or die" are now questioning your validity.

So in this text, we see these disciples in this space, and they're mourning, and they're in bereavement. You know, I was weeping with them; they were mighty low, and they were grieving. Our prayers go out to the Berean family.

But they're in this space, and Jesus appears to them, but doubting Thomas is not there.

So verse 24: "Now Thomas, called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, 'We have seen the Lord.'"

Can I tell you something? One of the reasons many of us deal with doubt is because we're not present.