SPEAKER_00 0:00

On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early. While it was still dark, she saw the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him. At that Peter and the other disciple went out, heading for the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple overran Peter and got to the tomb first. Stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying there, yet he did not go in. Then following him, Simon Peter came also. He entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there. The wrapping that had been on the head on his head was lying with the linen cloths, but was folded up in a separate place by itself. The other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, then entered the tomb and saw and believed. For they still did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went home again. But Mary stood outside facing the tomb, crying. And as she was crying, she stooped to look into the tomb. She saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where Jesus' body had been lying. They said to her, Woman, why are you crying? Because they have taken away my Lord, she told them. And I don't know where they have put him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not know it was Jesus. Woman, Jesus said to her, Why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? Supposing he was the gardener, she replied, Sir, if you have removed him, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him away. Jesus said, Mary. Turning around, she said to him in Hebrew, Rabbinai, which means teacher. Don't cling to me, Jesus told her, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and she told them what he had said to her. In the evening of the first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together, with the doors locked because of the fear of the Jews. Then Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, Peace be with you. Having said this, he showed them his hands and his side, so the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you. Jesus performed many of many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in his name.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this story. Thank you for the profoundness of these words we've just read. Help us this morning to understand them and to learn how to embrace them and to apply them. We love you, Jesus. We pray us in your name. Amen. Good morning. How are we? It's Easter morning. It's awesome. It's exciting. And I was uh I was almost overdoing it singing that last song. So I hope I can get through this message now because I was just letting it rip. So uh thank you guys for leading us as we think about that forever our Savior is alive. That's awesome news this morning. And I want to reiterate something that Harley said. Some of you may not have been in the room. I realize not every person sitting here today uh grasp or even believes uh that Jesus is alive. Um, and we're gonna address some of that today. I realize that for some of you, uh maybe this is a tradition for your family to attend a worship service on Easter. I realize that for some of you, you are you are in a process of uh questioning, maybe wrestling with faith, maybe curious how this has to do with anything in your life personally. Wherever you find yourself today, I want you to know we're glad you're here. Uh for those of us who are Christ's followers, uh, we don't have it all figured out. We don't have it all together, uh, and we are still learning and growing. And my hope is that today uh we would walk out of this room confident in what Christ has done for us, more convinced than ever that he is alive and that his his risenness, the fact that he is alive and reigns, will impact the way we live every single day's day of our life. So um I was thinking about this idea of resurrection this week, and I just thought it would be helpful just to be honest where I am uh and just who I am personally kind of let you into my world um with a sort of random story. I'll just go ahead and confess on the front end. But uh my wife and I, when we moved to South Austin, we thought it would be cool and hip if we got chickens. Anyone uh like have chickens? So everybody in South Austin, we kept hearing people say, Oh, well, we got chickens, we got chickens. So um I think there's probably some people in my neighborhood uh that probably know we have chickens, and so they're probably like, yeah, we know you have chickens. Um but we decided to get chickens, and it's been an interesting journey because I'm a terrible chicken farmer. Um I don't really know what I'm doing, and we're kind of learning as we go. But uh it was about only about a month ago, uh, and we were in our beds asleep, and I heard this loud noise, like something was happening to the chickens, and I heard some banging and I heard some squawking, and so uh I did what every brave man does. I said, JD, you should go check. Um, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Uh but I basically we got up out of bed and uh we walked out there and I had my my phone light and I'm like shining around, like what's going on? What's happening out here? And and sure enough, like I hear this flapping and squawking, and and I kind of shined my light, and on top of their little uh uh their little hen house, this one chicken, this one hen had gotten flipped over and hung upside down inside of uh the behind the pen and was just going nuts. And so I did what I thought was a smart idea. I just moved the pen a little bit and boom, the chicken falls down right on its head, and he just motionless. Yeah. So we're all feeling sorry for the chicken now, right? It woke me up in the middle of the night. I did say that, right? I was sleeping really good until he did that. I'm not sure how he got there. So, bottom line is now this chicken is laying on the ground. I'm like, look, I'll come back out here in the morning, I'll mess with this chicken later. I'm not gonna go deal with this right now. So we go back to bed now that we're fully awake because of this silly chicken. And we get up the next morning. It was actually a Sunday morning, and so I didn't go out and interact with the chickens, but my wife had gone out to feed the chickens, and sure enough, the chicken's just laying there stiff and dead. So she's like, oh great, you know, it, I guess that's it. She doesn't want to mess with it, she's gonna let me do it with it when I get home. So we go to our church gathering here at Point, and we get home that afternoon, and I have to take the trash out, and well, our trash bin is in the chicken pen, and I walk out there and I take the trash bin, uh, this trash, and I stick it in the bin, and I look up, and all of our chickens are standing there. And I'm like, wait, didn't that chicken die? But here's this chicken, and he's just kind of stumbling around in the chicken yard. He resurrected. I'm just telling you. Like, I don't know. Good God was trying to say to me in that, but this chicken is stumbling around in our chicken yard. Resurrected chicken. Okay, so sadly he died four days later. But anyway, that's all my point is is uh, you know, maybe I'm guessing none of us in this room have experienced resurrection personally like that. Uh no, in somebody, a human being. But this morning we are going to talk about the resurrection because it's Easter. And what better message to talk about than resurrection? So, Ben has already read for us a great text from John chapter 20, and I want to give just some observations this morning from John chapter 20. But before I get there, I want to remind us this morning that the resurrection and the cross are so incredibly important. In fact, we would say it this way if you've got a worship guide with you this morning, you can follow along with us there. You can take some notes there. But the cross and the resurrection are the two most important works of Jesus, and together they form the central message of the Christian faith. Okay? And so when we think about what is it that we believe as Christians, as Christ followers, and again, not everyone in this room is a Christ follower, I'm guessing. I'm guessing some of you are just exploring faith. But wherever you are, I want you to know that the central message to the Christian faith is actually not about what man has done, but what God has done. And specifically what God has done through Jesus and him coming as a man to the earth, living a sinless life, dying on a horrific cross, which we celebrated, uh, which I know sounds weird to say celebrate, but we really reflected on, remembered, and celebrated the impact of the cross on Friday. And now this morning we are here on Easter Sunday morning celebrating the resurrection. And these two works of Jesus, these two acts, are the most important things that he did while he was on the earth, because by his death he paid our penalty, and by his life and his resurrection, he broke the power of sin once and for all. He defeated our greatest enemy, death, and that's good news this morning. That's why we call the gospel message, the central message of our faith, good news. Because Jesus died, but he didn't stay dead, he rose again. Are you with me? So this morning, as we think about that, we realize that the cross is our victory and the resurrection is our triumph. And we need both of those things together to live in light of what God has called us to live and how he's called us to live, what he's called us to do with our lives. So let's be honest this morning, though. I want to be completely candid with you. Uh, this whole resurrection thing, it brings us to a crossroad of faith. Uh, you guys ever been in a crossroad in decision making in your life? I'm sure all of us have, right? Uh you have decisions that you make about uh are you gonna get married or not? Who are you gonna get who are you gonna marry? Uh if you went to college, where are you gonna go to college? That's a sometimes a crossroad moment. You have to make a decision. What about what profession uh you're going to work in for your with your life? And then once you actually get uh the education you need and you've determined that profession, what about which job to take and where do you live and and how many kids do you have? Do you have kids? All those things. You have decisions that you have to make in life, don't you? Or for me, like when I go to Chewy's, it's a question of am I gonna get the Southwest ensiladas or the chickaboom boom, okay? That's where I am. That's my crossroad moment, all right? Or this morning, sadly, when I dropped my phone in the toilet, do I grab it or not? Okay. Um that was a crossroad moment for me. What do you think? Matt's saying no. I I went for it, guys, so don't shake my hand today. I had to I had to go. I couldn't, I couldn't let it swim in there, okay? Here's the thing we have crossroad moments in our lives, and I want you to know that the resurrection brings us to a crossroad moment. It brings us to a moment where we have to decide do I believe in the resurrection or do I not believe in the resurrection? Do I believe that Jesus actually is alive or not? And maybe you're thinking, well, why? Because here's the thing the resurrection is a historical event. It's a historical event that's recorded, and we know that if the resurrection happened, there are some implications, massive implications for our lives. You know, you think about it. If if Christ didn't come out of the grave, if he didn't rise, we shouldn't be here this morning. I mean, honestly, we have believed a lie. Uh, we have bought into some just sort of farce, some sort of legend, and we really should just go home. I know that may sound kind of, you know, like harsh or dramatic, but it's really not. It's the truth. If if Christ is not alive, then obviously there's no reason for us to sit in this room, sing songs about him, talk about him, and act like we've got some sort of cool message to talk to discuss. Because we really don't. At the end of the day, it's game over, we're done. But this is significant because if Christ has come out of the grave, and we're gonna come back to this in a minute, if he is resurrected, if on that Sunday morning when they showed up, the tomb was empty, which I believe it was, if it was, then that means that we have to seriously take to heart every other scripture in this thing we call the Bible. We have to seriously consider it, we have to weigh through it. Whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not, we have to consider it because the resurrection speaks into all of humanity that God is real and that he is powerful, and he can raise people from the dead. But let's be honest this morning. Let's be really honest. The resurrection can cause confusion. In John chapter 20, we see Mary showing up early in the morning, right? It's still dark outside. She walks up to this tomb. I'm sure she could just see sort of this black outline of a tomb, and the stone is removed. And in that moment, under this sort of cloud of darkness, she recognizes that something is not right. And we would we would know, of course, because we've got the the advantage of being able to look back and see that clearly the stone had been rolled away, clearly something had happened to Jesus' body, but in that moment she is completely confused. In fact, she's so confused, she runs back to the disciples and she says, Look, somebody has taken his body. And then the disciples show up on the scene, which I, by the way, I love. It says in there, John wrote this chapter that we just read, and it says that Peter and John, two of Jesus' best buddies, closest friends, they were the ones who were right there alongside of him in the Garden of Gethsemane. They were with him when he was healing the sick, when he was raising Lazarus from the grave. They saw all these miracles, right? And here they are. They run because they want to see it for themselves. And I love how John says, and the other disciple, obviously referring to himself, outrun outran Peter. Right? He just had to throw that in for us because he's a man, he's competitive. So he just says he's a little faster than Peter. Um, but he they get to the grave, and when John gets there, he's a little afraid to go in. Guess who's not afraid to go in? Peter, because throughout his entire life, he was always willing to take a risk, step, take a step of faith. He's the one that got out of the boat when Jesus was walking on the water. He was the one who piped up and said, You're the Messiah, Son of the Living God. He made a declaration when Jesus said, Who do you say that I am? So we see this pattern in Peter's life. He's not afraid. And so he walks right on into the tomb and he starts looking around. And what does he see there? Well, he sees grave clothes that are just lying there with no body in them, and he sees the head wrapping, which is a very interesting detail that John adds, because it says that the head the head wrapping was not with the rest of the garments, and it was nice and neatly folded. I got a feeling, just as a side note here, that if Jesus had been taken or if he was like in a hurry, something, he wouldn't have stopped and like folded this thing up, put it there. I mean, it's there. It's a good little tidbit that reminds us again of the significance of all the different pieces of these eyewitness accounts that point us to the reality of the resurrection. But what we notice in this is that both Mary and the disciples struggle with some confusion. It even goes on to say there in the text that they didn't quite fully get that that Jesus had to be resurrected on the third day, according to the scriptures. The scriptures weren't fully embedded into them to the degree that they really embraced it. Now that's encouraging to me because let's be honest, these guys walked with him for three years. They heard him teach, they heard him talk about who he was and what he was going to do, and yet they still struggled. Anybody else struggle with confusion and doubt? Anybody else struggle sometimes to really believe that this happened? You see, part of being human is confusion. Part of being human is doubt. Part of being human is not fully understanding and comprehending because we have a limited perspective. You see, the resurrection was a historical fact, but it was also supernatural. And all of us love and want the supernatural. I mean, that's why probably some of you in this room went to go see Superman, Batman this weekend, right? You guys went and saw it? No? Okay. All right. And we like superheroes, we like supernatural, we like these different ways. But honestly, wrapping our brains around the supernatural reality of the resurrection is something that's very difficult. It's very challenging to us. Our rational minds start to come up with all these reasons why it cannot be true, why it cannot be right, why we cannot believe that it actually happened. And so there is incredible confusion. And even with all this confusion, I believe that we can examine the resurrection seriously, and we can actually find confidence. Because the resurrection for me, over the course of my life, and I grew up in the church and I heard all of the answers and I heard people teach about it, and I almost got to the point where I was sort of just numb to it. You know what I'm talking about? Some of us in this room have heard it, and it's like we're just numb to it. I grew up a church brat, and I heard it so many times that at some level I just kind of didn't take it serious. But as I began to wrestle with my beliefs and as I began to think about what do I really believe about all this, I came to a point where I said, God, I need to believe and be convinced that the resurrection happened. Would you help me with that? And God began to help my heart see the evidences that were laying there. Just like that head wrap that was nice and neatly folded. There were these clues that pointed us to a resurrected Jesus. And I believe that the resurrection actually can and will even today produce confidence in the life of a believer when we take it seriously and explore it and its depths. I can't give you all of the reasons today that I've personally evaluated and explored, but I just want to give you a few. Can I do that? Because I think we need those today. Here are some of those evidences. Notice that the writer in the story doesn't try to glamorize it. Notice that if you were really trying to make a case that this happened, you probably wouldn't say that his closest followers doubted him or were confused, right? You would probably paint a picture that was much cleaner, it was much more uh just obvious that even his followers were like, Yeah, he did it. They never questioned. That's not what happened. In fact, we even know later in this chapter, and and Ben didn't read this section for the sake of time today, but Thomas, one of Jesus' disciples, he literally was doubting it even after other disciples had come and said, We've seen a resurrected Jesus, he's still doubting, and as he's in the upper room, he's there and he says, I really need to see some evidence. And he sees these wounds on Jesus' wrists, and he sees this wound in his side, and he says, It really is you. And this doubting Thomas becomes completely convinced of a resurrected Savior. That story's in there to remind us this is an eyewitness account from the Apostle John. He wasn't trying to glamorize it, he wasn't trying to clean it up, he wasn't trying to filter it, just like the rest of the Bible, by the way. Sometimes we read the Bible and we try to give it this nice, pretty picture, but people are messed up. Humanity is messed up. And so we see some of these things happening in the story. The other thing that you notice really quickly early in this is that one of the primary witnesses is a woman. Mary Magdalene is one of the first to show up to the tomb and see it. Now, you guys may think that's no big deal because culturally we value women at a much higher level than that culture did. In that day and time, women were property, and in the court of law, if they were called, they wouldn't ever have been called to be a witness because they could not be considered a credible witness. And yet, in the resurrection account, one of the primary witnesses of the resurrection is who? A woman. In fact, more than one woman in the story. And so we see God using even some of this, these, these details to point us to confidence in the story. Historically, we know that many other messianic movements arose around the same time as Christ, so slightly before and slightly after. None of those movements still exist. You want to know why? Because when their leader died, the movement died. But with our faith in Christ, with the resurrection, we see that not only did the movement make it, but it thrived. And that's why there are millions, listen, millions, billions of Christians who've come from that ripple effect of the resurrection Sunday morning. We are here because Jesus is alive. Now you think that these jokers who abandoned Jesus while he was in the midst of his difficult circumstances, going to the cross, standing trial before the Jews, standing trial before the Romans, and they leave him and they say, We don't want to have anything to do with this, we are scared, we're fearful, we're gonna get crucified. You think those same guys didn't see a resurrected Jesus that caused them to be so emboldened that they were willing to go out into the public square in Jerusalem just 50 days later and proclaim the gospel message and saying, We don't care what you do to us, you can beat us, you can throw us in jail, you can kill us for all we care because we know we saw a resurrected Jesus, and you're not gonna shut us up. That's pretty awesome stuff, isn't it? You see, because here's the thing Jesus was alive, he is alive, and that resurrected Jesus was seen by many witnesses. In fact, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul says. Says, I'm going to tell you about what's most important. What's most important is that Jesus died, that he was risen from the grave, that he was resurrected. And then he goes on to say that God allowed Jesus to, while in that short window of time he was here, for those 40 days he was here, he appeared to many, many people. In fact, somewhere around 500 people. At any point in time, had one of those apostles stood up and said something that was not true. There were plenty of people who could have said, nope, we didn't see him. No, that really didn't happen. But did they? No. And I know some of you are saying, well, you weren't there. How can you know? That's called chronological snobbery, by the way. That's where we think we have a better view because we're here in 2016. Because we live in the United States, we've got an iPhone and we've got the Google, then we then therefore know everything, right? I want you to know that historically this has been passed down through oral tradition and through written tradition. And you can take it to the bank. Jesus Christ came out of the grave and his followers proved it. What about the culture in which the resurrection took place? What about all these amazing philosophers who shaped the world in which we live today, who shaped much of our thinking? In fact, there are many people who still look to those Greek philosophers today, and yet in a matter of years, that entire system was flipped on its head and became Christ followers. Why? Because the resurrected Jesus. Because the Holy Spirit gave testimony to that. He emboldened these guys who were these fishermen and just average Joes to go out and proclaim a message that seemed absolutely ridiculous but was completely true. They tried to shut him up. They tried to shut them up, and they couldn't do it. Because Jesus is alive. He is resurrected. I could go on, but just know this. According to the laws of legal legal evidence, this is a quote from a guy who's a Harvard law professor, because that's what we need, right? According to the laws of legal evidence used in courts of law, there is more evidence for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for just about any other event in history. We can have confidence today that our Jesus is alive. But also because he is alive, the resurrection moves us to celebration. It moves us to celebration. The reason I'm so excited about being here this morning, and this is the reason why I come every week excited to sing songs about Jesus and to talk about him is because man, he's alive and he's changed everything. Not just for people out there, but in my own heart. He has changed everything. We can celebrate that today. You notice what happens in the storyline. When Jesus shows up in the upper room, the disciples are there and they are freaked out. I mean, again, there's no glamour, there's no like trying to like make it a cleaner story. They are freaked out. They're in this upper room, they're shaking in their boots, and in comes Jesus into the room, and now they're really freaked out because they think they're seeing a ghost. And he says, peace be to you. In fact, he says it twice, because I think they needed to hear it twice. Peace be to you. But when they saw him, when they observed his hands and feet, when they observed his wounded body and they realized it was him, what did they do? They rejoiced. They rejoiced at a resurrected Jesus. They rejoiced. Why? Because everything that they had been hearing from him, everything that he had been teaching, everything that he had been saying about him as the Messiah, even though they completely missed it and thought he was going to be coming in like to be a political leader, to set up his own kingdom, to get on the throne, and kicked out the Romans, even though they missed all, they realized in a moment that the light bulb came on. He is the Messiah. He is the only one who could be killed and then resurrected and can actually save humanity from our sin, from our rebellion. And so we celebrate that. We celebrate because the resurrection validates the promises of God. It validates them. You guys ever seen those stamps they stamp when something has been paid? Paid in full, right? You see that stamp? That's what the resurrection does, it says paid in full. It's done. It's done. I said it earlier, I'll say it again. If Jesus had just died, what a sad day. What a sad moment. That's the end. He'd have been just like every other messianic figure that had come along, made some crazy claims, and then they just, you know, killed him, or they died. And then they moved on. But Jesus isn't dead. And because he's not dead, there are promises. You remember way back in the Garden of Eden, when mankind rebelled against God, in Genesis chapter 3, it says that one day God would send someone who would crush the serpent, who would bring healing and restoration and redemption. All the way back in the very beginning of the Bible, the first book of the Bible. And at the resurrection, we're reminded that he fulfilled his promise. We see in the Old Testament stories where God makes covenants with people and he says, I'm going to send one who's going to rescue you, who's going to be the king forever, not just for a little while, but forever. And at the resurrection, he's stepping on it saying, I keep my promises. And it's not just simply that he sent Jesus and that he even crushed Jesus for our sin, but that he raised him from the dead. He is powerful enough to keep his promises for all time. We can celebrate today. Listen, we can celebrate that God has redeemed humanity. We can celebrate that God is establishing his kingdom. We can celebrate that one day we will be with him forever. We can celebrate that God is good, that he is powerful, that he is awesome, that he is mighty. We can celebrate that today because of the resurrection. That's good. You know, let's bring this home. I mean, seriously, think about this. Every one of us in here has experienced incredible hurts and incredible pains. Every one of us has gone through hardships. We've lost loved ones. We have gone through sickness. We've lost jobs. We've gone through difficulties where our expectations were not met. We got married to people that treated us like trash, and we ended up going through divorce. We see we see homes divided. We see abuse. We see all kinds of issues, right, in our world. Where's the hope? Where's the hope in all that? Let me tell you where the hope is. Jesus rose from the grave. So one day he's going to come back and he's going to fix all that stuff. One day he's going to come back and he is going to raise us up. And we are not going to have to live in that suffering and that pain and all the brokenness that we are dealing with today. You see, the resurrection does matter for us personally. It reminds us that God can redeem anything. Even the worst, most difficult pains in our life, he can redeem it. I want you to notice one last thing from the story that we read today. Towards the very end, he was with them in the upper room. They saw him, they rejoiced. And it says that in the text, once he said, Peace be with you, he said, I, just as I have been sent by the Father, now I send you. You see, that the resurrection informs our calling. It informs and gives us commission, a mission to live out. If you're a Christ follower, the resurrection is our message. To take to the world that we get to share that Jesus Christ died for people's sins, but that he is alive again. When you look at the New Testament, the book of Acts, I don't know how many of you are familiar with that book. If you read that, it's all about the church being birthed and starting and all the apostles. When you notice their preaching, one thing that they consistently come back to is that Jesus Christ was risen from the grave. It's a key component of their story, of their message. And I want us to understand today that God has a purpose and a plan for us with our lives if we're Christ followers. It's not to keep that message to ourselves, but to take it. You notice what happened with Mary? Whenever she realized it was resurrected, that Jesus was resurrected, what'd she do? She went and told the disciples. What happened when the disciples realized that he wasn't there and he was resurrected? They went and told other people. You see, that's what happens is when you've actually encountered a resurrected Jesus, you tell other people. It's a natural byproduct. And next week, actually here at Point, we're going to talk about what's next. What's beyond the resurrection? What do we do with this? Where do we go with this? And I think it's going to be a significant Sunday for us because we have a motivation that if Christ came out of the grave, we have a message to share, to declare. But I want you to know that the Christian faith hinges on the reality of the resurrection. The Christian faith hinges on the reality of the resurrection. Alex quoted from this earlier from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 12 through 14, and it says this. And if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is without foundation, and so is your faith. Let's go home, right? But he has been raised, and we do have a foundation, and we do have a message, and we do have a reality that our salvation is real. Yes, the resurrection causes some problems for us. In fact, all of Scripture causes some problems for us. When I talk to people who are atheists, I talk to people who are agnostic, people who don't believe in the faith that uh that we proclaim from the scripture, God's word, the Bible. Uh I hear people say things, well, like, how can I possibly believe that God just spoke the world into existence? You ever been there? I've heard people say, well, how could Noah build a boat and then God bring rain and they're the only people that survive? Like, that's just a crazy story. Or hear people say, well, you know, how how can God close the mouths of lions while Daniel's down there in the lion's den? How could God do something like that? That's just, that's just that's unrealistic. He can't possibly do that kind of stuff. What about the Exodus? I mean, God couldn't really like take the people of Israel across a Red Sea. I mean, could Jesus, could God really like do that? Like, that's got to be some sort of just sort of symbolic story. I hear this from people all the time. And here's what I say to all those things. If Christ came out of the grave, all the rest of that's plausible. And so don't get sidetracked by all the rest of the narrative. Go to the resurrection. Figure out what you believe about it. Press into what you believe about it, because that is the crux of our faith. If Christ came out of the grave, I can take everything else serious. I can believe it. What about the fact that the Bible asks me to do things I don't like to do? What about the fact that the Bible seems to be calling me to live in certain ways that I don't always want to live in? Like giving my resources to others, living for the things for eternity. What about that stuff? Listen, if Christ came out of the grave, I gotta take that stuff serious. Yes, it's gonna be a process. Yes, it's gonna be hard. Yes, I'm gonna need community. Yes, I'm gonna need the help of the Holy Spirit who God gives. But if Christ came out of the grave, that stuff matters, and that's stuff that we can work through. Earlier I said that the resurrection brings us to a crossroad. I genuinely believe that the Bible teaches that what we believe about the resurrection is a life or death matter. In fact, the last verse that Ben read, he said, Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in his name. Romans 10, 9 says this if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. No manipulation, no emotionally trying to work us up this morning. Here's the gospel, plain and simple. God created you, he created me, created humanity. We rebelled against God. We said, God, we want to live our way, we want to be at the center. God pursued us in the person of Jesus and ultimately sending Jesus to a cross to pay the penalty that we should pay. And then he raised Jesus from the grave to say, This is true, you can bank on it, you can know that I am alive and that I am powerful and I can save anyone. He says to us this morning that if we by faith will just simply say, I believe that he will come into our lives and he will change us, he will transform us, he will make us new, he will forgive us, he will redeem us, and he will give us a forever home with him. That's what the scripture says. And that's what I want for every one of us in this room today to experience. The reason why I love proclaiming the resurrection is because I'm confident that God can change the hardest heart. If he can bring Jesus out of the grave, he can soften anyone. If he can bring Jesus out of the grave, he can save people just like me. I'm thankful for that today. Let's pray.