Why So Serious About the Resurrection

[0:00] Colossians chapter 2. Now if you're using the Pew Bible, it's on page 984. And I want to encourage you to get a Bible. Get a Bible because we're going to have to turn to one page after this passage.

[0:14] So make sure you have a Bible in front of you or available to you. Colossians chapter 2. Begin our reading at verse 11. In him, that's Christ, also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.

[0:33] By putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

[0:49] And you, who were dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him. Having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with his legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

[1:14] He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him, in Christ.

[1:27] That, my family, is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. Oh, and once again, thank you, praise team, for leading us so beautifully.

[1:40] Wonderful songs of faith in our Lord Jesus. Thank you. I'm still waiting for my solo.

[1:53] No one's mentioned that lately. I don't know. What's... You're working on it? Okay. Crutch says you're... Wait. Oh, okay. All right.

[2:03] I'll be here if you need me. I'm... I'm here. No one takes me seriously. I don't understand. Okay.

[2:14] A little role play. A little role play. Wish I had another me up here. I could do it. Anybody want to volunteer? Ah, never mind. Imagine you are sitting in a coffee shop. I was in one yesterday.

[2:25] Livingstone is really neat. Right near here. A neat little coffee shop. And someone who knows you, you know, they know you go to church. So they figure you must be a Christian, right? And they walk up to you and says, Billy, if you Christians would stop insisting on the resurrection of Jesus, I could get with you.

[2:51] I like going to church. I love the music and it's so cool. But this resurrection thing. Because listen, Billy, everybody knows that when people die, they stay dead.

[3:05] And even I know, and I'm no expert in the Bible, but I know that Jesus, who we know lived, history proves that, but he was crucified and he was dead.

[3:18] They put him in a tomb, Billy. Dead men don't get up. Listen, listen, Billy, listen. I'm talking to Billy here. Y'all just listen. Billy. Buddha died. Muhammad died.

[3:32] All people die. They don't come back. Why can't you just let Jesus die and stay dead, brother?

[3:44] Yeah, see, I love the Jesus of love thy neighbor. That's my, I love that stuff. The Jesus who says, do unto others as they do on, as you want them to do unto you.

[3:56] See, that's the Jesus we need. We need more of that Jesus. But lose this resurrection foolishness, please. Why is it so important to you anyway?

[4:11] Why so serious? That is the question, isn't it? Why are we so serious about the resurrection of Jesus?

[4:28] What would you say? What would you say? Now, to set the stage, Paul is writing to a church that is in a place, the church was called, in a city called Colossae, is destroyed now, is in a place we call Turkey today.

[4:49] It seems that some false teachers, people claiming to be Christians, had come into the church, and what they had done was, they had the Bible, they had the gospel, but then he also had philosophy, and the religion of the area, and all kinds of thoughts.

[5:07] And what they were doing was, they were combining the gospel, the Bible, with this other stuff. And then they were serving that to the church.

[5:19] Some years ago, I remember, one of my members, she asked, she told a lady friend she knew, to call me. She did that a couple times, actually, that lady.

[5:32] And so the lady calls me. And I'm on the phone, and she tells me my husband is dying. He's very smart, and I want you to, would you mind talking to him about the Lord?

[5:43] She was a believer, and her husband was not. So I give him the phone, I call this dear man, and as I'm talking to him, he tells me he has this rare form of cancer, and the prognosis is bad.

[5:56] He's gone. He's leaving. He knows he's dying. Now I know he's dying. And I didn't have a lot of time, so I had to get to the heart of it. I had to move in there.

[6:07] So I started asking him, what did he believe about God? What did he believe about Jesus? What did he believe about death? Or even life after death? And what he began to tell me was that he had taken, I'll never forget it.

[6:20] He said, Pastor, listen, I believe all religions lead to God. And so, I like some Islam. I like some Buddhism.

[6:32] I like some Christianity stuff. And see, I see truth in all of it, and so, that's what I believe. And I said, I said, sir, excuse me, I got one question for you.

[6:46] See, you put all that together yourself. My question to you is this, how do you know it's true? I said, sir, you made that up yourself.

[6:56] How do you know it's true? Sir, you're going to die. And you're banking on what you made up to take you into eternity.

[7:11] We talked for a good while, and I prayed with him, and as far as I know, he never put his faith in Jesus, but he did die. You see, we do the same thing today as they did in Colossae.

[7:21] We try to mix things together. So Paul writes this letter to tell them some serious truth. And what he wanted them to know was that in Jesus, you have everything you need spiritually.

[7:36] In Jesus, there is nothing, nothing will ever be as good as Jesus. No philosophies, no other religion, nothing. He's telling them, all you need is Christ.

[7:48] Christ. That's where our passage, that's where this book is written, and our passage is kind of in the heart of it. Because central to what we have in Christ comes because of his resurrection from the dead.

[8:05] Without that, we have nothing. So three times in our passage, believers in Jesus are said to be raised with him or made alive with him.

[8:17] That's the resurrection language. So three times in this passage, the resurrection is central. What happens to him happens to us spiritually as we trust in him.

[8:32] So I got three points that rise up out of this text about why the resurrection is so serious. And then I have a concluding point. So I'm going to do this very quickly. First of all, Christ's resurrection is important for new life.

[8:48] Now, if you got my, if you took the Bible, if you got it in front of you, please hold on to it because I don't know if it'll be up there again. But that's verses 11 and 12. Essential for a new life.

[9:00] In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made with thy hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

[9:18] New life. He talks, he mentions a phrase in there, the body of flesh that has been put off in Christ. He isn't talking about the human body here. It's a metaphor.

[9:30] It's speaking of the dominant sinful urges that play out in and through our bodies. All of us are born with desires and a bent for disobeying God.

[9:45] All of us. Babies don't have to be taught to lie, right? We all say that. It's in their nature. It's in their nature to hide the wrong that they do to avoid punishment or guilt.

[10:01] They don't think, they don't think it through like that, but that's what they do when they lie. Did you take the cookie? No. With Crohn's all over their face and down the bed.

[10:13] This is what, this is a type of, this is moral impurity. It's in our hearts. It causes us to sin against God and our thoughts and our words and actions.

[10:25] At the heart of it, we're just selfish. It really is all about me. Children, we say, are egocentric. Well, guess what? That doesn't go away fully.

[10:39] Paul describes this kind of life. That's why I want you to have your Bible. He, the next, just turn over to the next page. Chapter three. He describes this kind of life. We're just dominated by these sinful desires.

[10:51] Now listen to what he says, beginning in verse five. Now he's telling us to get rid of it. Get rid of this life. He says, put to death. Wow. That, that's, that, get rid of it.

[11:02] Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. And then he lists the stuff. Sexual immorality. That, that means to sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage by people who are biologically male and female.

[11:18] I gotta break it down. Cause God, God invented sex to be more than it's a physical act. It's not just exercise. It's meant to be a spiritual connection that, that, that demonstrates a commitment to one another for life and is to be a picture of the love of Christ for his church.

[11:41] That's why it's so important, y'all. He says, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming.

[11:55] In these two, you once walked when you were living in them. Christians, you used to be like that, right? You're not like that anymore. That's the idea. But now, you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth.

[12:11] Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with our practices. Listen, that's the old life. That's what he's talking about in chapter two, that you, the works, the body of flesh.

[12:24] That's how all of us, Kevin Smith standing before you, are wired naturally. Something has to be done about that or our lives will never fully be what they could be, what we were created to be, or even change for God.

[12:48] Listen, when we surrender ourselves to Jesus because of his resurrection from the dead, we experience freedom from the domination of the body of flesh.

[13:00] We spend, now listen, I said freedom. I didn't say nothing was there anymore because we still mess up. But now we have a choice. Now we're enlightened.

[13:11] Now we understand. When we do it, we know we're wrong. And we repent before the Lord and ask him to help us not to do so again. But, so we have freedom in Christ.

[13:22] As one theologian put it, Douglas Moo, the circumcision of Christ, therefore, is a metaphor for the conquering of the power of sin that takes place when a person comes to Christ.

[13:35] Now, this is the circumcision of Christ. When Christ comes into our life, the Holy Spirit, by God's grace, not our effort, begins to work in us.

[13:46] He makes us alive spiritually so that now we can begin living new lives. And so sin, that is, that which turns away from God, is no longer our master.

[14:00] Now, something happens. A new life is. We want to obey Jesus. We, we want to follow him. We want, we, we, we want to be his. We want to do what pleases him.

[14:14] That's the phrase circumcision of Christ. We're new. Circumcision, as you know, was a right that God gave the Israelites to symbolize new life.

[14:34] So it was always meant, even though it was done in the flesh of little boys, thank God we can't remember, um, give me a minute, I'll be okay.

[14:47] That just hit me real hard. Thank God, you know, but there was supposed to not just be something done to the flesh, not just a ritual, not just something, not just a church thing, like baptism.

[15:01] It was supposed to record, be something that pointed to a change that would come into the life of this child. It was a sign of new life within the family of God.

[15:14] But Paul is saying the true circumcision happens because of the resurrection of Jesus. And it doesn't impact our, our bodies per se, it impacts our hearts.

[15:28] the center of our being, spiritually speaking, the heart is the center of our being. It involves our minds, our will, our emotions, our ambitions, our imaginations.

[15:38] It's, it's what makes you. It's what you are. It's who you are. And now, this work of the gospel, because of the resurrection of Christ, as you trust in him alone, he goes to work on what's inside of you.

[15:56] This is better than anything that could ever happen. Listen, I have respect for psychology, this is better than that. I have, I have respect for Oprah, but it's better than this.

[16:09] Okay? I want you to know. This is deeper. It goes down to into a place that will transform you. So, watch this. Now, because of this, now watch the new life.

[16:20] Turn back to that chapter three again. Here's the new life, beginning at verse 10. I lost it. Here we go. Put on the new self. The new self. The new you.

[16:31] The old you now, he said, is dead. The new you, because of the resurrection of Christ, and you're trusting in him, is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his creator.

[16:41] Now, you're being transformed into the image of Christ. Now, listen, here there's no Greeks, no Jews, circumcised. What he's saying there is that this is for everybody. Everybody.

[16:53] But in Christ, all in all, put on now. Now you can put on. Now you can change. Now you can, now you have the power to stop living so selfishly, caught up in yourself, all about me.

[17:08] Now you can turn and begin living like this. Put on, therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, which is not weakness, by the way, that's strength under control, patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.

[17:39] And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

[17:51] You see, this is the new life. This is what God is doing now as I trust in Jesus, as I recognize the resurrection is not just a figment of my imagination, it's not just something that people believe, it is something that truly happened, and now I've connected with Jesus because of that.

[18:08] Now his power begins to work in me so that I become a different type of person. I still like Kevin Smith, but now he's doing something, he's working, he's chiseling away at the rough spots, and he's fixing me.

[18:26] He didn't ask me to do it myself. He didn't say, fix yourself before you come to me and I'll receive you. He says, trust in me and what I've done and I'm going to go to work on you, bro.

[18:40] New life. Our lives are changed by the resurrected Christ because of the power of his resurrection. Now, the second thing.

[18:51] Christ's resurrection is important for forgiveness. Forgiveness, verses 13 and 14. If you have it in front of you, go there. Here's where God finds us.

[19:02] He uses this phrase, dead and trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. Trespasses. What does that mean? Or transgressions, depending on what transition you have.

[19:13] What does that mean? It means we willingly disobey God because there's something we want. That's a trespass. We willingly disobey God because there's something over here that has our attention, our hearts, our imaginations and we want it.

[19:33] We know red means stop, but we go anyway because we have somewhere to be. We know gossip is wrong. It hurts people's reputations, but we do it anyway because we want to be in the know.

[19:50] I got to have the tea. We know yelling at our spouse and yelling at our kids is wrong, but we're angry and we want them to know it. We know shoplifting is wrong, but someone's daring us to do it and we want to be accepted with them more than with God.

[20:13] I'm looking for you. I'll find you in a minute. We know lying is wrong in general, but it's just a little white lie. Why can't it be, why can't it be a black lie?

[20:25] I don't understand that. I'm over there. It's just a little white lie. Nobody gets hurt, right? Besides, if I tell the truth, it'll make me look bad. We need forgiveness.

[20:41] We've messed up. You and I, all of us, need forgiveness. And it's not just forgiveness from people because we do wrong people. Yes, you do. Yes, you did.

[20:54] But we need more than that. We need divine forgiveness because we have trespassed the law of God. not just the law of man, not just the law of people, but the law of God.

[21:11] And he says, because of this, we're dead. Spiritually dead. Like a zombie.

[21:22] We're walking around, but we're walking spiritual corpses, all of us. To be dead in trespasses means we're unresponsive to God. Dead people don't do anything.

[21:33] You ever notice that? I know that's probably news to all of you, but dead people, you can say, hello, I have a million dollars to give you, tax-free.

[21:46] And dead people don't respond to that. So when he says you're dead in trespasses and sins, he means you are unresponsive to God. God could, Jesus could walk down this aisle right now and do a miracle.

[21:59] And if you're dead, you won't believe it. But Kevin, oh, come on, Revcat, if he did a miracle, well, hold it.

[22:09] Think about it for a minute. Remember when Jesus was crucified, all those folk were yelling, crucify him, crucify him? Some of those same folk had seen him raise a man from the dead a few days earlier.

[22:22] They all knew that, they all knew Jesus. They all knew about him that he was a miracle worker. They believed he could do miracles. Some of them had seen him heal people.

[22:34] And yet, on that day, they knew all about that. Crucify him. Because miracles won't change you if you're dead.

[22:51] And this is where we all are born, in this spiritual deadness. Can't even see who Jesus really is because we're blinded.

[23:02] We can't change ourselves to follow God in that condition. We sinned against God and what we need more than anything is his forgiveness.

[23:13] It's like going before a judge in court and you go in there and you're saying, they're going, I'm not guilty. And then they bring out the video. And there you are in the store.

[23:35] What are you going to say? That's not me. It sure looks like you. That's what it's like before God. We're all like that. He's got a video, as it were.

[23:46] And it just says, you can't escape me. I love you, but you're guilty. What do you expect from a judge at that point?

[23:59] Even Johnny Cochran couldn't get you off. God must find you guilty. But I got good news to tell you because on Good Friday, Jesus died on the cross for the sins of all those who would trust in him.

[24:12] Hallelujah. That's Good Friday. That's why Good Friday is so good. Because my sins are being nailed to the cross. Because God is saying, I'm willing to forgive.

[24:25] God is saying, you need forgiveness. And I am the one who can forgive you the best. I once read an article some years ago, I think I mentioned this at church some time ago, but a psychiatrist in the UK was writing.

[24:40] He said, if I could guarantee most of my patients forgiveness, I could clear out the unit, the hospital. He didn't say all, he said most.

[24:51] Because a lot of people are dealing with guilt. And guilt will destroy you. It will mess with you. It will mess you physically and mentally.

[25:04] Guilt will destroy you. I had a patient, I used to work in psychiatry, I had a patient once, and he was getting messages from the TV. And when he would watch TV, he said this black thing would come across the screen.

[25:15] And the black thing would speak to him and say, you are dirty, you are nasty, you are evil. What we found out as I interviewed him more, is he was doing some, he was Roman Catholic, he was doing some things that he should, no, he should not have been doing against his own faith.

[25:36] And the guilt was being manifest as a hallucination. Guilt will mess with your mind.

[25:48] And drugs won't take it away. Medication and drugs. Just be clear here. Won't take it away. You need to deal with the guilt.

[25:59] And I don't mean forgive yourself. Ah!

[26:12] Oh yeah, that's just more me-centeredness. Hey, I stole your car. I feel bad. I gotta forgive myself. You got, your car's still gone. I ain't talking to you, I'm talking to me.

[26:26] Oh, you gotta get over that, Kev. You know you did that wrong. You gotta get over that. Listen, I need to go to God. I'll see you, I'll come back to you later. But I need to go to God and fall before his face and say, Lord, forgive me.

[26:39] Not just that one thing I did. Forgive me for a lifetime. A life that has gone against you. And you know something? Good Friday says he's willing. If I'll put my trust that Jesus died in my place, I can know forgiveness on the deepest level possible.

[27:06] In you who were dead in trespasses and sins, verse 13, and in circumstances of your flesh, God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses.

[27:21] When Jesus came alive from the dead, my forgiveness was guaranteed. It was the exclamation point on my forgiveness. Without the resurrection, Jesus just died.

[27:34] And there's nothing going on. That's it. He just got unlucky. The revolution didn't work out. And like so many other Jews before him who were false messiahs, it's happened many times, he just died.

[27:49] But that's not what happened. The resurrection is the God's exclamation point on that forgiveness is possible.

[28:00] Forgiveness has been granted. Trust in him. Trust in Jesus. And I can go to God and be delivered from the guilt and the shame of the things I've done, the things I've said to people I've hurt.

[28:20] Doesn't mean I don't go back to them. See, now I can go back to them and beg their forgiveness. Because I know I've been forgiven by the one who matters most. I've been accepted and loved by the one who matters most.

[28:34] so I can come back to you and say, man, I blew it. And if you don't accept me, that'll hurt me. But I'm accepted and beloved by the one who matters most.

[28:49] See, when I close my eyes for the final time, it's not you I'm going to see after that. I've got to go stand before the Lord and he will look at me.

[29:01] He'll look at me and say, son, you are forgiven. Because my son died for you.

[29:15] Okay, I've got to keep going. The third thing I want you to notice here is that Christ's resurrection is important because it shows God's power.

[29:27] Verse 15, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphant over them in him. God disarmed in Christ.

[29:37] That's how, that's how, that's the language. That's what he's trying to say. Who are these powers? Rulers and authorities.

[29:50] The best understanding we have of this passage is he's talking about spiritual beings. Have you ever wondered how, some people could commit such acts of evil against one another?

[30:07] How is it possible that human beings are capable of such goodness, good things, good things, not God's good, but certainly good things, and then do some of the most evil and wicked things you've ever seen?

[30:21] Yeah, it's, yeah, sin in us, that's true, so thank you for saying that. But sometimes there's something else going on too. People have spoken about sensing a presence in a room, sensing that something is off, something is wrong, something's not right, because there's something else going on in our reality.

[30:50] there are spiritual forces of darkness out there. Even as there are angelic beings, there are spiritual forces of darkness, and they're real.

[31:04] We have stories, I have a book of stories where people have been delivered by angels, or saved by angels, or, you know, why didn't, one story says, little boy fell out the car, they're driving down the road, and he opens, and he goes out the car, and of course, they, they, they, they, they stand on the brakes, and they come back, and he's standing there in the road, and he says, what's it, he said, didn't you see the man catch me?

[31:31] Things like that, you can't explain in a way. We, we've, we've know of people, or we've experienced something along these lines ourselves, but here's the ticket.

[31:42] Jesus is greater than all of them. Especially the spiritual forces of darkness. You don't have to be superstitious anymore. You ain't got to believe in curses.

[31:56] You ain't got to be worried about that stuff. Pastor Billy, I don't know if you remember this, Pastor Billy, we worked together, we were together in Miami, Florida as well. Before I got there, I was in transition, you found a chicken with his head cut off in the parking lot.

[32:13] Do you remember that? Because you told me about it. Now, what that is is Santeria. Santeria is a combination of Catholicism and voodoo. And someone evidently was trying to put a curse on the church.

[32:28] So they cut off a chicken, do some, do some stuff with that and the blood and everything, and they, and they leave it there. So Pastor Billy went out there and said, okay, scooped it up and threw it in the trash. Kept on going.

[32:41] Why? Because Christ has all authority of all spiritual forces of darkness or light. It doesn't matter. I don't care.

[32:57] Put a curse on me. Sprinkle your dust. I don't care. I know who I belong to. They can do nothing but that my Savior stands in front of them.

[33:17] Jesus is the power. God's power was on great display in the resurrection of Jesus. Paul says it so wonderfully. Romans chapter 1, he says, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, he's writing to these Roman Christians, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.

[33:34] He's letting them know who's writing the letter. The gospel of God. What about that gospel? Which he promised, God promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, that's the Old Testament, concerning his son, New Testament, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared, listen to this, he was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

[34:02] The resurrection of Jesus was done by the power of God and it was to tell you something, that this was no ordinary man.

[34:15] This was not just some prophet, this was not just some religious leader, this was not ordinary at all. This man who died on that Roman cross over 2,000 years ago, put to death as an enemy of the state.

[34:31] This man was no other than the Son of God, God in human flesh. And you can't compare him to Buddha or Muhammad.

[34:43] You can't compare him to anybody you call great. He alone is superior. He alone, he stands alone. Nobody is in the same universe with him.

[34:59] The resurrection was God showing off, showing you his power. This is why the resurrection is so important.

[35:11] It means we can have new life. We can be, we can change. It means we are forgiven by God if we trust in him. And it means we have experienced the power of God, seen the power of God demonstrated for all the world to see.

[35:31] Keep in mind something. Everything Jesus did was public. All the miracles. And the resurrection, he appeared to people.

[35:44] We have one text that says he appeared to over 500 people at one time. Why? Do we talk this way? Why does the Bible talk that way? Because eyewitness testimony is the best testimony there is.

[35:58] We want that in our courts. Don't tell me what you heard. Tell me what you saw. Don't tell me what you think. Tell me what you know. It's the last thing.

[36:16] I said three points. And the concluding point. Here's my concluding point. Why is the resurrection so important? Because it happened.

[36:33] Because anything I just said means nothing if Jesus was not raised bodily, physically, from the dead in time and space. We're not talking about a spiritual resurrection.

[36:44] resurrection. Jesus rose in my heart. No. That could be indigestion. We're talking about a corpse coming back to life after being dead for three days.

[36:59] Now listen, there are three big theories that attempt to refute that. I'm going to give them to you real quick. The first one is this. Islam says that Jesus never died but someone took his place, likely Judas.

[37:14] That's the Quran. They based that on Jesus' prayer. Remember the prayer in the garden? If this cup can pass me, they said when Jesus prayed that prayer to the father, the father granted that request and so he was not crucified.

[37:30] Well that misunderstands totally why Jesus came anyway. It's not true. It doesn't hold water. He came to die.

[37:41] And by being a sacrifice for our sins, if he did not do that, it's over. So no, that doesn't hold. So my Islamic brothers, I love you, but that don't hold water. Second, it's called the swoon theory.

[37:54] Swoon, S-W-O-O-N. This suggests that he never really died. He only appeared to. He swooned. He passed out. Went into a temporary coma possibly. And when they put him in the tomb, listen, scholars believe this stuff.

[38:06] I'm not making this up. People with PhDs behind their name and several, you know, he revived in the cool of the tomb and got up and somehow the stone was moved.

[38:19] And he snuck out. And the Roman guards didn't see him because there was a guard there. And he snuck by him.

[38:33] Here's something you need to know. Crucifixion came from the Persians. The Romans took crucifixion and perfected it. They knew how to kill you. Jesus was dead.

[38:46] The spear in the side, remember, and the water and blood comes out. The water part speaks of settling, of water being gathered around his heart because of the positions he was in.

[39:00] And he was dead. The Romans don't have to kill you. So that don't make any sense either. Because how does a dead guy, he's all, he's been beat to death, stabbed, and he's going to move a two-ton rock out the way and sneak out.

[39:16] And then show up and say, hey everybody, I'm your savior. I'm alive. I mean, come on, man. Last thing, third thing. The disciples snuck in and stole his body.

[39:30] Actually, Matthew 28 records that. That's what they intentionally spread that rumor. So let me get this straight. A bunch of fishermen, mostly fishermen, approached this guard, these hardened soldiers who know if they lose the prisoner, they will die.

[39:48] That was their culture. So they snuck around these guys. They went to sleep, see. So they snuck around them, got a lever, moved the rock out the way, grabbed Jesus, and took off down the road.

[40:04] God. Ah. That means something then, that they knew they were perpetrating a fraud.

[40:16] So why would they die for it? Nobody broke? It wouldn't be me. The apostle Kevin wouldn't be like, listen, listen, listen, you ain't got to kill me, man.

[40:28] Listen, listen. You can kill Peter, because he got a big mouth. But listen, you killed Peter, I'll tell everybody, don't mess with the Romans, don't mess with the Jews. Listen, I'll tell them, and you ain't got to kill, I would have broke, because I knew it was a lie.

[40:44] That's right, I would have snitched, because I knew it was a lie. I ain't dying for no lie. How many of you want to live for a lie, let alone die for one? Those are the big three.

[40:56] They don't hold water. If Jesus rose from the dead, God exists. And it should be your desire to please him, if he exists.

[41:11] If Jesus rose from the dead, then Jesus is the son of God, and everything he did is very important, and you can't, don't be agnostic. That's intellectual laziness.

[41:24] I don't know which one it is, because you're not involved to even check it out. Don't be an intellectual lazy person. Think about it. Look at it for yourself.

[41:35] Don't take my word for it. Think about it. And the third thing, it means it's life after death. If he rose from the dead, there's life after death. And the only way to the good life is through Jesus.

[41:50] Those three things. God exists, Jesus the son of God, and there's life after death. A famous writer named C.S. Lewis said, if Christianity isn't true, it's of no importance.

[42:04] But if it is true, nothing is more important. Why so serious about the resurrection? Let the Bible speak for itself. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.

[42:21] If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. The early Christians rested everything on the resurrection of Jesus.

[42:36] Why would you do that unless you were sure? Because they died in the Coliseums because they believed and knew for sure.

[42:50] that he rose. God exists and Jesus rose from the dead. Those are probably the most important facts you need to think about.

[43:06] What say you? What say you? Father, thank your word and please and drive it into our hearts and help us all to know why we believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

[43:26] Help us to know. And if we're not there yet, Father, please help us to be curious this. Because this is the most important truth that anyone can ever think about.

[43:42] Because it says that this life is not the end and that there will be justice done at the end of it. Father, help us, help us all to think deeply about the cross and about the resurrection of Jesus.

[43:58] In his name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.