Remember The Resurrection | S2E10

What does it actually mean to remember the resurrection, and why does it matter for your everyday life?

In this episode of Deeper at Life, we unpack 1 Corinthians 15:1–11 and the foundation of our faith: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. From the power of eyewitness testimony to the role of the church in carrying the gospel forward, we explore how this truth isn’t just something we believe, it’s something that transforms how we live.

If the resurrection is real, everything changes.
So how should we respond?

Join us as we dive deeper into God’s Word and discover how remembering the resurrection fuels bold faith, confident hope, and a life rooted in the gospel.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

All right, welcome back to Deeper Life with the pastors today, Pastor Andrew, Pastor Jason, and remember the resurrection, verse by verse study in 1 Corinthians, Beauty and the Broken. We just started chapter 15, verses 1 through 11. Um man, what a text. Like what a text. I mean, that was kind of the theme that we talked about last night in Small Group, but just to go into Easter as God designed it with this text the week before, and then now the text you're gonna preach on next week.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Yeah, uh, if you're watching this on video, uh do not mis uh misrepresent or come to a wrong conclusion about the black t-shirts. We're not in a state of mourning, uh, we're good. It just so happens that we all decided to wear black t-shirts today.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

We're trying to start a band.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

So so uh Jason wears a black t-shirt every day. That's true and we just decided to follow in suit and get the uniforms.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Trying to be like me. It's cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

So yeah, I mean, these are these are uh when you start the study of a book, you you look out across the landscape of the book. Um think about it if you're in the mountain in a mountain range and you look out across a landscape and you see peaks, and you think, all right, I'm gonna get to that peak and then I'm gonna go down into this valley and get to that peak. Um, I feel like when you look across the landscape of 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 15 is a peak. There's so much in this chapter that is so good. Um, that it's kind of fun to get to and preach, especially after having spent three chapters and several weeks through um spiritual gifts and tongues and all of that, which was fun. It was great. God used it, but to get to a point now where we turn a corner and focus then on one of these incredible passages and just what the value of what Paul's doing here and what the spirit is leading him to do is just so powerful for us as we enter into the Easter season. You're listening to this, we're talking about this in what is Holy Week. So these are the last every day of the week. Obviously, we remember a last day of the week, last week of Christ, and um all ultimately culminating in this incredible, uh, life-changing, gospel confirming reality that Christ is alive. And to spend two weeks on it is such a uh it's such a blessing, such a grace that God gave us to do. And um yeah, excited to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

It's good. I mean, you started off straight away talking about the evidences of that we exist, that the church exists. And man, like what a picture, a perspective to zoom out of not only looking at you know the fact that the apostles died for their beliefs and the people in the early church, but to look that God's still saving, and there's hundreds of people in this crowd right now that have been saved 2,000 years later.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah, for sure. I mean, one of the great one of the great one of the testimonies, obviously, there's not one witness to the authenticity of the resurrection, but one of them is that the church exists and that the church is made up of people that have been so dramatically transformed, um, that have come from the exact opposite of what they are now, and it continues to happen. I just loved the reference that um the Lord allowed us to kind of think about when chapter five of Acts, the apostles were being uh tried, and Gameliel stands up and says, Hey, if this is if this is of man, it's going to die. Yeah, it's not going to last. And even if it lasts longer than a few weeks or months, it's not going to have any lasting impact. And the exact opposite has been true. Because it's not of man, but it is of God, evidenced by the reality and empowered by the reality of the resurrection. 2,000 years later, the church is still a wrecking force against evil and God's plan for reaching the nations and is still active and growing. Revivals are happening, you know, throughout history of more and more people coming to Christ and being transformed. The fact that ethnic groups from people from different backgrounds are meeting together, and the fact that we're going to Nicaragua and Nepal and Ethiopia, and there is just this unity of faith where we are brothers in Christ, pulled from the different uh corners of darkness where we were into the light of the gospel and have made up a new people, the family, household of God is just this evidence that this was of God. Gamalia was right. If this is of God, then you don't want to stand in the way opposing God.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

And the evidence of the resurrection, uh, the the resurrection is evidenced by one of them. The fact that we exist and God is still moving in all of our quirks and brokennesses, he's still saving and still working. And we're just pumped to be able to be a part of that.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yeah. It's such a cool thing to see changed lives uh by the gospel, by a resurrected savior. Um, and and to think about the ridiculousness of the beginning of Christianity that our savior was crucified. Uh, I mean, you see in history the mocking of people who were crucified and the uh probably thousands, I think you could make the argument, maybe even more, that were crucified that no one knows about, um, that were mocked for the shame of that death. And yet there are millions of people whose lives have been changed by this savior, not because he was crucified on the cross, but because he did conquer death and the resurrection is real. And to be able to sit with people in our church uh in here in Las Vegas, as well as people around the world whose lives have been transformed by this resurrected king is such a powerful testimony to a living and active savior.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Absolutely. And one of the evidences of that transformation in the early church was something that would hit us a little bit different than if we lived in that day. And that is that the church began to meet as their regular day of worship on the first day of the week. Yeah, on Sunday, which was significant because Sunday was the first day of work in that culture. Saturday was Sabbath. So you've got a bunch of Jews in Jerusalem that all of a sudden said, Hey, our major day of worship is no longer going to be Sunday. It's now going to be the day that Jesus rose. So the church forms a group of transformed people, Gentile and Jew alike, to meet on the first day of the week to every week remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It changed a group of people so dramatically that nobody there would have been like, what happened? Everybody would have known they believe the resurrection of the Savior. Therefore, they are meeting on the first day of the week, like they are. So one of the great early transformative evidences.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

So good. You talked about um in your first point, justification, sanctification, preservation, and perseverance. Talk about that. That's the first time I'd heard it, heard that before. Like that's so cool to dive into.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Well, Paul does that in verses one and two, where he says, Hey, bro, brothers, I want to remind you of this of the gospel. And so he says, I preached it to you. So think Romans 10, how shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they be saved unless they hear? How shall they hear without a preacher? Paul said, I'll be that preacher to them. So then they received it. That's a mark of faith. Um, Acts chapter two, they that heard his word gladly received his word and then were baptized. So the receiving of the word in the establishing of the church in Jerusalem and the establishing of the church in Corinth began with this faith-filled reception of the gospel. And so that's justification in which you stand. So there is a present active standing in the gospel, which has to do with this um, the sanctifying work of the gospel in us. That gospel wasn't just a uh an entry gate into a path, but the gospel is the entry gate, it is the path, it is the context and everything uh of which we live, which by the way is a plug for that great book we're reading in some of our mentoring groups, The Gospel Primer, where the gospel is not just this one thing that starts us, but it is everything. And we need to live in remembrance of the gospel. So in which you stand and by which you are being saved, which again goes back to this uh continual preservation that he we are continually being saved in a sense that um we are continually being protected from condemnation, we are continually being protected from the accusations of the enemy, we're continually uh having defended for us our position in Christ because of the gospel. And uh it and then he says, if you hold fast to the word, that's persever perseverance. So if you hold fast to the word doesn't mean if you don't let go, it's not that. It means if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. So here's the logic: if their initial faith was empty in vain and not genuine, then they would not be people who hold fast to the gospel.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

But if their faith initially was genuine, they will be people who hold fast fast, which is perseverance. Genuine faith is persevering faith. Genuine faith is faith that doesn't deconstruct. So when we talk about people who deconstruct, we say, well, they lost their salvation. No, we say they never had it. That's right. Because they never had genuine faith. They believed in vain. They are the soil where the seed of God's word was thrown and then it sprouted up, but then was choked out and it wasn't genuine. And that is the picture here. So that is perseverance. So you've got say uh justification, they received it, sanctification, it continually works in which they stand, preservation, they are being saved, and perseverance, they're holding fast. So his point is like you know the gospel. The gospel of which everything of the gospel hinges upon the reality of the resurrection.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

So you know this. He's not telling them something new, he's reminding them of something that they had already heard, received, and believed, and in which they stand that that is gonna inform how they process another theology, which is the future bodily resurrection that he's gonna get into later in this chapter.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So it's so good that we get to hold on to everything that Jesus did for us, right? We don't get to hold on to what we did and what we might do in the future. We get to hold on to, we get to look to, we get to uh focus on what Jesus did for us uh by defeating the grave, and we get to hold on to that he's going to uh fulfill his promises in the future as well. And so it's everything that Jesus has done that we get to hold on to and and anchor our lives in that it's everything that he has done, yeah, not what we have done.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, and and holding fast to that. So I'm gonna get ahead of myself a little bit because I think uh learning to live or truth to lives has this uh point that's made. But Paul was being used of the Lord uh as a grace to the Corinthians to remind them of the gospel. And so that just is a great stop and think point. Who in my life am I allowing to be this grace of God to remind me of the gospel? Am I putting myself in a place where the preaching is gospel-centered, the teaching is gospel-centered, the community is gospel-centered. My friends, when I come to them with crazy things, they're like, What? No, just remember Jesus did this, he died for you, he rose for you, he's alive. Don't anchor your hope in those things or your lack of hope in those things, trust in that. So we've got to have pauls in our lives that are doing the same thing, that are saying, do what you just said, hold fast to what Jesus, what Jesus did for you in in the gospel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

So that's good. Um, I feel like this text is just yeah, super sobering. Like remind just be reminded every every day almost uh regularly. And then the way that Paul constructed the letter to bring this now towards the end of it, um, is super cool. Yeah. Um I think that's been one of the coolest things as we studied the whole book to see now where he's at in chapter 15. Practically, like this was one of the questions kind of in small group last night, but like standing in the gospel, right? Regularly preaching the gospel to yourself. Yeah. What does that look like for our people? Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

I mean, I think it has to do with um, again, read that book, The Gospel Primer. Um, that's gonna help you with some of that stuff. But I think it's um gospel-centered relationships. That's one where you're continually reminded to stand and to allow the truth uh to deal with my sin differently in light of the gospel, to deal with my temptation differently in light of the gospel, to deal with my hope differently in light of the gospel, to view um current events, war and economic crisis and um all kinds of turmoil. If you watch the news and that is the only thing through which you interpret the history of man, absolutely be devastated and let your hope be gone. But if you're looking at that and saying, Yeah, you guys think you know what's happening here, but in the end, God wins. Jesus Christ died, he rose. And I'm I'm again letting the gospel influence the way I think. I'm listening to sermons, I'm reading the Bible with a gospel-centered focus where I'm seeing the thread of the gospel all the way through. We call it the crimson thread, um, the thread of Christ woven in and throughout all of Scripture, Old and New Testament, like he mentions here in a few minutes. Um, we listen to music that brings us to a place of worship because of the gospel. Uh, like the song we sang at the end of the service on Sunday, I believe. So that song has so much gospel truth just saturating it. And the only then right response is hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Yeah. I can't do anything but say. And so that's gospel-centered worship, gospel-centered relationships, gospel-centered thinking, gospel-centered interpretation of current events. I think standing in it is just being saturated. So if I let the word of God dwell in me richly, and the word of God is gospel rich, then the gospel is going to take root and going to inform the way I think and live. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

So we're creatures that need to be reminded, reminded regularly. We often see what's right in front of us. We often worry about what's right in front of us. We often um wonder what's about right in front of us. And so we forget about so many of the great things that are around us and behind us. And this is why, like you said, you need pauls in your life. You need people in your life who regularly remind you of the good news of the gospel. Yes, do it yourself. Spend time with Jesus regularly and remind yourself, fix your eyes on Jesus. But let others, let pastors, let your small group leaders, let your uh community around you find. And let's let's be honest, you got to be intentional about finding that community who will point you to Jesus to fix your eyes on Jesus, because even even in Christian circles, we love to kind of still talk about the hot topics, right? The hot button topics and worry about those and wonder about those. And so intentionally find people in time to focus on Jesus and what he's done and remind yourself of the truth of the gospel that doesn't just save you, but is sanctifying you on a regular basis so that you are standing. I think uh, you know, you are you are fully immersing yourself in the truth of the gospel uh and scripture. I think it was beautiful. Matt on Sunday uh said that everything in scripture points to Jesus, right? It's pointing to this gospel. So see the gospel from the beginning all the way through the end and let it be something that you live in. Like I think, I think to stand in is to live in it, right? Live in it, don't live in something else.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, I think that's what Paul mentioned or meant when he said in Galatians, like, who's who's bewitched you or who's deceived you? Yeah. Having begun by grace, are you now made perfect by works? Right. So like you started by grace through faith in Christ, and now all of a sudden you're gonna work your way into maturity. No, it's it's grace, faith, gospel at the beginning and at the middle and at the end. And I think that totally is um what he is talking about here, standing in the gospel.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Yeah, so good. Um, just to your point earlier, Jason, you're talking about yeah, just reminding, being reminded in the text that we don't bring anything to the table. Paul's doing that super well of just saying, like, it's not me. Look at the scripture. Yep. Let's look back. And he does this several times through this text, but looking at the scripture portion of the truth that is revealed that you guys have already started to talk about with the thread through the Old Testament. I mean, you you referenced Isaiah and just the massive prophecies that are fulfilled by Jesus in Isaiah, but actually the entire book of Isaiah is walking through Jesus. And then you brought up Jonah, which was super cool because I talked to multiple people after service that were like blown away by the Jonah. Um, so let's just talk a little bit about that, like the the Old Testament. I know you guys have started about the the thread, but these things that are, I mean, man, the prophecies fulfilled alone are unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Well, yeah. I mean, I think uh when you read the Old Testament, if you read the Old Testament divorced from the New Testament, so just not even considering the New Testament, maybe this is the first time you've ever interacted with any of this stuff, you you are going to read the Old Testament and be like, what? What's the significance of that? What does it mean that the seed of the woman is gonna crush the head of the serpent? And what is why three days for Jonah in the belly of the whale? That's weird. Like, why not four days, five days? What was that? And what is he talking about? It sounds like in Isaiah 53 that this guy he's talking about died, but then he said he's gonna prolong his days. What's going on there? And there's those nuggets uh of truth that just lay on the pages of the Old Testament that they point to something, but you're not quite sure, apart from the New Testament, what exactly it's pointing to. Yeah, you're like, there's something there, but I'm not sure what it is. And I think that's what uh the Ethiopian eunuch, when he was um riding in the carriage and reading the Bible and he's reading Isaiah, and he's like, I don't know how to interpret what this is unless some man tells me. And so Philip says, I'll tell you, and he tells them, preaching to him Jesus from the book of Isaiah. And the Ethiopian eunuch believes and is saved and is baptized. Why? Because there was somebody there to say, You see those arrows pointing somewhere. Let me show you where they point. They point to Jesus, they point here to the fulfillment. And then Jesus going and talking to people and Paul and others in the uh in Acts and in the Gospels, starting with Moses all the way through the prophets, sharing with them the things that were to be true about himself, about Jesus. And so there's just this thing that's going on throughout the Old Testament that when you read the New Testament and you're like, okay, then you go back and read the Old Testament, you're like, that's what that means. I get it. So after, you know, in the movies, we talked about that, right? Lord of the Rings or, you know, whatever, some good trilogy. There's these references, there's something that's coming that you're like, I'm I'm not sure what that meant, but and you may forget about them unless you watch it again after having watched the end of the movie. Then you say, I see now. That's what that was a reference to. Somebody after church said, you know what those are called in literature, those are called Easter eggs, which is funny. They're eat he called them Easter eggs. He's like, that's what they actually call them is is little hints early in the literature pointing to something that will happen later in the literature. That's what the new, that's what this is doing. And then to think of the fact that this wasn't written by the same man thinking, I'm gonna write, leave a little Easter egg here at the point. This was written over thousands of years, that these were indicators of something coming that was written by somebody else and fulfilled in a person named Jesus, is just another confirmation that what Paul is saying here is not legend. Right. And it wasn't plan B. It was purposeful. It was planned. I know we we we can blame during this season. We'll blame the Jews for killing Jesus. Listen, that wasn't an accident. Right, they did not overthrow God's plan and kill the savior. God, according to his good pleasure, uh had his son crucified and allowed his son to be crucified and took pleasure in, according to Isaiah, uh, the crucifixion of his son, because that meant the redemption of man, and that is evidenced all throughout the Old Testament. So our faith is bolstered, our hope is strengthened because we're like, yes, this was the plan. He fulfilled his plan. And so if he fulfilled his plan, foretold thousands of years earlier, then the plan that is still yet to be fulfilled, that may take another thousands of years to be fulfilled, we can be confident that it will be fulfilled, like the resurrection of the body that he's going to get to in 1 Corinthians 15 later. Yeah. So

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah, 66 books written to testify about this man, Jesus. And so many of them in the Old Testament who are written through men, inspired by God, to say, look, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a little hint at what's coming. I'm gonna give you a little picture of what you're looking for and who you're looking for so that when it happens, you're not surprised. Yep. I told you, I showed you, I gave you an example of this through a man named Jonah. Um, or as you look at Abraham's life, you see some some of those Easter eggs that you just said uh in his story that isn't about Abraham. It's about the Savior that's gonna come one day. And so as you look in the Old Testament and maybe even find some confusing things in the Old Testament, be looking for those Easter eggs of this is about Jesus. This tells of the great savior that, like you said, plan A. Yeah, there wasn't this, oh shoot, something got messed up. Humanity did something wrong. Yeah, uh, I guess we got to go this route, this route. No, thousands of years earlier, it was already proclaimed, this is actually my plan. This is actually what's gonna happen, and this is all for you to have a relationship with me.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

And the cool thing about what Paul's doing here is like, even in today's age, like Gentile versus Jew just didn't, like, if you didn't grow up in the church, if you grew up in the church, like I these prophecies fulfilled blew my mind when I found that when I don't know if it was through a message or whatever, like blew my mind. If you go back to this time, like he's preaching to the church in in Corinth, and there's Jews and there's Gentiles. So the Jews would have grown up on this, and so they would have known this beyond well. Like you start at an early age, right? And then that culture of like you are studying the scriptures and know, yeah. And he's also like proving it to the Gentiles, like, no, no, no, this is not me saying this, this is what it said. Yeah, so yeah, that's pretty cool. Yep, yep. Um witnesses is kind of what what you talked about next. So this is pretty cool. I guess we could start by talking about the before the 500, because he does the the Cephas, he kind of calls Cephas out. Like I think they're kind of playing a joke on each other, like Peter, I remember you.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

But it's funny how Paul used calls him Cephas, calls Peter Cephas, and for whatever reason, you know, um, unwilling to admit that he got a new name from Jesus, maybe or something. I don't know, but um, maybe that's the name he didn't like. Like I joke sometimes I don't want to be called Andy, and then some people intentionally call me Andy. Maybe that's what Paul's doing here. I don't know. But yeah, I think the witnesses is so compelling here. Um, he lists them all and and and he he's like, Look, this is who they are. I'll I'll give you their I'll give you their social media handles, I'll give you their phone numbers, go ask them. Yeah, which means that it wasn't it wasn't afraid of scrutiny, it was it was falsifiable if it was false. If this isn't true, prove it. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

So I mean, there's just so many logical things on that. Like, like, for instance, um there let me just throw out a couple things that I think this leads us to is um there there's a handful of just logical things that I think Paul's using here that are saying this is falsifiable, like the historical fact of Jesus' death by crucifixion. So that's an undeniable fact. No unchristian non-believer um confirm uh that this was real. He actually died. Josephus wrote about it. Yep. There's no need uh to prove uh his resurrection if he didn't die. So the fact that he did die means that we've got to do something with the body, what happened. So that's a significant thing. So we don't need to prove the resurrection unless someone was truly dead. So it's not that Jesus nearly died, it's a historical fact that he did die. Okay, so now we got to do something with that. And then there's the empty tomb. And if you read the gospel accounts of the empty tomb, the first ones to arrive at the empty tomb were women, which was significant in that day because in that culture, uh, the the women weren't the best sources of of uh testimony. It wasn't even admissible in court for our common day language. You couldn't take a woman's testimony and say, see, these women saw it. They wouldn't believe it. There's evidence that they would rather believe an animal over the testimony of uh of a woman, and yet God put women there first to say, listen, if I was gonna, if I was gonna fix this, I'll put some some reputable man there. And the tomb location was known. It was a rich man's tomb. So they they they they they all knew where it was. Everybody knew where it was. It's right there. That was Jesus' tomb. Yeah, so okay, if the women were lying, since they're admission, they're not able to uh take their testimony to court, produce the body. Just put the body in the middle of Jerusalem and let everybody see it. And then all of these hundreds of people who are running around making a stir, just call them all a bunch of crazies because look, guys, there's the body. Those 500 people are are ridiculous. So this whole stolen body or the wrong tomb or the hallucination. And then you've got the eyewitness appearances, which I think this leads us to that these people did not go to a secret room and come up with this elaborate plan to deceive everybody. And then they're like, and then this is what's gonna happen. We're all gonna die. We're all gonna die for this. So they kept their story, and and and they could have gone and said, Well, we're gonna interview all hundreds of these people. Somebody's going to break rank here. And none of them did. They all went to uh the the the martyr's death, willing to hold on to the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So this whole hallucination theory fails because look, uh, they they didn't hallucinate corporately. You would think maybe one or two hallucinated individually, but hundreds of them did not hallucinate corporately, all in one trance, see something crazy, and then be willing to to die in that way. And so I just think there's a bunch of those logical proofs. And the reason I bring those up is because is because I think that's what Paul's doing here. Yeah, is Paul was saying, let's just use our brains for a second, everybody. Go ask them. Go go tell them. We need we need proof, and they'll give it to you and and threaten to kill them. No, kill them and see if they they do, and they don't. And that to me is what he's doing here. Again, not re not not delivering something new to them, but reminding them of the the life-changing, church-establishing, witness authenticating truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Anchor your faith there is what he's saying. And then let that then again later inform how you view future bodily resurrection.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

So eyewitness testimony is so powerful, especially when you can go and talk to that person, right? And that's such a beautiful point that you drew that you drew out on Sunday, as well as that we see in scripture that Paul is saying, here, look, go talk to this person, go find this person. And the idea that Jesus didn't actually die and all the theories and all different stuff is just an ignorant um understanding of Roman history. Romans were professional killers. They loved to humiliate their enemies, um, and they made sure that whatever they wanted to happen was going to happen. And they wanted Jesus dead. Um, they wanted him buried in a tomb, so much so that they put Roman guards in front of his tomb. I'm not a historian, but I don't think that it happened too often that Roman guards were placed in front of tombs um when someone was killed on the cross, right? Yep, yep. And so the the evidence after evidence after evidence, the eyewitnesses, all of those different things are just so powerful. Um, and then and the way that Paul does it to bring um uh the church back to listen, here here's another evidence, like just stacking, like you said, such a great lawyer um in in the courtroom um of this uh with such a beautiful way that he did it.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Yeah. Well, and and on this side of the new, you know, the new testament, the new covenant, this is the most proven document to ever exist. It's not it's not even close.

SPEAKER_05 30:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

So to all these points, the Roman soldiers outside of the tomb, of someone they crucified, the proven text, um, the eyewitnesses, and still like to this day, right? When we're looking at the the very first point, if I just share with someone my testimony, it is like there's why would I make this up? Like you can't even orchestrate the things that I'm talking about um that Jesus has done for us.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

I'll think this point too. People may die for something they think is true. Sure. But very rarely will somebody die for something they know is false. So they may think it's true and it is false, and they'll die for it. Yeah, but they will very rarely die for something like, yeah, that's a lie, I'm not gonna die for that. So so that make the point that they came up with this story. That was what they paid the guards to say, that they stole it and then made up the story. They stole the body and made up the story. So let's now kill them and see if they'll do it. And they didn't. It just is historically such an incredible, an incredible reality that we have to anchor ourselves and our faith into.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

So yeah, yeah. That's good. Your next uh your next point was about transformation. Um, you know, specifically Paul's. I think this is something we talked about in our small group last night. Like I would say verse 10 is all of us um if we plug our name in. But man, Paul like a was killing Christians, yeah, and God saved him and used him as the pri probably one of the second best preacher of all time.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Well, here's what's crazy go to that skeptics conversion transformation of a life. I think Paul is significant, but somewhat humorously, I think even more than that is James the brother of Jesus. Yeah. His brother. Here's what's crazy. Think about this. Jesus' brother, who doubted, initially doubted. Yeah. And John chapter 7, I think it records some of his questions and doubts, right? Like he was not necessarily an all-in originally. He became one of the prominent leaders of the church in Jerusalem and later was martyred for his faith in his brother. Right. I don't know if y'all have brothers, but that is significant, right? That's a huge thing. And I just I think that is when a brother's like, hey, he's he's real, he's he's the real thing. You know, it's like that that's what's going on here. If if not that brothers won't admit when something's authentic, it's that if something is not authentic, a brother's not gonna die for that. Yeah, but he did. And then this guy named Saul of Tarsus. I I like saying it, and I feel like back in that day when you said his name, the hair on the neck of the people listening like stood up and like, ooh, Saul of Tarsus. Yeah, like that old Lion King, you know, Mufasa. And they are if you watch that, I have kids that watched it a lot, but and they are like, ooh, I feel like that's when you say Saul of Tarsus, it's like uh, ooh, Saul of Tarsus. That guy's crazy. Don't let that guy around us. If you hear him in town, let's just stop meeting for a couple weeks. I think God's gonna be okay with that because he's coming to kill us. And the next thing you know, Saul of Tarsus shows up to a worship service and is like, I'm here to worship. And everybody's like, No, he's not. Except for one guy named Barnabas who said, Come on, Saul, I'm with you. Let's do this. It was Barnabas who believed in Saul of Tarsus, and then the transformation that began to take place in the not only the greatest skeptic, the most hostile aggressor against the people of the way. That's how they put it in Acts. Luke puts it, people of the way. He was after them. He was trying to kill the people of the way, this Jesus way, right? And he becomes then the most prominent, most prolific, the most aggressive witness on behalf of Jesus Christ. What was the difference? The difference was he met the risen savior. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

So significant. Yeah. He had nothing to gain either, right? The the path he was on as a Jewish leader was to gain so much in his culture, in his time, uh, popularity, uh, riches and wealth, status, all of that. And he traded that for a jail cell. Yep. He traded that for persecution himself. He traded this life that I think if we were to go back and look at, we'd be like, man, that was a good life. You were headed down the path to you know, make those steps on that ladder. And he traded all of that to be persecuted, to be imprisoned, to be beaten, um, all for the sake of the gospel of the resurrected Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

And to say he had nothing to gain, he also had everything to lose. His entire life, his entire fortune, his entire friend group, his entire family probably was to be lost. If he all of a sudden switches and says, I'm gonna serve this Jesus. And so it's it's so evidenced. Some people have claimed that this is just a legend that grew. You know how like legends grow. You got all of these like old sporting stories that a hundred years later are like probably so far embellished. Yeah. But here's the crazy thing about the doctrine of the resurrection is that the earliest creeds of the church included it. It wasn't something that later became a thing. It is something that from the beginning in the second century and third century included the resurrection. And so the transformation of lives, the early creeds of these guys who so crazily went after this and then died for it is so it's just so faith-strengthening that you're when you read it again and you think through this, you think, yes, yeah, that's why we do what we do. Yeah, that's why we're gonna gather next Sunday and we're gonna sing till the roof shakes.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

And we're gonna love what this means because we know he's alive, you know.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

So it's so good. I mean, when you said that yeah, he was aggressive, that Paul was aggressive, that really struck me. Cause I was like, I just thinking lately about missions quite a bit, just that the the mission is is the mission. Like we are supposed to share the gospel aggressively. Yeah. And just that we would be a church that does that, that shares it aggressively.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Sure. Um, and I think that goes to what Paul says here at the very end. He said, Um, I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. His grace towards me was not in vain, meaning that um he didn't save me for me just to like uh coast in now and be like, okay, cool, I'm on the right side now. I'm gonna coast in. He said, on the contrary, because of that grace, I worked harder than any of them. Now, again, I think we can mislabel that and be like, oh, that was Paul competing, like, well, I'm better than them, or I did more than them. And I think it wasn't that. I don't read it that way because he follows it up with, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. What he's saying is that because of the transformation and the the reality of the resurrection and and maybe just an awareness of how aggressive I was against it, I now refocused the aggression against it to aggression for it. And I worked harder than anyone, probably because Paul was admitting I I was forgiven the most. Oh Peter, man. Maybe, I mean, obviously this is not true, but maybe there's a sense in which he's like, those guys live with Jesus for several years. Like that they they should work hard, but I didn't. I'm late to the party. I realize later, after I've tried to kill all those guys, that I was wrong. And so now I am even more aggressive for the sake of the gospel. So to whom him who is forgiven much, yeah, right? That's the idea. I was forgiven so much, I want to give all that I can. So let's go back to standing in the gospel. This was Paul's way of standing in the gospel, being constantly reminded of what the gospel forgave him of and used that as the propeller of his missions. I'm never gonna forget, and he never did, all throughout the book of Acts, as his testimony is recorded, he shares it again and again and again to emphasize the reality that I was forgiven much. And so, to whom is forgiven much, right? I'm gonna go all in on this. I'm gonna live my life hard for this, and I'm not going to stop because it's worth it every, every bit of my life. That's why he's like in Acts chapter 20. I'm I death doesn't move me. Death doesn't deter me. You tell me I'm gonna go to Jerusalem and get arrested, that doesn't stop me. I just have one focus, and that is to run the course that Christ has set for me to run. And I've been forgiven much, therefore I'm gonna run with all that I've got the course that he has set for me, even if that means death and uh and martyrdom.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Yeah. And he did. Can you can you imagine after the first time of getting beaten 39 times to stand up and say, uh, yeah, this is this is the savior I'm gonna proclaim and then have it happen again. Um, I you know, just I don't know if this is right or wrong, but as my mind travels down this path, like death, instant death for Jesus, like, all right, let's do that. Yep, right. But getting beaten 39 times, I believe I'm quoting scripture right five different times in the inch, you know, to to to almost death, and then come back and say, no, this is this is the Jesus uh I I now follow. This is the Jesus I proclaim, this is the Jesus I love. Like that's hard for my mind to wrap around to say, yeah, let's do that again.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Well, and I think about um, I mean, there's so many of that. I uh one of my favorite stories is in Acts when it's Acts chapter 14. He is in um, they he was in um Lystra. He was in Lystra and he was preaching the gospel and they stoned him.

SPEAKER_04 40:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

And we're not talking like they threw pebbles at him. We're talking they threw probably softball-sized stones or bigger at him. Yeah. And they they stoned him so severely that they assumed, okay, he's dead. Right. So they're like, all right, he's dead. And they all went back into the city. Paul gets up, brushes himself off, wipes his brow of the blood that was trickling down it, and goes back into the city and preaches the gospel. Yeah.

unknown 40:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

What kind of lunatic was this guy? Yeah. Had he not met the risen savior? That's right. So life transformation is, and and then let's just take that and say, okay, put your name there. My life transformation. I have experienced the grace of God so extensively in my life through so many different ways to say that this thing, again, I know, I know, I know that that's not something that necessarily anchors somebody else's faith, but the transformation that he's made in my life is just the confirmation Jesus is alive and active. This is real, genuine. The transformation, the transforming power of the spirit is significant. And if it were not by the for the grace of God, I would not be what I am. It is only by the grace of God. Of anything that I am, it is by the grace of God. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

And it really is the only thing that we can stand firm in, is the ultimate foundation. I mean, literally, when you when you're looking at Paul and Barnabas, and Paul gets beaten, left for dead, Barnabas pulls him out. And then in Galatians, Barnabas goes with Peter and Paul confronts him. And he's like, No, you're not standing firm in this. And so Paul just was unashamed to stand firm in the truth of all that.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Well, that's Paul being the grace in Peter's life, yeah, like he was in the Corinthian life. Again, who's in your life that's willing to say, hey, wait, whoa, Dom, you're not standing in the gospel. Let's go back to gospel center thinking here. Paul says to Peter, Peter, wait, we're not, the gospel's not informing this relational interaction here that you're having with Jews and Gentiles. Let's change that. This is what the gospel says. And that was what I think the the biggest contribution Paul made to the church was to bring us back to the gospel regularly. And I think the odd God, he he makes the statement, uh, the gospel or the Christ appeared to me as one that was uh um born out of season or uh untimely born is how it puts here, that um I was not born at the right time, I should have been born earlier or or whatever. No, no, there's no untimely born birth. The salvation of Paul was according to the sovereign plan of God. And I think that is not, that's not me correcting scripture. That's just Paul speaking there, probably just, you know, as a tongue-in-cheek, maybe situation where he was making that statement. But the reality is this is that God saved him when he saved him on purpose. God called him when he called him on purpose, and that was the motivating factor, the that was the fuel on the fire of Paul's life for the gospel, so that then he became a person who centered everyone's life and focus and attention and uh and uh doctrine on the gospel. And that's what Romans and all of the epistles that Paul wrote brings us back to that again and again and again, like he did in Galatians to Peter.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

And what a grace! Like just an encouragement to anybody listening that may not be in a small group or or living in biblical community, man. Like, be intentional about finding those people that like it is such a grace that God gives us that that allows people to speak into our life, to live in community. It is unbelievable, and it is out of love, which is the greatest thing ever. These aren't people looking to out to get you, these are people that love you and that through God can pour into you and keep you on the right path. Yep. Yep. It's it's awesome. Um, as we close, I just I don't know if you want to just touch on the um truth to life, as is just like an encouragement, um, more practical stuff. And we kind of already talked about it. About one of them you were talking about being reminded, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

I I would I'll say this. I think um I don't I don't know when you're listening to this, if if it's pre-Easter Sunday. I think Easter Sunday can get a a weird packaging these days. Um, you got a couple of different views of Easter Sunday. So there are people who look at it as kind of like the Super Bowl Sunday of the church in America. Um, and we go, people go all out. There got parties and they've got Easter egg hunts and they've got, and and none of them immoral necessarily, but just all kinds of packaging that says, come to us, come to us, come to us, come to us, come celebrate with us, come whatever. Um, again, not immoral, but that has made it a little bit more of a commercialized uh gimmick, we'll call it that. Then you got the people on the other side that are like, I don't like Easter Sunday because it's just a bunch of fluff and a bunch of commercialization, and um, you know, I'm not gonna go to church because it's just full of people who don't really want to be there, they're just there because, you know, it's Easter Sunday. And um, I think those are probably ditches on both sides of the road. And I think we've got to find the balance where if there are people, here's my logic on that. If there are people who are who are willing to come to church on a day because there's a special celebration happening culturally even, then we as gospel-centered people should capitalize on that opportunity. So I want to think Acts chapter two, day of Pentecost, people gathering for a religious holiday, cultural religious holiday gathered. And that is where the Spirit of God chose to show up and allow the apostles the ability to preach the gospel to thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And it was there that he chose to start the church. So if Easter Sunday in America has just become something kind of synonymous with the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, then we should not fumble the ball on delivering the message. Therefore, we should not package it in a gimmicky way, nor should we avoid the opportunity that it affords us to deliver the goods. Deliver the goods, which is the life transformation that the gospel brings. There are people who are coming, there are people who think they're worshiping, and there are people who are coming that need to be saved. So we're inviting our neighbors and we're inviting our friends because we're confident, and I know that there are plenty of churches around our city that do this, and I'm confident that we are. We're not just trying to impress them with the gimmick, we're trying to transform them with the gospel. That's right. And so we want you to come on Sunday full of faith and prayer that God is going to do something significant, if even in one person's life, because they showed up on an Easter Sunday because it was culturally uh appropriate to do so. And God showed up in their life, the spirit of God moved, the gospel came to bear on them, and they trusted Jesus Christ as their savior. So when we talk about who in my life needs to know this message, one of the ways that you can actually respond to that truth to life question is go tell somebody, come worship with me uh on Sunday at my church, because you can be confident that here the songs are going to focus on Jesus. The message is going to be you need to trust Jesus and get saved. It's going to be the potential for the Spirit of God to move and transform a life. And then eat a donut and drink a cup of coffee or whatever it is that we have that may be uh something special. It's nothing wrong with it. It's not gimmicky, it's just uh the festivities of the day that we want to capitalize on and steward the gospel well. So come be a part of what we're doing. This is an exciting time. Um, God is at work in our church. God is at work in the church, big C church globally. God is at work in our church, this little church in Las Vegas. He's at work, and we want you to come and experience the life transformation that the gospel can bring uh by worshiping with us. So that's my conclusion, not truth to life, but just a call to let's go, you know.

SPEAKER_02 47:59

So let's go. I was so pumped. Man, Easter is such a good time, and and a good Friday is gonna be an unbelievable service as well. Yeah. Just just remembering the what the heaviness of this week and also being able to celebrate it.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Yeah, it's funny. Good Friday, again, last plug. Good Friday's uh it's kind of a nobody but us kind of service. It's everybody comes, people come, visitors come, but it's it's just we stuff into a room. The room is full. We we do that on purpose. We just we want to feel not not that we not that we mourn the death of Jesus unaware of what is coming two days later, but we we we go back in our minds to feel what the disciples felt, to remember the the brutality of the crucifixion. We never we never turn toward the resurrection on Good Friday. We focus in on the death of Jesus Christ and then we leave in silence because we want to feel the weight of what they felt and then try to, even though we know in the in the corner of our mind Sunday's coming, we want to feel it though. And then show up on Sunday morning full of expectation and excitement for the reality of the risen Savior. So come worship with us on Good Friday.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Let's go. All right, we pray us out.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Yeah, well, Father, uh, today, once again, we are um overwhelmed by the reality of the resurrection. We're gonna see on Sunday as we go through that passage that if Christ is not raised, there are some pretty, pretty severe, pretty, pretty uh depressing truths. Um, and so I'm thankful that we have tons of confidence, full of faith, not just not just blind faith, but actual um logical things that point to the fact that Jesus is alive and then full of faith for what your scripture tells us, um, that informs us that that the the faith is not in vain. The preaching is not a lie, that there is a hope that we should have that anchors our soul and our mind. And so uh thankful that that I have that hope and these brothers have that hope. And our prayer is that more people would discover that Jesus is the answer to their lostness and their death and their brokenness. And that is true because Jesus died, Jesus was buried, and Jesus rose again.

SPEAKER_03 50:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

And he not only uh took away uh the condemnation of sin, he took away the effects of that condemnation, which was death. And he proved that by rising again, that we might have hope of eternal life. And I pray that today, maybe somebody listening to this will for the first time realize Jesus is worthy of their faith. Yeah and they should place it in him. And so I just pray for that. Bless Easter, bless Good Friday. We ask you to go before us in that. May it be an incredible time of celebration and worship. And again, we love you. So grateful. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

Amen. Thanks for listening to the podcast. You can check out our latest sermon at lifebaptistchurch.com. We can't wait to see you this Sunday.