SPEAKER_00: It's good to have everybody online with us and welcome all of our campuses.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a guest that has come back from Easter at any of our campuses, I want to say welcome.
SPEAKER_00: My name's Sean.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the lead pastor here.
SPEAKER_00: And we are super excited that you're here.
SPEAKER_00: And we'd love to be able to help with anything you need and just trying to connect with this place.
SPEAKER_00: I I do want to do two things before we get into the message.
SPEAKER_00: Um, real quickly, first, I want to give you a little bit of information, and then I also want to give a little bit of celebration together after Easter.
SPEAKER_00: And so information is just quickly this.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you are a person who calls Central Home and you give um on a recurring basis around here, first of all, I want to say thank you, but I also want to let you know that we're changing our giving platform.
SPEAKER_00: Why does that matter?
SPEAKER_00: Well, when you give recur in a recurring way through your bank, it is going to affect you.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're a person who gives intentionally, consistently across our campuses, I want to say thanks, but be watching for an email because that's just going to give you the information that you need to just update your information on the new platform.
SPEAKER_00: It takes no time at all.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to get an email in the next week, and just do that for us would be fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you give on a recurring basis with your credit card, don't worry because simple donation, the new platform, just transfers you right over.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that you have to do.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So we just got that down in 27 seconds.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: So now let's go to the uh celebration.
SPEAKER_00: Man, last week was Easter.
SPEAKER_00: It was incredible, packed out across all of our campuses.
SPEAKER_00: We had over 11,000 people that showed up.
SPEAKER_00: Super excited about that.
SPEAKER_00: That was great.
SPEAKER_00: Um, give a little shout out to our Tempe campus.
SPEAKER_00: Man, Timpe had was up 20% over last Easter.
SPEAKER_00: That was super cool.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to say we're grateful to them and all of our campuses.
SPEAKER_00: Just um incredible growth was super cool.
SPEAKER_00: But the other thing that was great is we gave people an opportunity to accept Jesus, and then we asked them to text in if they would like more information about next steps.
SPEAKER_00: We had 363 people text in.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're one of those, man, we just so thankful and want to help, and uh that was super cool.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing, and one of the biggest things, we've been talking about this um partnership with Missions of Hope International and the offering that we were doing over Easter.
SPEAKER_00: We had a goal of$300,000.
SPEAKER_00: You may have seen the email, but we didn't make$300,000.
SPEAKER_00: We made$441,000.
SPEAKER_00: So I was so grateful.
SPEAKER_00: And on behalf of all the kids, all our partners at uh Mohi, um, they say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: And then I do want to remind you too that every dime, like every cent of that gift, those gifts go straight to those kids.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll be excited to show some pictures in the future when the construction starts to happen and all that, it's gonna be a great thing to celebrate together.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to get to 1 Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_00: We're diving into a new series today, and it's called What's the Deal with?
SPEAKER_00: And the reason we're doing this series is because there's some things in life that you just kind of ask yourself, what's the deal with that?
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of things, like in this day of AI and everything else.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're just like, What's the deal with that?
SPEAKER_00: Is that actually real?
SPEAKER_00: Now, interesting news story that is real.
SPEAKER_00: Um, this last week, we had the Artemis II expedition, the space um travel that came back, landed on Friday.
SPEAKER_00: Super exciting.
SPEAKER_00: And that trip, if you followed it, I mean, just incredible.
SPEAKER_00: We had four astronauts, is really neat with that.
SPEAKER_00: Four astronauts, the first woman and the first person of color that were on a lunar mission.
SPEAKER_00: They went around the moon, went further than any human beings have ever gone away from the Earth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now this Artemis mission is part of the Artemis program that is setting up for, you know, seeing and making sure we can safely go into deep space exploration.
SPEAKER_00: And really, Artemis II is setting up for Artemis III, where we're gonna touch down on the moon and put a person on the moon for the first time since 1972.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's where the question comes in.
SPEAKER_00: So I was sitting there this last week, got all the news going on in this, and all of a sudden I'm looking at my Instagram reels, I'm looking at some things, and all of a sudden, these all of these questions keep coming, these videos keep coming up about the moon landing.
SPEAKER_00: What's the deal with the moon landing?
SPEAKER_00: Did it actually happen?
SPEAKER_00: You know, the conspiracy theory, like it's one of the biggest conspiracy theories of all time.
SPEAKER_00: Did they actually land on the moon, or did they just film it in some warehouse somewhere and try to win, you know, win the space race in that?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you watched the movie with Channing Tatum and Scarlet Johanneson a couple years ago, fly me to the moon.
SPEAKER_00: It was all about that.
SPEAKER_00: Like, did we actually land on the moon when Neil Armstrong stepped off and said, one stall small step for man, one giant leaf for mankind, did it happen?
SPEAKER_00: Did it actually happen?
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting is you can take two people and you can give them the same evidence, you can give them the same footage, and one person will be like, Yeah, it happened.
SPEAKER_00: Like there's all kinds of evidence.
SPEAKER_00: And then the other person will be like, uh, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I kind of doubt it.
SPEAKER_00: If you ask Americans across the board, they've surveyed them.
SPEAKER_00: One out of every 10 Americans believe it did not happen.
SPEAKER_00: 10% of Americans believe that we did not actually land upon the moon.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the question is for you how do you know?
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're doing this series.
SPEAKER_00: Not about the moon landing, but we're doing this series because there are some big controversial questions.
SPEAKER_00: There are some big conspiracy theories about some big time issues in our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Like, for instance, we asked the question, what's the deal with the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you know it's true?
SPEAKER_00: How do you know it's reliable?
SPEAKER_00: How do you know it's not just something that was that some people sat down and just began to write out and it just developed over time?
SPEAKER_00: How do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm really excited about that one because next week we've got a guy named Shane Wood.
SPEAKER_00: He spoke last summer, everybody loved him.
SPEAKER_00: Shane is a nationally known speaker, author, writer, professor, and he's gonna come in and he's gonna actually tackle this issue for the next two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: So the next two weeks, he's gonna come in and say, Hey, here's the evidence.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you can know that your Bible's actually reliable.
SPEAKER_00: And I would encourage you to be here.
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you to invite somebody, and I would encourage you to bring your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Like if we're gonna talk about the Bible, let's bring your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have a Bible, just download the Bible app and uh be here because I think that's gonna be a fantastic opportunity just to ask that question.
SPEAKER_00: Now, today we're gonna jump into another question that is a bigger question than that.
SPEAKER_00: It's a more important question than is the Bible reliable?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna ask the question, what's the deal with the resurrection of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Which seems a little interesting because last week was resurrection day, it was Easter, and now we're talking about the resurrection again.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll give you a little disclaimer.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we talked about the heart side of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: We gave people an opportunity to accept Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But let me ask you this: you can be fired up about how Jesus forgave your sins, that he died on the cross and rose for the dead for you.
SPEAKER_00: But does any of that matter if it didn't actually happen?
SPEAKER_00: And how do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you like this is the big this is even bigger than the Bible because the Bible is written all to get to this moment in history where Jesus died and he rose again.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus didn't raise again, if he just died and he didn't rise, then Christianity crumbles.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you go to Lifeway Research and you see the studies that they've done across our country last year, you will find that 35% of Americans believe that the resurrection did not happen.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you go to 18 to 34-year-olds, younger people, you'll find that 42% of younger people do not believe that the resurrection happened.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the kicker, and these go together.
SPEAKER_00: 49%, 49% of Americans believe that Jesus was a great teacher and a great man, but he was not God.
SPEAKER_00: Why does that matter?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it matters because dead people don't come from the back from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Like dead people don't just rise.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I haven't seen any resurrections lately.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone else?
SPEAKER_00: But if somebody did and they claimed to do so before they died, that they would, and then they actually rose from the dead, that's a pretty big claim.
SPEAKER_00: And it gives credibility to that last statistic.
SPEAKER_00: The most important of all, is Jesus really God?
SPEAKER_00: And the resurrection, if it is true, is the exclamation point on that.
SPEAKER_00: I love what this Yale professor said, and I think it captures the perspective of this whole issue and this whole controversy of did it actually happen.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if Christ is not risen, nothing else matters.
SPEAKER_00: But if Christ is risen, nothing else matters.
SPEAKER_00: But the question for you today is if I believe it, how do I know it's true?
SPEAKER_00: I was sitting with my 20-year-old, she's 20 now, she was younger then, it was a couple years back, and I was getting ready to preach on this topic, and I just said, Maddie, what what would you say?
SPEAKER_00: I how would you describe the evidence for the resurrection?
SPEAKER_00: What's the deal with the resurrection?
SPEAKER_00: If somebody asked you what evidence you have, what would you say?
SPEAKER_00: And she looked at me and she actually gave one piece, one thing that I thought, man, that's actually really good.
SPEAKER_00: But then she looked at me and she said, Well, what would you say?
SPEAKER_00: Like classic, you know, deflect, put it back on dad.
SPEAKER_00: But I could tell she wasn't just reflecting, she she was actually curious, like, dad, what's the evidence that this really happened?
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you.
SPEAKER_00: If somebody sat down with you and had a conversation and was said, How do you know it's true?
SPEAKER_00: What's the deal with resurrection?
SPEAKER_00: What's the actual evidence?
SPEAKER_00: What would you say?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might sit there and you would say, I doubt it.
SPEAKER_00: Like I actually don't know if I believe it.
SPEAKER_00: I think I like Jesus' teachings and I like the connection I have with the community in church, but I don't know if I really believe that he was God and that he rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you, if you doubt it, I would encourage you to question your doubts.
SPEAKER_00: Because the only way you can be intellectually accurate is to actually take, you can't just say, Well, I doubt it, I don't think it happened, but never actually look at the evidence.
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you to doubt your doubts and kind of wrestle with it.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're a Christian, some of you might sit here today and say, Well, I man, I believe it, but I couldn't give you any evidence.
SPEAKER_00: That would mean that you have a blind faith.
SPEAKER_00: And God did not intend for us to have a blind faith, He intended for us to have an informed faith.
SPEAKER_00: And what if I told you that there was evidence where you could actually have an informed faith to say, I believe it, and here's why I believe it.
SPEAKER_00: About 10 years ago, at my last church, there was a guy that came, we had him as a guest speaker.
SPEAKER_00: His name was Lee Strobel.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may know that name.
SPEAKER_00: Lee Strobel's a famous author.
SPEAKER_00: He's written, if you have questions about the Bible and Christianity, you should check out his books.
SPEAKER_00: He stood on the stage and he began to tell his story.
SPEAKER_00: It was very interesting.
SPEAKER_00: He he started talking about years before he came and spoke at our church, he talked about how he was the lead investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
SPEAKER_00: And so he would do all kinds of investigative stories and he was talking about different kinds of stories that he would do.
SPEAKER_00: And he's very, he'd won some awards.
SPEAKER_00: He was an excellent journalist.
SPEAKER_00: He says that he was, at that time, he was an atheist, and his wife developed a friendship.
SPEAKER_00: She was not a Christian either.
SPEAKER_00: She developed a friendship with a lady there in town in Chicago, and the lady invited her to come to church.
SPEAKER_00: And so she started going, and it was for community at the beginning, a connection, but then she started being really curious.
SPEAKER_00: And then she went to a women's Bible study and began to study.
SPEAKER_00: She came home one day.
SPEAKER_00: They're sitting at lunch after church.
SPEAKER_00: Lee never went with her.
SPEAKER_00: He's like adamantly against.
SPEAKER_00: He sat down and she declares to him, she says, Lee, I've decided to become a follower of Jesus and I got baptized today.
SPEAKER_00: And Lee said his immediate thought was, Great.
SPEAKER_00: My wife just joined a cult, you know, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: And then he went on to tell this story about how he decided, like, I can't let my, I can't, this thing's not true.
SPEAKER_00: How could I allow my wife?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm this investigative journalist, here's what I'll do.
SPEAKER_00: I'll go disprove Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: So he set aside a weekend, which I thought was really hilarious.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I thought what's it gonna take?
SPEAKER_00: A weekend, you know, I'll just use my investigative skills.
SPEAKER_00: He sits down and he takes a weekend and starts studying and realizes that this question is a whole lot bigger than he thought.
SPEAKER_00: And so he went on a journey and it ended up being a two-year journey.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, a two-year journey where he went and just did what he would do with the Chicago Tribune.
SPEAKER_00: He went and he began to investigate and talk to scholars and historians and professors and I mean just scientists, everyone you could talk to, read books, had in-person interviews, went to the best of the best on both sides and began to ask all these questions.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes back at the end and decides I don't think I can disprove Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: I think what I should do is just become a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And he gave his life to Christ because of the evidence, the overwhelming evidence.
SPEAKER_00: And he stood on that stage.
SPEAKER_00: It was the weekend after Easter, just like it is today.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Last week you talked about the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you made decisions and were baptized and gave your lives to Christ, but do you know why you believe it's actually true?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Let me give you, in summary, four words that start with the letter E, and let me help you understand how you can have an informed faith.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want us to do today.
SPEAKER_00: I want us just to take a little bit of time, and I'm gonna take the next 20 minutes, and I just want to share with you what you would find in one of Lee Strogel's books, the case for Christ or the case for for faith, what you'll find in his books of just these four E's that are evidence for the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Here they are.
SPEAKER_00: First E is execution, then early, then empty, and then eyewitnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, let's do this together.
SPEAKER_00: Commit this to memory.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say it together, all of our campuses on three.
SPEAKER_00: One, two, three.
SPEAKER_00: Execution, early, empty, eyewitnesses.
SPEAKER_00: All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Let's jump in.
SPEAKER_00: Execution.
SPEAKER_00: We all know there was an execution.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's not even debated in history.
SPEAKER_00: You go back into history, what you look at, you see on Friday, Jesus was crucified on a cross, and that's documented.
SPEAKER_00: It's out there.
SPEAKER_00: Like people, that everyone would agree there was an execution.
SPEAKER_00: But what some people don't agree with, some historical critics, is they don't believe there was a death.
SPEAKER_00: Which would seem obvious.
SPEAKER_00: If you have an execution, you're gonna have a death.
SPEAKER_00: But there are some historical critics that just say, no, actually, Jesus didn't die.
SPEAKER_00: Like actually, he just passed out.
SPEAKER_00: Now that would be pretty incredible for Jesus to go through the beating that he took, the whipping with a cat of ninetails, which most people didn't make it past that to the cross, then to be hung on a cross and crucified, then to at the end of that have a Roman soldier run a sword up into his chest cavity to make sure he was dead, for him just to pass out and then wake up three days later in a tomb, and then somebody help him out of the tomb, that would be a miracle in itself.
SPEAKER_00: But there are some people that actually believe he just passed out or somebody took him and nursed him back to health, and then Jesus came back and he didn't actually die.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you go into history and you just look at all the historians that have ever studied this, and guys, you can look at Christian historians, you you can look at secular historians, and you can look at atheist historians, and all of them agree.
SPEAKER_00: Like none of them disagree and say, Well, Jesus didn't die.
SPEAKER_00: Every single all of them make the assertion.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who has studied the evidence would say, Yeah, Jesus actually died.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting is if you just step back and you look at that and you you you look at what this said, what we have is we not only have that they agree, we have it documented and not just documented by sources today.
SPEAKER_00: We have these early, early first century accounts where people have documented this.
SPEAKER_00: Like they have said, man, Jesus died.
SPEAKER_00: So if you just look at ancient history, it it's very rare that you find even one to two sources that confirm a historical fact.
SPEAKER_00: Man, we have numerous credible first century sources that confirm that Jesus was executed and that he died.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you five on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you can look at those, you can look those up.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the very first one, you can see Josephus, man, first century historian.
SPEAKER_00: He was a Jew, a Jewish, he didn't even agree with Jesus that he was the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: But he's one of the most reliable sources for early first century information.
SPEAKER_00: You go all the way down to the Jewish town mood.
SPEAKER_00: That that is the compilation of the oral traditions and oral laws outside of just the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And they even record there that Jesus was crucified and that he died.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing you walk into any credible academic institution and you walk in and you say, I don't think he died.
SPEAKER_00: They will laugh you out of the place.
SPEAKER_00: And then they will show you study after study after study that confirm that Jesus is died, that Jesus died, such as the American Medical Association.
SPEAKER_00: Did their own study and then they had it reviewed by peers, by other organizations, and here's what it says.
SPEAKER_00: They said clearly the weight of historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound in his side was inflicted.
SPEAKER_00: There's an atheist New Testament scholar that's widely known and very trusted, and his name's Gerd Luterman, and here's what he said Jesus' death as a consequence of the crucifixion is indisputable.
SPEAKER_00: You see, everybody agrees there was a death.
SPEAKER_00: Now you could sit there and say, okay, great, there was a death.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean there was a resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it gets better.
SPEAKER_00: First E was execution, the second E is early.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: The idea of early is that we have early, credible accounts, early reports that Jesus rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why does that matter?
SPEAKER_00: Because some secular historians say, well, it's just a legend.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's just a legend.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' resurrection is just a legend that developed over time.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: Oxford did a study and they did they studied legends and they decided they came up with this understanding that it takes as as few, like it takes more than two generations to be completed.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, two full generations to come and to pass before a legend is created that actually wipes out a whole core of historical data.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is you're talking for a legend to develop, it means 50, 100, 150 years, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with that is we have a creed that exists.
SPEAKER_00: We have a creed that exists.
SPEAKER_00: It was written down by Christians that says that Jesus died, that Jesus was buried, that Jesus rose from the dead, and that Jesus appeared to eyewitnesses.
SPEAKER_00: It's written by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read it to you.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 3 through 5.
SPEAKER_00: It says, For what I received, I passed on to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's really important.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying, I'm writing this down, but I received it earlier.
SPEAKER_00: For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance.
SPEAKER_00: That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas.
SPEAKER_00: That was what Peter's name was before Jesus called him, and then to the twelve.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul goes right on and he writes about all the people that Jesus appeared to.
SPEAKER_00: A group of 500 at one time, to the women, to so and so.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he lists all the different people.
SPEAKER_00: It's over 515 people that Jesus actually appeared to.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul wrote this down 20 to 25 years after the resurrection of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you and I would look at that and say, well, still, man, that's 20 to 25 years that he wrote this down.
SPEAKER_00: That, see, understand this.
SPEAKER_00: Alexander the Great, his first two biographies were written by Arian and Plutarch.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: They are considered reliable, like accurate, reliable.
SPEAKER_00: You know how many years before those were written?
SPEAKER_00: 400 years.
SPEAKER_00: This was written 20 to 25 years, but Paul said, well, Paul said, it gets even better.
SPEAKER_00: He said, What I received, I've passed on to you.
SPEAKER_00: When did Paul receive this creed?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you go back to Acts chapter 9, you see it.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 9, his name wasn't Paul, his name was Saul.
SPEAKER_00: He was a bounty hunter that had warrants for Christians' arrest.
SPEAKER_00: And we see in Acts chapter 7, Stephen was the first martyr.
SPEAKER_00: Who was in charge of that?
SPEAKER_00: Saul stood there.
SPEAKER_00: So Saul stood there and gave the okay for them to martyr to stone Stephen.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he would do.
SPEAKER_00: He was going around city by city.
SPEAKER_00: He was on his way to Damascus to arrest some Christians with their warrants for their arrest, and Jesus appears to him.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
SPEAKER_00: And then he calls Saul, gives him a new name, Paul, and asks him to be a missionary to go tell people the truth that Jesus was the Messiah, the risen Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then Saul becomes Paul and becomes the greatest missionary of all time and writes half of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what happens is he gets up from that road in Damascus, goes into Damascus, searches out the disciples, and sits down and they compare notes.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's like, What actually happened?
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, We saw him.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I saw him too.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where historians say Paul received, Paul received this creed that was written down.
SPEAKER_00: Historians say that we can be entirely confident that it wasn't just One to six years after the resurrection, when Paul would have this conversion would have happened, they say we can be entirely confident that that creed was developed within months, within months after the resurrection of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Why does that matter?
SPEAKER_00: Well, this isn't a legend, this is a news flash.
SPEAKER_00: Like, like we have evidence there where they've written down and said, hey, here's a creed, here's what actually happened, and there's no time for a legend to actually develop.
SPEAKER_00: So what we have is we have an execution that leads to a death.
SPEAKER_00: We have early reports that Jesus did actually rise from the dead, and guys, it gets better.
SPEAKER_00: Like it gets better, it just keeps building.
SPEAKER_00: The next E that we've got is empty.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, there was an empty tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you go back into the historical account, here's what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Like all four of the gospel writers record that on Sunday the tomb was empty.
SPEAKER_00: On Friday, Jesus was hung on a cross, then he was taken off the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He was taken by Joseph of Arimathea, which was a wealthy business leader and landowner at the time.
SPEAKER_00: He asked Pilate for the body.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate gave him the body.
SPEAKER_00: Then it says that he put Jesus in his own tomb, in Joseph's own tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Then they rolled a stone over it, 2,000-pound stone, sealed the tomb, and then on Sunday morning the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.
SPEAKER_00: Tomb was empty.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting is if you think about it, the gospel writers, all four of them record this.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that only two of them record the virgin birth?
SPEAKER_00: Kind of tells you how important the resurrection is.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is built on this.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why does this matter?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there are some people, some historical critics that say that the two, the body was never in the tomb in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what they'll say they'll say, well, Romans never buried crucifixion victims.
SPEAKER_00: It was against the law for them to actually bear bury crucifixion victims.
SPEAKER_00: What'd they do with them?
SPEAKER_00: They said, well, they took them off the cross and they just threw them in the trash heaps because the cross happened, the executions happened outside of Jerusalem, right near a trash dump.
SPEAKER_00: Throw them on top of the trash heap, let the animals take care of them.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you go back in Roman history, there's a book called The Digesta.
SPEAKER_00: The Digesta is the compilation of Roman procedures and laws.
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what it says it says that you can, it says it was lawful, it was all right to bury crucifixion victims in tombs.
SPEAKER_00: And then in 1968, they opened up a tomb and they found a skeleton with a spike wedged between the ankle bones of the remains.
SPEAKER_00: And then they have found numerous remains since.
SPEAKER_00: Archaeologists have unearthed numerous remains of crucifixion victims being buried in tombs.
SPEAKER_00: So to say that it was unlawful is untrue.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's where it gets even better.
SPEAKER_00: When the disciples came out and said, He's risen, like the tomb is empty.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it have been really easy for the people who are against Jesus, like the critics, the earliest critics, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Romans and the Jewish leaders, wouldn't it have been really easy to say, let's go check the tomb?
SPEAKER_00: Like this, there's a body.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just go show you the body.
SPEAKER_00: And if there would have been a body in the tomb, Christianity dies immediately.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't go any further.
SPEAKER_00: But they didn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: When the disciples said he is risen, he's alive, the tomb is empty.
SPEAKER_00: All of the critics agreed with them that the tomb was empty.
SPEAKER_00: All of them.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples say he's alive, and then what did the critics say?
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, the disciple stole the body.
SPEAKER_00: You know what that is?
SPEAKER_00: That's a cover-up right there.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's a cover-up, and you only have a cover-up when there's something you got to cover up.
SPEAKER_00: That's like a student going to their teacher and saying, The dog ate my homework.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You don't have your homework, you're just coming up with a really creative way to say you don't have your homework.
SPEAKER_00: You see, if if you just come back and you look at everybody agrees.
SPEAKER_00: When you look at historical critics, you look at the critics of the first people that were critics of the resurrection, everybody agrees that the tomb was actually empty.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: if the tomb is actually empty, then you have to give a reason why it was empty.
SPEAKER_00: And some critics will say this well, the Romans stole the body.
SPEAKER_00: Romans aren't gonna steal the body.
SPEAKER_00: Why would the Romans steal the body?
SPEAKER_00: There is story after story in history of revolutionaries that came up just like Jesus and what happened.
SPEAKER_00: The Romans squashed those revolutions.
SPEAKER_00: They publicly destroyed those people, executed those people just like Jesus, killed those people.
SPEAKER_00: If they had the body, they would have said, here's the body, it's done.
SPEAKER_00: The Jewish leaders steal the body?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: They were the actual reason that Jesus was crucified in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: If they had the body, they would have produced the body.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples, you know, Pharisees and the teachers of the law, well, like the disciples stole the body.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have the motive or the means.
SPEAKER_00: You're telling me that these disciples who at the crucifixion all ran for their life?
SPEAKER_00: Peter denies Jesus three times?
SPEAKER_00: Like they all ran and went back to their own, you know, occupations that they did before.
SPEAKER_00: They became fishermen again, and they went and hid in an upper room.
SPEAKER_00: They thought the Romans were coming for them too.
SPEAKER_00: You're telling me that they went, took out a Roman battalion, and then rolled away a 2,000-pound stone and took Jesus' body away.
SPEAKER_00: Man, at some point, you just get to a point where you're going, man, maybe something actually happened.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe something actually happened.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we have an execution, we have early reports, and we have an empty tomb.
SPEAKER_00: And then, guys, it gets even better.
SPEAKER_00: We've got eyewitnesses.
SPEAKER_00: It gets even better with this one.
SPEAKER_00: We've got eyewitnesses.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus didn't just leave an empty tomb.
SPEAKER_00: He showed up and he period over a period of time to over 515 people.
SPEAKER_00: It's recorded in history.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just recorded in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: In in 1 Corinthians 15, it's recorded who he showed up to, but there's even credible records outside the Bible that talk about how that the disciples, like it, their eyewitness reports that say, man, they believed this conviction and they say it did happen.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's interesting when you go through who all he re he appeared to, he appeared to groups of people, over 500 at one time.
SPEAKER_00: He appeared to skeptics, he appeared to doubters, he appeared to his disciples, he appeared to family, he appeared also to the women.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's an interesting one.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you're trying to make up in first century, like history, if you're trying to make up a story that Jesus came back from the dead, you would never, you would never write in the gospels that the women were the first witnesses of the tomb being empty.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because women in that day were not even allowed to be, they weren't considered credible witnesses, and they were not allowed to be witnesses in court.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're making up a story and say, hey, let's just kind of make this up and we'll get a movement going, and this, you would never put them as the first people that came to the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: You see, what we have is we have that Jesus showed up to all of these people.
SPEAKER_00: All of these people, and there were eyewitnesses, says we saw him, we talked with him, we ate with him, we touched him, we saw him, and he's alive.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the kicker.
SPEAKER_00: Like, here's the kicker.
SPEAKER_00: When you look at these people who were followers of Jesus at the cross when the cross happened, what'd they do?
SPEAKER_00: They ran for their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Like they were scared to death.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples were like, We're out of here, we're going back to fishing, we're done, because they're gonna take us out too.
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, after the resurrection, what do you have happen?
SPEAKER_00: They go from being full of fear to being fearful to being fearless, fearless proponents of the gospel, and they paid for it.
SPEAKER_00: And outside of scripture, we have so many credible reports and credible um evidences, and people who wrote about what happened to the disciples and the disciples, the ten that were left that died, so John was actually imprisoned and lived out his entire life, but the other ten, man, they died deaths like Peter was crucified upside down.
SPEAKER_00: One of them was filleted and skinned alive.
SPEAKER_00: There was a couple of them that were beheaded.
SPEAKER_00: Some were stoned, some were shot with arrows, some were.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you just go down and you're telling me that if these guys took the body and were hiding a body, or that this was some conspiracy theory that they were hiding, you're telling me that these guys proclaimed the gospel, and not one of them in the middle of their execution, or their family, or friends, or whoever that they saw dying, didn't say, Hey, stop, it's a lie.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you where the body, where the body is.
SPEAKER_00: No, they took it to their grave and they died horrible deaths.
SPEAKER_00: There's a guy named Chuck Colson.
SPEAKER_00: You might recognize that name.
SPEAKER_00: Chuck Colson was embroiled in the Watergate scandal.
SPEAKER_00: So he was actually in the Nixon administration.
SPEAKER_00: He was called Nixon's hitman.
SPEAKER_00: Um, he actually went to prison for that in the early 70s, became a Christian in prison, then became an apologist after, meaning a person who writes and studies and tries to prove the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he said: he says, I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me.
SPEAKER_00: How?
SPEAKER_00: Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead and they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison.
SPEAKER_00: They would have not endured that if it weren't true.
SPEAKER_00: Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world and they couldn't keep alive for three weeks.
SPEAKER_00: You're telling me 12 apostles could keep alive for 40 years?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely impossible.
SPEAKER_00: And guys, if you just go through that, I watched Lee Strobel stand up there and share these four E's and talk about these four E's: execution, early, empty, eyewitnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, we can have an informed faith.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I'd say.
SPEAKER_00: If you sit there today and you say, Well, I still got some doubts, I I would, I would encourage you to doubt your doubts.
SPEAKER_00: Because you still have to, like, if we get through all this evidence and we look at this, you have to have an answer.
SPEAKER_00: Like you have to have an answer to just say, hey, here's what I think actually happened.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a person who sits there and has doubts today, here's what I would I would say to you.
SPEAKER_00: You have to have an answer for why a Jewish carpenter who never wrote a book, who never held public office, who never went more than 120 miles from his hometown, has so radically changed the world that over 2.4 billion people claim him as their savior today.
SPEAKER_00: Like you just step into that, you gotta have an answer for it.
SPEAKER_00: And so, so what's the answer?
SPEAKER_00: At some point, you just kind of step back and you kind of say, maybe something actually happened.
SPEAKER_00: Lee Strobel stood on that stage, and here's what he said.
SPEAKER_00: He said, In light of the avalanche of evidence that points so powerfully toward the truth of Christianity, I realized it would take more faith to maintain my atheism than it would take to become a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Man, the big question is this you got more faith in your doubts, or you got more faith in Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: At least Strobel didn't stand there and say, hey, it's perfect, and let me just pull back the veil, let me invite Jesus out on the stage right now.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: No, this thing is faith, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's about faith.
SPEAKER_00: Like it is a relationship with God where we place our faith in who He is.
SPEAKER_00: But I believe, guys, I'm telling you, I believe with all of my heart, you don't have to live with a blind faith.
SPEAKER_00: I think you can live with an informed faith.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're the person who sits here today and says, Man, I believe, but I just don't know why I believe, man, keep wrestling.
SPEAKER_00: Keep wrestling because those are four pieces of evidence, and there's so much more.
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you to go look at Lee Strobel's books, Case for Creator, Case for Christ, the case for faith.
SPEAKER_00: Man, it's so, so helpful.
SPEAKER_00: There is so much information out there.
SPEAKER_00: But when you come to the standpoint of understanding that it is true, man, it should change everything.
SPEAKER_00: Like it should change our lives because if the resurrection didn't happen, nothing else matters.
SPEAKER_00: But if the resurrection did happen, nothing else matters.
SPEAKER_00: It actually means your life matters, that God loves you, that he died for you, that there's purpose to your life, and man, we should live that.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a person who sits here today and says I have doubts, man, just keep wrestling your doubts.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: God looked at Job in the Old Testament when he was suffering, and Job had all these questions, and God says, Give me your questions.
SPEAKER_00: Around here at Central, we would say, It's great to have questions.
SPEAKER_00: We're okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: Keep wrestling.
SPEAKER_00: You can belong at this place before you actually believe at this place.
SPEAKER_00: But I would say you do have to make a decision because, again, a Jewish carpenter never wrote a book, never held office, never went more than 120 miles from his hometown, changed the face of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is if the resurrection is true, he can change everything for you.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not just about a resurrected Jesus, it's about eventually resurrected people and a resurrected world where God puts everything to rights.
SPEAKER_00: And you can know.
SPEAKER_00: And when you know, you can live it too.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father God, I pray for those who are still questioning and thinking through this.
SPEAKER_00: Father, just give them clarity.
SPEAKER_00: You talk about how you make yourself known if we earnestly seek you.
SPEAKER_00: God, help us to earnestly seek you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray as shame comes next week.
SPEAKER_00: I pray we'll invite people.
SPEAKER_00: I pray there will be people here that have those questions.
SPEAKER_00: And Father, help us to get some clarity and some answers and to see how sure we can be with our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And then, Father, when we get that assurance, man, help us to start living it out.
SPEAKER_00: God, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's in his name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.