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Let's pray together, family church. Heavenly Father, we bow before you. We've come to celebrate this resurrection day together. Friends and family, visitors and guests. God, thank you for bringing us into this house this morning. And now, God, as we open your word, would you speak to us from the Bible? God, we need to hear what you have to say. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, we would receive everything that you have for us by faith, and that we will receive it in the name of your son Jesus. And all God's people say. Amen. You can be seated. Welcome again to Family Church. My name is Jimmy Scrogans. I'm one of the pastors here. I'm glad that all of you guys have gathered here this morning. Easter Sunday is kind of like a family reunion because most of the people that go to church here on Easter, all of us go to family church. It's just we don't always come on the exact same Sunday. And it's kind of like a family reunion. And you guys do look terrific. And what I want to invite you to do, because we're going to have a Bible study right now, go ahead and get your Bibles out, turn your Bibles on on your devices, grab a Bible from the pew in front of you. I would encourage you to get your connect card that Pastor Derek was telling you about a moment ago and get something to write with. Even if this is your church all the time, I would love for you to do that. I think there's some pens in the pews in front of you. If there are not enough, the lady with the gigantic purse has a bunch of them. She'll give you one. And so just look around. And I'd like for everybody to have one of those as we get into this Bible study. We're going to turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 28. And what I hope for you today is that Easter is going to be a special day for you. I hope that what happens in this room is special to you. I know it's special to me. It's special to me every Sunday when I get to gather in this room with our church family. And then Easter's even a little more special because so many more people are here. And I love to meet your relatives and your kids and your grandkids and your parents when you come on Easter Sunday. It's a joy to introduce people that we love to people that we love. And we get to do a lot of that on days like today. And the music's got a little extra hype to it. Did you guys notice that? Let's give it up for our musicians. I mean, they're almost volunteers sharing their gifts with us. And I do want Easter to be special, but more important than that, I hope that Easter is a clarifying Sunday for you. More important than being special, I hope it is clarifying for you. Especially dads in the room. If you are a dad, it is so vital. If you want to be a dad one day, it is so vital that dads have crystal clarity about who they are when it comes to Jesus Christ. I mean, we need dads who have turned from their sins, who have received Jesus Christ by faith for themselves, and they're living not perfectly, but they're living on purpose as if Jesus is their king. Some of you have done that. Some of you are like, I'm never going to do that. I came to be polite to someone that I care about, but I'm never going to do that. And you're not going to become a believer. I would rather have a dad who either is a believer all in or he's not a believer and he knows where he stands, than a bunch of guys in the mushy middle. And your wife never knows what to think, and your kids never know what to think, and your grandkids never know what to think. I hope today's clarifying for you. Where do you stand with God? Hey, moms, where do you stand with God? Singles, where do you stand with God? Senior adults, where do you stand with God? Kids and teenagers and college students, where do you stand with God right now? Well, Pastor Jimmy, I think I'm a I mean, what do you mean by a Christian? What do you mean by an all-in Christian? I mean someone who's turned from their sins and received Jesus by faith for themselves. And because of that, I got I want you to get this connect card. And on the top of the connect card, I would like you to write four capital letters. Really easy. Capital A, capital B, capital C, and capital D. Just write them right across the front. A, B, C, and D. And we'll come back to that card in just a minute. Now, this time of year, a lot of people are talking about Jesus. It's in the media. Some of you guys like to listen to a guy named Jordan Peterson. You listen to his podcast or his lectures. Some of you have heard him live. He's a philosopher. He talks a lot about Jesus. Joe Rogan is a guy that many of you have listened to on podcast. He's probably the most listened-to podcaster for young men, and he has been talking a lot about Jesus for the last year. Some of you are like, I don't know about Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. I have a very refined education. I'm very, okay. Emmanuel Kant is another guy. He's not podcasting right now, but he's a prolific writer, and he too wrote a lot about Jesus. You know what Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson and Emmanuel Kant have in common? All of them talked a lot about Jesus. All of them believed in the moral framework of Jesus. All of them saw Christian values as important for the underpinnings of Western civilization, but none of them actually believed that the story of Jesus was true. They believed it was important, they believed it was good, but they do not believe that it's true, as far as I know. What about you? Some of you are in that boat right now. I believe this is important, I believe this is good. I'm not sure I believe it is true. I hope today is clarifying for you because everyone needs to make a choice. Everyone needs to make a choice, and no one can make it for you. Let's talk about the timeline of Easter. So Holy Week works like this. Thursday, Jesus is betrayed by Judas. He's arrested Thursday night. He gets on trial all night, Thursday night, and all Friday morning. Friday afternoon, Jesus is crucified on the cross. Jesus hangs up there for six hours. He says it is finished, and then he dies. It is really close to sundown, which is the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. And so they cannot bury him properly. They cannot prepare his body for burial. So they take his dead body down off of the tomb, down off of the cross, they wrap him in a shroud, and then they lay him in a borrowed tomb without his body being properly prepared. So Friday night, when it gets dark, Jesus is dead and he's thrown in this tomb. But he's dead. All night Saturday night, Jesus is dead. All day Saturday, all night Saturday night. But Sunday morning something happens. Sunday morning, an angel comes down out of heaven. He's so frightening that the Roman soldiers that were posted around the tomb are so afraid they literally pass out. There's a giant stone there with a seal on it because the Romans were afraid that someone was going to steal Jesus' body and claim he rose from the dead. So they put a guard out there. They put a stone in front of the tomb. They put a seal on it. But that angel didn't care about that seal. He broke the seal. He moved the stone. He knocked the guards out, and then he sat on the stone. And sometime Sunday morning in that tomb, we don't have the details. I don't know if there was a burst of energy. I don't know if there was a lightning bolt. I do know there was an earthquake. But sometime in the darkness of that tomb, Jesus, who had been dead since Friday, brain activity re-engaged. His heart started beating again. His blood started flowing through his body again. And Jesus threw those grave clothes off. And Jesus was alive. And he came out of the tomb. And that's when we pick up in Matthew chapter 28, starting in verse 1. This is what the word of God says about Resurrection Sunday, the first one. Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified. He's not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, Greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me. While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, Tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and they did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. And this is the word of God. And all God's people say, We received God's word at family church. These women came to take care of the body. It hadn't been properly prepared for permanent burial. They brought the spices that they needed. And when they got to the cemetery, they knew exactly where his body was. They knew where the tomb was, they knew where the cemetery was, they knew what they had come to do. And when they got there, they were definitely expecting to find a body. What they did not expect to find was an empty tomb, and yet that's exactly what they found. So those women that day, when they believed that Jesus was raised from the dead, it changed their lives. And over the next few days, the disciples all came to believe that Jesus, who was crucified, was also raised from the dead. And when they believed in the resurrection, they had crystal clarity. They became an all-in Christian. Instead of being in the mushy middle, like a Christian-ish person, they went all in. Why? Because they came to believe that Jesus was really raised from the dead. So what can we learn from this text? If you have your program you got when you came in, you might want to write a few things down. I have three ideas I'd encourage you to write down and consider as we look at this text. Number one, this text shows us that the resurrection is true. The resurrection is true. In this text, you see two clearly competing narratives. You have the one narrative that the women say, Jesus was raised from the dead. The disciples believed it, they believed it, they went all in. But there's another narrative in this story. The Jewish priest told the Roman soldiers, make sure you guys tell people that his body was stolen. Don't tell people he was raised from the dead. Tell them he wasn't raised from the dead and his body was stolen. Two competing narratives right here in this text. He was raised from the dead, he was not raised from the dead. And just to be very clear, in terms of reality, historical reality, it's impossible for Jesus to have been sort of raised from the dead. He's either raised from the dead or he's not raised from the dead, and it's just a story. Which is it? Well, everyone involved got the implications. If Jesus is raised from the dead, then everything he said about himself and everything he said he could do would be true. If Jesus is not raised from the dead, we don't need Christianity anymore because it's just not true. You would be a fool to believe in something just because you thought it was beneficial if you didn't believe it was true. Everybody understood that. People are always grasping for reasons to believe, and they're always putting this stuff out there. Uh, the last year or so, I've seen a lot about the shroud of Turin. Have you guys seen all that stuff about the shroud of Turin? The shroud of Turin, very popular. People are talking about it a lot. The shroud of Turin is supposedly the burial cloth of Jesus himself. There are reasons why some people believe this is legitimately the original burial cloth that Jesus was buried in. But there are some reasons that people believe that is not true. Now, some Christians, I know some of you guys see this stuff because you email me and you say me, hey, have you seen about the shroud? Did you know about the shroud? Yes, I know about the shroud. I studied the shroud in the 70s and 80s when I was just a kid. I was fascinated by it, just like I was also fascinated by Bigfoot, uh, UFOs, uh, the Loch Nest Monster, the Bermuda Triangle, all of that stuff. Now, I'm not saying that the shroud is not real because I don't know if it's real or not, but I am saying this. You should not hang your hat on religious relics and build your faith on that. Because what if they prove that the shroud is true? If they prove that the shroud is real, I will believe in the resurrection exactly as much as I do right now, totally. If they prove that the shroud is a fake, I will believe in the resurrection just as much I do right now, totally. If the shroud makes you believe in Jesus more, then if they disprove it, that'll make you believe in Jesus. You see? Look at the shroud encourages you, great, but don't hang your hat on that. There are there's better evidence in this text of scripture for you to believe in the resurrection. Let me tell you what some of them are. First of all, we have these men who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus, such as Matthew, who wrote the gospel we read this morning. Matthew said that he rose and he wrote it down. John, the apostle, saw Jesus and he wrote in the New Testament, I saw him. Peter in the New Testament says, We are witnesses. Paul says in the New Testament, 500 people saw him. James and Jude, the brothers of Jesus, who grew up as skeptics, became believers in Jesus when they saw him raised from the dead. And there are other writers in the New Testament who were not personal eyewitnesses as far as we know, but they talked to people who were. They interviewed people who were, and they came to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. Among those are Mark, who wrote the Gospel of Mark, said he rose from the dead, Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke, said he rose from the dead, the writer of Hebrews, we don't know who that was, but he says that Jesus rose from the dead. So we have all of these first century writers who claim to have seen Jesus risen from the dead, and they wrote about it, and that's what we have in the New Testament today. And the whole New Testament, the whole Christian enterprise rises or falls on this claim. Jesus was raised from the dead. And not only did these men write about it, they spent the rest of their lives going around and telling people all over the world that Jesus was crucified for their sins and raised from the dead. And it was a threatening message to some who heard it. And so all of these men who believed that Jesus was raised from the dead, it cost them their lives. And they would rather die than recant. Now let me ask you a question. Would you die for something you knew for a fact was not true? Do you think this group of guys, don't you think someone would crack? If it really wasn't true, someone would say, okay, okay, before you torture me, turns out we made that up. We stole the body, but nobody did that. Listen to what happened. Church history tells us that St. Peter was crucified upside down rather than recant. Andrew was crucified rather than recant. James was beheaded rather than recant. John was exiled to a prison cality and died out there as an old man because he wouldn't recant. Matthew was killed for Christ in Ethiopia. Bartholomew was crucified. Philip was crucified. Thomas was speared to death in India, telling people Jesus was raised from the dead. Simon was crucified. James was stoned to death, and Thaddeus was stoned to death, all because they believed that Jesus rose from the dead and they wouldn't take it back no matter what it cost them. Why would they do that if the resurrection wasn't true? Why would they do that? The resurrection is true. Second thing I want you to see from this text: the resurrection will change your life. The resurrection will change your life. These 12 disciples of Jesus, they uh then uh Judas hanged himself, but the disciples of Jesus, these guys had seen the crucifixion. They heard the hammer hit the nails, they heard the crack of the whip on the back of Jesus. They saw the blood running down his brow from the crown of thorns. They heard him say it is finished, and they saw him die. And that's why the cross is so powerful. It's an important Christian symbol. We have one right on top of our steeple. A lot of churches do around the world. A lot of you are wearing a cross around your neck right now. Some of you have gone out and gotten a tattoo of a cross on your body. I'm not telling you to do that, I'm just saying it has happened. The cross is so important because the cross is where our sins are taken away. The cross is where Jesus was crucified and our sins were placed on him. Without the cross, there is no Christianity. But the resurrection is important as well because the resurrection is what validates everything. If Jesus was not really raised from the dead, Jesus is just another religious leader who went and got himself killed for his beliefs. They do that every day all over the world. Is that all that you think he is? Is just a misguided religious leader who got killed for his beliefs? No, the resurrection of the dead. The empty tomb says he was different. It is a differentiator. That's what makes Christianity better than any other world religion. You say, well, why would you say Christianity is better just because of the resurrection? Think about it. Buddha has had a huge impact on the world. He ended up starting a massive religion, and yet Buddha died, and his ashes have been spread around to different little Buddhist monasteries all over Asia, and archaeologists found him in the 1960s. Think about Muhammad. Muhammad founded a pretty big religion that causes a lot of trouble around the world. But he's dead, and people from all over the world go to visit his grave in Saudi Arabia every year. Joseph Smith started Mormonism, which is not Christian, it's a cult. And he started it and then he died and they buried him in Illinois. Confucius is buried in China, but when it comes to Jesus, the tomb is empty. He is risen, as he said. Jesus is alive, and the resurrection is what makes Jesus better, and what makes Christianity superior to every other world religion. Plus, the resurrection will change your life if you will grapple with its implications. In this text, Mary Magdalene's one of the women who went to find the body of Jesus. Mary Magdalene goes out there. Now, Mary Magdalene had a past. Some of you in this room, you have a past. Some of you on the floor, you have a past. Balcony people, all the balcony people, you still with me up there? You guys good? We got balcony people with a past. Don't clap for your past, but I know we do have them up there. But what happens when someone has a past, like Mary Magdalene? The Bible says that Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene. Many people think Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. The Bible doesn't say that, but people think that. She had a past, but then she met Jesus and she became a true believer in Jesus, and he forgave her of her sins, and she lived the rest of her life as a believer in Christ. And what really changed her was when she knew Jesus was raised from the dead. And the guy who wrote this gospel, the gospel of Matthew, did you know that Matthew has a past too? Matthew was like a Roman IRS agent. He had turned his back on God, he had lived an immoral lifestyle, he ran around with a bunch of really bad people until he met Jesus. And then after he met Jesus, everything changed. And when Matthew figured out that Jesus had been raised from the dead, it changed everything about his life. And you may have a past. You may have a really sordid past that you're ashamed of. You may be kind of an up and outer. Well, you do well, you're successful in a lot of ways, but you know you've sinned against God. The resurrection will change your life if you will grapple with its implications. This brings me to the last thing. Point number three on our notes. The resurrection forces each one of us to make a choice. The resurrection forces you to make a choice. Do you believe? Or do you not believe? Don't be in the mushy middle. Either believe and go all in, or say I don't believe, and step out. Don't just be a Christian-ish in the mushy middle. If this is true, it'll change your life. Say, yeah, but did that really happen? Yeah, it happens all the time. I love Easter because I've got a bunch of my kids and grandkids and a daughter-in-law here, and so they brought friends from college and friends from where they came from at work, and we just have a big time on Easter weekend. And it means so much to me that all of you guys are here. It really does. But Easter is special for our family because back in the 1980s, there was a man named George. George had grown up in a broken home. It was a horrible upbringing. And then George ended up going to Vietnam as a teenager. His brother got killed over there. He got shot up and blown up, and he came home a broken man. And he started drinking too much and he started doing things that were not good for him. And then he met a broken woman, a single mom named Linda. And George and Linda got married. And you have one broken man with a broken woman, and you know what happened when they got together? It didn't make it better. In some ways, it made it worse. But then they had a daughter together. But they didn't know how to communicate with each other. George drank too much. They didn't know how to communicate with their daughters. They would separate and get back together and separate and get back together. Some of you guys have been through all of that. But then one day in 1984, George surprised his family and he got up on Easter Sunday morning and he said, Okay, get dressed. We're going to church. His wife and his daughters thought, that's weird. But they did it. Now, the mom and the daughters had been going to church some, trying to find something. But they didn't know that while they were at church, George had been at home watching church on TV. With his six pack of Bud Light right next to his easy chair. But God had been working in Georgia on this Easter Sunday morning. George heard a message like this where they talked about the crucifixion of Christ. For his sins, the resurrection of Jesus to prove that it is all true. And at the end of that messenger, George made a decision to turn from his sins. He received Jesus by faith for himself, and he became a different man. Not a perfect man, a changed man. And then from that moment on, he learned how to care for his wife. He learned how to connect with his daughters, and he started trying to walk with God. Stopped drinking. Stopped gambling. Stopped running around. And that little girl that was 10 years old when George got saved, she got to grow up from that day on in a Christian home. And it changed her life too, and I'm glad it did. Because I ended up marrying that little girl. And now, because of a decision that George made in 1984, I have eight children with Kristen. We have seven grandchildren. They're not perfect, but they all believe in Jesus. They've all received Jesus by faith. My little grandchildren are growing up in a home where they have a chance to hear about Christ. All because of a decision that one man made on Easter Sunday morning. How about you? How about you? Aren't you tired of being Christianish? Don't you think yourself and your family and your friends deserve somebody who's all in for Jesus? Either get in or get out. Don't be in the mushy middle. I'd like you to get that card back out. A, B, C, D. We're thinking about it. A stands for I'm already a committed Christian. B stands for I want to become a committed Christian today. C stands for, I'm interested, but I still need to consider all of this. That's fair. And D stands for, I'm just not interested in becoming a Christian. I'm a committed Christian. I want to become a Christian today. I'm interested but not ready. It's not for me. I wonder if you would just take your pen or your pencil and circle the letter that best describes you this morning. Which letter describes who you are, where you are right now today? And some of you need to do what George did all those years ago. And you need to turn from your sins and receive Jesus by faith today. How do you do that? The Bible says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Call on the Lord by prayer. And this morning, I want to give you, on the floor, in the front, in the back, in the balcony, I want to give you an opportunity to call upon the Lord today and ask Jesus to save you. So here's how we're going to do it. I'm going to pray a prayer out loud. And the prayer is just going to say this Dear God, I know I'm a sinner. Please forgive me of my sins. I believe Jesus was crucified for me. I believe he was raised from the dead. And I receive Jesus by faith right now. And I want to be a Christian. I want Jesus to be my King. If that prayer represents the desire of your heart this morning, I want to invite you to make this your prayer to God in heaven. Take all the faith that you have and call upon all the God that you believe in and watch Jesus begin to change your lives. Just out of respect, I want you all to just bow our heads and close our eyes. I'll pray out loud. If that prayer represents the desire of your heart, you make this your prayer to God right now. Are you ready? Dear God, I know I'm a sinner. Please forgive me of my sins. I believe Jesus was crucified for me. I believe he was raised from the dead. And I want to receive Jesus by faith right now. I want to be a Christian and I want Jesus to be my king. You guys can look up. Now, some of you prayed that prayer. And you haven't prayed that prayer before, and that's not something that you normally do. This is new for you. You are taking a step today. I get that. People in the balcony have done that. People on the floor have done that. And here's what we want you to do next. We actually want you to take some next steps. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you want us to do now? Well, I want you to get baptized. And I want you to join a church. A family church will be glad to have you. I want you to start taking the Lord's Supper. I want you to begin to learn how to live for Jesus. It's a journey. It doesn't happen all at once, but it will happen. You say, yeah, but nobody's going to really do that. I mean, I hear you up there talking, but no one will actually do that. You're wrong. All over the room today are people who have done it. All over the room today are people who are doing it. And let me tell you about two young ladies who were in the room with us this morning who put their faith in Christ. And we're going to celebrate their baptism in just a moment. Caroline and Savannah sitting right over here with their family. They grew up in a Christian home. Seth and Dana have been members here at family church for the last six years. You might have seen this on the news last summer. They were at Camp Mystic in Texas when they had that tragic flood, and kids lost their lives. But that situation prompted the girls to begin to have some conversations with their parents about God and faith and what it means to be saved. And through those conversations, both of these girls repented of their sins and received Jesus by faith for themselves. They completed our kids' new believers class, and they're confident that Jesus is their King. And today they're going to be baptized right in here on Easter Sunday. So girls, I don't want you to ever forget this. Easter Sunday, man, 2026. That was your day. And we're all celebrating with you. So family church, let's stand our feet. Let's stand our feet and let's worship the Lord while we celebrate baptisms.