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Sun, Mar 31, 2024 10AM • 55:03SUMMARY KEYWORDSJesus, witnesses, died, peter, put, call, church, good, Christianity, bible, writing, women, copies, talk, alexander, great, rose, faith, real, disciples
Happy sir. He is risen. He is risen indeed, I guess not a lot of traditional people here. So that's okay. If you're new here among us, my name is Gene & I serve here at C3 church as your pastor. And maybe you are new here today. Maybe you googled the church, maybe you're here on vacation great spot to take an Easter vacation. So that's cool. And I'm really glad you came to church today. Good job. So maybe some of you though, drug your kids in here, right? So maybe some of you didn't drug your kid you dragged your right, so maybe we'll just use a different one. You know, you never know these days, you just never know. But you brought your kids in, right? So it made me think of a story that I heard about a guy bringing his family to church. And so he has kids, and they're in the backseat, and they're all excited. They're like, Whoa, this is great. We're going to have candy and a church and they're asking him stuff. Like, is there going to be an Easter egg hunt? And he's like, you know, Is there good Easter Bunny? Is the Easter Bunny going to be there? The Easter Bunny going to be there? He's like, No, you're not getting it. This is about Jesus. It's about how he rose from the dead. Is he going to give us candy? Like, no. It's about how you rose from the dead. And so one of his children. So is he going to be in church today? I hope so. Right? Or not depending on our anyway. So we're not going to be bad for a lot of people. Jesus shows up that it gets good for me. Anyway, glad you guys think this is funny. So here's the thing, like, if you're an unsuspecting victim this morning, aka new didn't look at the website. Not sorry, but it's going to get a little rough in here. But if you know what we do, you're ready for it. You know that every Easter I give kind of a different message. It's not really what you'd expect. So most churches, you know, they're going to do the bait and switch Sunday, so they're going to have the Easter Bunny is going to show up. And he's doing all this different stuff, which is fine. If that's what you like, right? We're going to have food afterwards. And hangout. It's all good. We make you sit through a message first, right? So And anyway, you know, and then you come back next Sunday, and they're like, why is this guy still preaching? It's like, after 20 minutes, why is it? You're right? And there's a lot of scriptures. Oh, my gosh, he's talking about the Bible. He didn't do that this Sunday. So we don't really do that. But here's the thing I want you to think about today. Maybe it did. Bring your kids in, right? Maybe you brought your kids with you? And here's kind of a question. In all seriousness, do they know what this is really all about? Do they know why they believe? Like, If prompted, could your children's say why you believe in Jesus? Got heavy, right? Told you like a switch we got there quick. So the message is a little different today. Because here's the thing, if we're looking at Christianity, and being very honest, if you've been in church for a long time, or if you've been in the outside, on the outside looking in, you may see this as well. Sometimes you see it better than we do. But if you've been in it for a long time, a long time, you know that the standard Christian messages didn't work. If we're being honest, and you've seen churches across the country shrinking, what's going on? So the latest statistics I looked at 67% of young people are leaving the church has not good. Well, it's like almost 70%. And so in the past when I've given this kind of more apologetic, they call it message, you know, geared towards the history of why we believe, and a lot of longtime Christians like Oh, come on, you're just making me feel good. I don't want to know all this stuff. The 30% That's the problem. Good for you. But Jesus talked a lot about a thing called discipleship. So you should care. But the problem is, is like 30% of the church, it seems doesn't care. They don't care about that. 70% So today, we're going to do something a little bit different. And here's the thing, just the environment that young people are in, right, so my daughter is 19. So, you know, I kind of know what's being thrown at her, you know, we tried to raise her not, you know, your own style of parenting is your own style of parenting, but, you know, we kind of just got thrown in the pool. You go, this is what you're going to have to deal with. And we believe that that was one of the main things like I saw a lot of Christian kids that grew up kind of in a bubble, and they get out there and they're like, ah, you know, and they just go nuts. Right, so well. Like are you know, let's see how you do let her spar with some of these non believers, right? See what happens. Here's the problem. The problem is when we look at other worldviews, the stuff that the kids are seeing out there, what they see is vastly different from like a Christian, someone's saying they're faithful. And so what they see are, let's just talk about Islam. Let's just say right, Muslims, they're out there, they do the smartest, most economical kind of evangelism, it's on the internet. It's free, they can reach you like, you know, 1000s of miles away without paying a dime. They got you in there inside your phones who really smart guy to give them that. Here's another thing they do, they pray five times a day. They stop everything they're doing five times a day and pray for like 10 to 15 minutes. So they're in their version of church, right? They go to the mosque a lot. So the problem for them, but five times a day, so they're watching this and they're going to win. These people are really committed. It's believable. In fact, we talked about Revelation saw the theme, the real theme revelation last week, well, they're actually willing to put their lives on the line for what they believe. How many Christians can even make it to church every Sunday? Don't get me started. I don't want to shame anyone, you know, if you if you just comment on Easter, okay, it's a good starts, right? But that's not where we want to end up. So it's very convincing. And so Easter, it's kind of in marginalized by culture and tradition, right? So it's very consumer type of thing. But it's important that today, we defend the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. It's important. So maybe you know, some of this stuff. Maybe you've been a believer for a long time. And it's called apology. Right. So apologetics mentioned in the Bible, right? Peter talks about it, we need to be able to defend our faith. Like, why do we believe this stuff? So we're going to look at that a little bit today, or try to have some fun doing it. So it's not going to be too much like school? Don't worry. So the first thing, let's just talk about the resurrection accounts that we have in the Bible. And one thing to understand about the Bible or be reminded of if you know this, the Bible is not in chronological order, right? And sometimes you get different perspectives of the same account. Notice I didn't say story, right, the same account. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're looking at the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, the bulk of which is like, you know, his ministry, right? So he's older, doing his ministry and stuff. And they're giving you different perspectives, different angles, not differences, right? So noncontradiction. So just, for example, maybe Matthew or mark, they write first incomes loop looks like okay, yeah, got it. But you know, what, from my perspective, there were some other things that happen, maybe you didn't feel they were born, I'm going to put them in there, right, or something I saw you didn't see. And that's kind of what it's like. So when you're looking at these accounts, when they can be very confusing is, let's say you're just reading one of the Gospels and you're looking at and be like, it doesn't say that, you know, because you have to keep reading, you have to look at the other Gospel accounts, to put everything together. So what I'm going to do today, we did a chart last year, and you know, I think you're done with the charts. And that's okay. I'm not but I got old school, you hear like, whatever they want to call it, right? So I get nerdy and excited. So I'm going to kind of like, paraphrase it and put it together. Not every word, but I'm going to kind of put it together for you. So now we know what's going on. Then we'll get into the facts just to kind of put together so let's just remember so passionate weeks remember what Jesus did for us. He died on the crossroads, right? So this is amazing. And it's a crazy thing because he's bounced around on trial a lot. Right? He's tortured for us. So just horrible, horrible experience. Crucified, excruciating, right from the cross what it means he dies on the cross. But it's six hours that goes by, and what you have happening here is a few things. So I'll bring this up again, interestingly, disciples, except John, nowhere to be found. What you know, but a Roman soldier is he says, this, this must surely be the Son of God. A Roman soldier, witness one. So Whoo, kind of a crazy thing. Right? So you have Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, they go to get the body of Jesus Pilate surprise because normally if you're being crucified, it takes a long time could take a day or two. This is six hours. Why? Because they beat him so badly. He was dead. That was it before he even got to the cross. He was going to die. They don't have surgery to heal him from what he was dying off, right. So he died for us.
Crazy. So, then what you have is a scene where now when you're burning, so Joseph man with the other barren, new tomb, his tomb buried in there, and the Jewish leadership They're worried they go into the complaint and they're like, can we seal that tomb up, right and put guards in here because here's the thing, if they steal his body, and literally what it says is the first second fraud will be worse than the first, right? So they're worried they're going to steal his body and say, See, what he said was true, he rose from the dead. So they seal it all up. This is important, important them. So now, in the account, you get many Mary's like to say, it gets really, really confusing, because there are a lot of women named Mary. But the focus shifts onto these women, which is really interesting. And the store, it's, I'll get there, but just something interesting to ponder. They're not talking about the man or anything like that. It's just on the women. And so they're watching. So they're even watching, like, where they put the body, they're checking it out. And so what they do, they're, they're very like, say, say, like, religious. They're Jewish people. So I'm trying to make this simple, because there's new people here. And so they observe a Sabbath. And so that's a problem that can't go right away. So if the wait until the Sabbath is over, and they prepare these spices, what they want to do is just prepare Jesus's body for burial. Make sure that it's done, right. And so they do this with, you know, spices and stuff like myrrh and aloes and things. And they're on their way to the tomb, but then they're having this conversation. Well, hold on a second. How are we going to move the stone? A bunch of women presumably, they're not as strong as men, we're not going to get into it. So who's going to roll the stone away? So as they're having this conversation they set out for the toon. Boom, there's this earthquake, and the stone has rolled my angel says, rolls his son away, the guards that were there, dead faint. So they go into a dead fate. Oh, they pass out. This is totally crazy. So when the women get there, they find that the stone has moved now it gets very confusing because it's hard to tell like what happens and in what order so kind of put it in order ish. So what you have here, the women find the tomb somewhere in here, Mary's like, I'm going to go get Peter goes and gets Peter. And then there's a funny scene in John, where you have Peter and John like racing to the tomb. And in John's account, the disciple of Jesus love, he beats Peter in the race so he makes sure he lets us know he gets there first. So I just think that's funny. So now he looks in doesn't go in Peter goes into tomb they find the linen wrappings, all this stuff. Okay, Jesus isn't here, then, you know, John goes in, kind of looks around and make a note, you know, the cloth is wrapped up real nice. I made this joke before, like, why? And well, it's probably to show that the body wasn't stolen. So I made this joke, right, like, so, you know, if you your house got robbed. And like, all the laundry was done, you'd be like, like, who does that? Right? You know, so it's like someone robbing you and doing your laundry. So nobody robbed you. So it wouldn't take time to do that. Alright, so the interesting part, I just want you to just remember these things, little bricks here. In this case. What do they do is they say you have Peter and he's, he's like the lead apostle. And then John, the disciple Jesus love, are they do? They go home? That's it. They just go home. That's it. And so now we get the women if you're putting it together, and so you have like, one angel appears, and unless it appears, and there's like two angels, but then one speaks, right? And so the dialogue is like, don't you remember when he said he was going to do right? So he is risen. That's where this line comes from. So they tell it to the women. Interesting, right? So then you have Mary in this scene somewhere, and she's upset, right? So to the angel, there's like this little brief conversation there, where it's like, you know, Where's my lord? Where's Jesus? Right? So then there's a gardener, and she thinks he's talking to a gardener for a minute. You know, again, if you've taken a body somewhere, you know, telling me where like, you know, I want I want my lord, Mary. My bonus, she recognizes it's Jesus. First person Jesus appears to is a one, Mary Magdalene. By the way, there's a woman, really interesting. So she claims to him don't claim to me, I've not yet ascended to my Father. So there's that dialogue there. So then, what happens? Again, the scene goes back to the women, now they're going back, right? So they're coming back, they were told to go tell the disciples, so they're going back, Jesus appears to them, and they worship him. Wow. Right. So there's a lot of interactions with these women. Now there's a bunch of other appearances so you have like the Emmaus road, and Luke Cleopas and friend, and Jesus didn't recognize them like Jesus explained to us from the scriptures they take him to get some eat right so blesses the bread and disappears, he appears to the disciples Peace be with you. They're like, ah, the door was locked. They're probably kind of freaked out by that. But again, he eats with them Thomas doubts that had happened, that Thomas comes to believe, very interesting. He worships My Lord and my God as what Thomas said doesn't get credit for that isn't it said right so he calls him God and later the longer the any of John there 153 fish so Jesus kind of watches them fish and like throw your note out to the right side. There get 153 Fish Jesus again. eats with them. So I'm like, Look, he's like, I'm kind of hungry. I have some boiled fish. But in this scene here, they're just kind of eating breakfast together eats why is Jesus eating so much when he's hungry? Right? So, because they want to prove he's alive in a real body, right, so it goes to Dhoni. So they're going to prove it's part of the proof that he's alive in real body. So within these accounts, in the conversation with Peter, right, so we have do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me like Feed My Sheep tend to my lambs. So reversing those denials, so to speak, right? So within these accounts, and we see that Peter does come to believe, we see that others like Thomas, they do come to believe, but we also read this, Mark 16, nine, after Jesus rose from the dead early on Sunday morning, the first person who saw him was Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went to disciples who are grieving and weeping and tell them when it happened. But when she told them that Jesus was alive, and she had seen him, they didn't believe her. Afterward, he appeared in a different form the two of his followers, who were walking from Jerusalem to the country, this was a mass road thing. So see, when we put it all together, he's just summarizing, they rushed back to tell the others, but no one believed them. Still later, he appeared to the 11 disciples, as they read any other he rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refuse to believe those who had seen him after he had been raised from the dead. If we look at what happened between Jesus's appearance to the one and the Emmaus road account, Matthew 2011, as the women were on their way, some of the guards went to the city and totally increased what had happened. And meeting with the elders was called, and they decided to give the soldiers a large bribe, they told the soldiers, you must say, Jesus's disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and stole his body. If the government hears about it will stand up for you, so you won't get in trouble. So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to say their story is widely spread or spread widely among the Jews. And they still tell it today. And indeed, this continues today. There are many worldviews trying to take down Christianity. And some are kind of from without, and some are from within, if we're being honest, so again, we talked about Islam, I still have the Swoon Theory. They have this theory that like that Jesus was taken from the crops couldn't possibly have died. Well, why would they even care about Jesus? Here's what you got to know. Most of these other worldviews competing, they're what I call counterfeit fates. They're knockoff things. And so what you have here is someone going and having an experience are saying they did right. And then writing something new on top of the already existing Bible, a corruption of the Bible. Let's have the Koran as a corruption. It includes Abraham, Moses talks about Jesus talks about the Virgin verse. So in there, it's changed. Problem is it comes in like 600 years later, so hundreds of years you have the Bible, people recognize Christianity is really growing, you have people recognizing what's going on. And then someone just comes along one person, and says, you know, I've just decided that all those events you talked about are wrong. Here's my own version. Here you go. You'd be crazy to believe that. Like, no, we already that that's the store, right? So this is what young people everybody needs to know about Islam. Well, people don't understand this. Right? It's a counterfeit faith. You know, I mean, sorry, but not right. So it's just wrong. Like, no, no, we already had the facts. Abraham, Moses, us, we already had these facts online hundreds of years. And you're going to just want you believe one that well, you know what, maybe you guys do have a lot of faith. This one guy goes as well. Gabriel, talk to me or whatever, right? I wrote this whole thing. Here crazy. But that's what it is. Right? So from within. You have cults very, very like sneaky, trying to take it down, worming their way into our churches and into Christian media, changing the story about Jesus making him someone he isn't. So Mormonism, right? They're really into production companies nowadays.
Fake Christianity, same thing as Islam. But Joseph Smith goes and sees a vision somewhere, right? And that just tells everyone welcome Marvin, and it's awesome. It's better than the Bible. It's read that and then even changes the Bible. But again, one person has an experience. I were to believe him, and I was even later, right, so over 1000 years after Christianity, like everything's all codified, you're going to change it. It's a cult. That's what it is. This doesn't change. That's it. Right? So anyone comes and changes any bit of it. Just stop, turn it off. I don't care if most Christians think this is awesome. I'm glad I'm not most Christians. Amen. Alright, so they're trying to take it down. But here's the thing. It still With the test of time Christianity for, let's just call it 2000 years. There's a good reason why. And so recently and here's a Christian movie, I do recommend, I don't know what service it's on now. But case for Christ, it's actually really good. Now if we're being honest, most Christian movies, right? In my opinion, they're wrong. Right? They don't get this right. And that bothers me where they're just cheesy. Let's be honest, low production values, like, this one's pretty good. A lot of people don't laugh, so you know. But this is good, it's really good. And what I like about this guy, Lee Strobel, he's like an investigative journalist, let's call him that. And he sets out to take out Christianity, right? He's going to take it out. He's done. And so he goes to all these experts, and they basically boil it down to this look, just prove the resurrection. Well, let's take out Christianity just proves resurrection. They're done. Like, that's how you do it. And so he goes around, he just like meets with all these like top guys that are still alive today. And they're really still our top guys like William Lane Craig, really good. Gary Habermas. He goes in really interviews like the top guys in Christianity, even like doctors to figure out how the crucifixion might happen. All kinds of stuff. And through the proper process, right, the historical method that he's using, right, like a good journalist, you know, he's gathering his information to see whether this is real or not. When he applies that to Christianity, he becomes a believer. Amazing. He's like, this is bulletproof. And this is recently, so 2000 years, no one can take it out. Now, let's look at like what most people are going to claim here. And I'll give you like, a little window into why it's not true. And then we'll just talk about it a little bit. So we've got other worldviews and why they're wrong. Right? So and they do have criminals, not all of them, but they have Christianity in mind here. But most people will say you don't want to accept Christianity at all. And you'll say, look, the Bible, it's like a big game of telephone, right? And so it has written hundreds of years after the events, we don't really know what happened, right? Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla, right. So that kind of thing. Well, here's the problem. Is that for them is that let's just talk about the New Testament. That's what we'll say, because that's where these accounts are. When you look at it, they're actually 27. And scholars have called them witnesses. I call them so you listen very carefully to a good scholar they call the 27 books in the New Testament witnesses. And there's a reason because they were all written in the witness period by witnesses or people who interviewed the actual witnesses. And so Luke is one like, he's, he's not a direct witness, but he's just as good as like any reporter today was like, interviewing the witnesses like Peter, what happened? You know, so just like that, you know, so you had that maybe mark, probably a young boy during that time we read about him in Acts that his mom, Mary, so lots of Mary's right, so, but they're witnesses right? So, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So you got Matthew, Mark, probably, Matthew, clearly one of the apostles, John, one of the apostles, right. So Luke, maybe he's interviewing people here, Mark, like I said, well, then Paul writes 13 letters, he's a witness to the risen Jesus. Right? So if there was Hebrews, okay, I'll give you that one. Maybe not. Right. James, Jesus's brother, Peter, right, the lead disciple here, right. So Jude, one of the apostles the lead apostle, I should say, there. So, witnesses, John wrote revelations, so they're witnesses to Jesus, all people realize that these are the people writing really important primary documents, and we'll get into that in a minute. So one of these books and I like so just, it's not important, you guys, but anyway, First Corinthians is one of the books of the New Testament that even secular scholars will agree is like a real historical document. Like they're all argue about some of them. I don't know if all right this. So you don't bother engage. If you're me, you don't bother engaging with that. You just okay. What do you want me to work with First Corinthians, well let you have that. Great. Let's talk about First Corinthians. Right. So I'll start my argument from this point. Again, you don't even know. But it's important. So a book of the Bible that even like I said, unbelieving historians will accept and they will say interesting things about it. It is a real historical document. They say that, okay, so they're with us on that. Paul, real person who believes what he's saying, writing people believes what he's saying. So what did he say? When he talks about what we're celebrating today? First Corinthians 15. Let me now remind you do your brothers and sisters have the good news I preached you before you welcomed it then and you stand for a minute. It is the good news that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you, unless of course you believe something. It was never true in the first place. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me, Christ died for our sins, just as a Scripture said he was buried and he was raised from the dead on the third day, you Just as a Scripture said, he was seen by Peter and then the 12. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of the followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, as I says, untimely born, and maybe in your version, I also saw him. So here's what you have happening here, if you're looking at it, like from Lee Strobel standpoint, or from like a historian standpoint, you have a primary document. So this is called cert as a witness. But this is special because he's doing something that even a lot of like primary documents they don't do. Well, he's not just saying, Hey, this is what I saw. Believe me. No, this is what I saw. Go ask those 500 people, most of whom are still alive, go ask Peter's like famous in the church, go ask you go ask any puzzles, check my work. And then he appeared to me and see what he does there. He doesn't just make some crazy claim. No, he starts off with Gocek. Instead of just having to believe like one person's word for it. This is significant. So this is very important. They call it historical gold. This is great. And here's the thing, guys spent 25 years after the crucifixion. Now, to us today, we get everything like that just happens immediately, right? Our phones go off, and we know about stuff happened. And that's not the way it happened back then. So you have to compare it to other things like before the internet, or other things like that, or radio, or any of those other things. So I did my best like Sesame Street voice with the radio thing. But anyway, remember this gives? So here's a question for you guys. So here's where it will start. So we'll do some comparison real quick comparison. Question. Do you believe that Alexander the Great existed? Most of us would say yes, right? Reasonable people? Yes. He exists. Okay. Why? Because of history, right? Because what's written about Alexander the Great. Okay, let's look at that. So what you have here is there are probably things written, like earlier, like close to his time, but we don't have them. So we can only look at what we can see. So you have a library of history appears in there, but the soonest you get something like what we have for Jesus in the gospels is Plutarch, life of Alexander. That's the first thing we really have for solid, like best attested work to Alexander the Great, the oldest, if that makes sense to you, right. Like I said before, that we have a little bit, but it's about 100 years before that. Well, this is interesting, because Plutarch wrote life of Alexander around the same time that the New Testament was being written a little bit later, but that's okay. Right around the same time, maybe revelation later books are being written about them. So we're looking at about 100 ad. Sounds good, right? Except for one thing. Alexander the Great died in 323, BC, June or July. That's about 300 years before Jesus's crucifixion, makes it about 400 years after Alexander died. Are one guy, not a witness? Based on what other people told him? Not in a witness period, not even close 400 years later? We believe it implicitly, don't we? Maybe they have more faith than us. So we just believe it. But that's the truth about it, and you can go check my work. That's the truth. So what people normally accused the Bible of well, then Alexander the Great, and the writings about him are actually guilty of that. It was written hundreds of years later, we're not really sure blah, blah. Yeah. But not our Bible. The events today, again, that were that are recorded here. First Corinthians about 25 years. It's amazing in history, and I just want to tell you in defense of Alexander there, that's actually normal. For like history, ancient history Greco. You know, if you want to uncomplicated Greco Roman biographies, ancient Greco Roman biographies, that's what the Gospels are, the literary genre that they're in, but this is normal. It's normal to wait a long time before someone writes about something. We don't have a lot of like volume of copies. Not always based on witness testimony, but when you look at the New Testament, it is. It is so you're looking at about depending on how you count it, you know, 60 different witnesses, not one, not one that didn't witness anything 60 different witnesses writing 27 books. That's a lot. And in history, we have nothing like that. There's just absolutely nothing like it. Again, it's based on eyewitness testimony. We have to take one person's word for it. And a lot of these guys who start these religions, right, they're writing about first, Jesus didn't have to. They were watching and writing about him. So it's the opposite of what you normally get. were true witnesses. Now, this is significant. And I kind of dropped these Easter eggs in there earlier on.
So the women, why is that important? The women, I don't know why I didn't like that. So
why is it a practice near my wife? I say. So that's important. Well, well, here's the bad news. At that time in history, women weren't allowed to be witnesses in a court of law. Their word was worthless. So, wait a minute. Why would you have the women discovering? Jesus? That's kind of embarrassing. And then think about it for a second. Peter? Where is the healing lead? Not just not just like the cross? He's not there. Like, you know, your Lord, your master. Your best friend is dying right? Later. Hey, look, what? This is crazy. He's not there. They're painted as a bunch of cowards. But not the women. They don't even go to prepare the burial. They're not there. Think about it. They're not even like watching it. Nothing. They're at home eating. What? But the women are there the women? This is insane. All right. So they're not the CrossFit the Roman soldier is Surely this must be the Son of God. Like, what? So technically, like they're the enemy. So if these women the enemy, this is crazy. Let's call the embarrassment factor. Why would you add that? Or why would you put that in there? Here's why. Because that's just what happens. Despite embarrassment, if you were writing a made up story, right? You got Peter cutting off zero Huff, right? You can't or as he is, and you have two swords, right? Whatever. And they're like trying to hack these guards apart here. See, if Jesus saved his butt in their valiant efforts. They take Jesus. Oh, no, you know, then they're at the cross. They tried to get him again. Right. And then you have Peter taking down Jesus, not Joseph Arimathea. Wait, what? Oh, yeah, that's right. So the Jewish leadership who got Jesus killed, he's the one who buries Jesus. What, not Peter, but who was made up, let's go back to the metaphor and quick. So he's taking you'd have all these paintings through the renaissance of Peter, taking Jesus's body, right? Burying Jesus wrapping up Jesus, right. He's like, this hero and women, they're home cooking for us, you know, that kind of thing. And then, Nope, it's not there. Because it's true. Despite the embarrassment, it would cause the leaders, the founders, you know, of this movement. Jesus is the founder. But these are like, I don't know, the leaders of the moment at the time, they're the heads of the church, disgraced. This is a disgraceful story for them. Because Jesus gets all the glory. Because it's true. It's not a made up story. And this is a part of what was like, early people reading this are like you kidding me. But it must be true. The other thing a lot of people don't really look into as well. And just quick, it's a wealth of information that we have. A lot of young people don't understand this the way, you know, without getting into it too much. But they don't understand the way like textual criticism, all this stuff works when we're looking at ancient documents. And so when you're looking at ancient documents, you don't get a whole lot. And a lot of people don't understand this for ancient writings, you're just getting like fragments, sometimes if something and you're kind of like Jigsaw together, you know, like a puzzle, or something like that you're missing pieces. And so they have methods of like filling in those blanks. With the Bible, we don't need that. It's amazing. We don't need that. But you really do need that with a lot of other documents. So right now, they're probably up to about copies in New Testament or fragmentary, even about 6000 copies. Today, you're like, whatever, you know, like there's like a bazillion copies of everything in the world and my phone. That's a really big deal back then. So just in Greek alone, 6000 copies. Well, what's the big deal Jean? Well, when you look at other works of that time, right, so you're looking at Aristotle, Plato. stuff like that, or before that, you know, seven copies 47 copies, or Homer's Iliad, like probably has the most 686 They say, but you know, people counted all the way up to 1800. Still not 6000 copies. Right? So what we have for other people, it's not even close. It's a wealth of information. Now, here's the thing, too, when you're looking at the copies, they're all within like, 95% Agree, which is really good, because you got to think about it right? You know, no, I was going to say ditto machine. But you just can't make a copy of it, where they Xerox facts, we do that anyway. But anyway, you get my point, right? So you know, doing that you're sitting there hand copying these things, right. But it's just punctuation and grammar, just for lack of a better term, right? It's amazing. So let's just go back and look at something on today's subject matter. So back to First Corinthians three number 25 years after the cross, Paul's writing this, it's just unbelievable. He says this first Corinthians 1512. But tell me this, since we preach that Christ rose from the dead? Why are some of you saying there'll be no resurrection of the dead, for if there's no resurrection of the dead, and Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised either, then all of our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless or worthless. And we apostles would be lying about God, we have said that God raised Christ from the grave, that can't be true, if there's no resurrection of the dead, if there's no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised in your faith is useless, and you are still guilty of your sins. And in that case, all who have died, believing in Christ are lost. And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more be pity than anyone in the world. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, He is the first of a great harvest of all of die. That's how important the resurrection is. So that was the first thing people were going after. Back then. Oh, he's already about whatever it already happened. It's not going to happen, whatever it is, no. Did you notice something else? If our hope is only in this life, I think a lot of Christians need to hear that. We should be pitied. Our hope is not here. It's in that resurrection. So some facts, let's just look at some facts. Because it's important to review the facts. A lot of things that people will say we're going to dispel that Jesus claimed to be God. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise, he claimed he got it got him killed. So if you know the Bible, you know the burning bush account extra three, to see the burning bush Moses is like, Oh, what do I tell them? You are? I am? I am that's the name God assigned to himself. That's what Jesus is saying, especially the Gospel of John but others I am. It keeps saying that about himself before Abraham was Johnny. I am. Alright. So if you look at Mark 1462 is lesson one, the Son of God, I am. And you will see the Son of man coming with great power and authorities quoting Daniel seven, they all knew that it got him killed. He's saying he's God made that claim. And then when you look at the New Testament books, who've been here for a while you see it all over the place. They all understood that Romans nine five, you know, look at the second Peter one, it's inside is all over the place, calling Jesus flat out God, He is God. You must understand that Bible says it clearly. Jesus's existence and death are recorded not only by the New Testament, authors, 27 Witnesses unlike anything in history, also by other people, I'm not going to get into I don't have time Tacitus Josephus, they wrote about Jesus. He's very real, even if people who didn't believe in him. He was buried, he died and was buried. But then he rose from the dead after three days, we see the witness to that there are many of them in the gospels, and then Paul talking about it. And again, he appeared to hundreds of people. Fall challenges that go ask, they saw nothing like this in history, nothing. 40 days after he rises to heaven, He ascends to heaven. And we just don't have time for today. This series of events was predicted in the Old Testament in hundreds of prophecies that Jesus miraculously fulfilled. If that wasn't enough, nobody has that. This is you can just go read about it. What hundreds of years before fulfilled, the miracle unreal. So these are the just undeniable historical facts about Jesus, that we should all know and understand. despite many attempts to disprove or change, or here today, believing in it has not the truth has not been defeated. So, like, if you believe that Alexander the Great existed, you have like 1000s more reason to believe that Jesus did, and did what he did. So, what does this mean to you? What does it mean to you? Well, a lot. If you believe this, you made Jesus your king, you've come under His Lordship, which then means he's your Savior.
It means you're going to rise from the dead to means that death has no sting. You don't have that fear, if you really believe. So, you know, apart from being a really bad comedian, I'm also a full time pastor. And so I talk with a lot of people, right, and so people will let their guard down because they know, I'm going to keep it confidential. You know, I think I have a bad phone God or something like that.
But I do. It's awesome. It's rad. You know, what I'm not answering all signal goes up in the sky. It's anyway.
But you all do if you ask Jesus to find Jesus. But it's really interesting, just looking at people in the way people live their lives. And
it's funny, if we're being honest, most people live with this kind of just overlying cloud, this fear of death over them all the time. And it does a lot of different things. It directs the way people behave, the way they think the way they experience life, the way they experience joy. It's really disrupted by this. You know, it's kind of interesting turn 50 Recently, right? So you're supposed to go Oh, like, I didn't hear what I wanted to hear. But really, so you know, and like, you say, you just you start thinking like, oh, no, you know, like, back nine, right? So like, it's almost over. Like, I have less in front of me the do behind me, or maybe, maybe not, but I think I just want to die before that. But anyway, anyway, but you know, there's just less there's less and less days ahead than back, right. So that occurs to you, but I see what it does to people. Right. So hey, that'd be fun being on. It's got me a little bit. I was like, you know, I have some things I want to do, but that's okay. And I snapped back right. Because, you know, I like to think that I have faith, but I watch a lot of people and you watch them go through like midlife crisis or why did they do that woman die right? I got to go do all this stuff again, right? Or whatever it is. They're trying to redo right? So you have people redoing so they'll they'll break their marriage whatever they redo. I want to try there's a reason why death. Yes, they're afraid of dying. That's it. That's the boil it all down. You're afraid of dying. It makes it make a lot of weird decisions. Sometimes they make you get like a crazy job right to prove that you're not afraid of death. Like I don't know, I'm not pointing to anyone in particular, like be a cop. Like you could just decide you
that's an inside joke if I had to not sorry, just right. So you make crazy decisions to either prove that you're not afraid of dying. And he's not. Which is great. Like, it's a lot of faith. But there are other problems that come with you just she's not laughing all right, we joke, right? But it really sways our decisions, right? That fear of death or not? But it does. It controls a lot of people I see it really control people. Especially the joy just like sucks the joy. You know, it's like it's suddenly like 50 I made it. You know what I mean? It's like, No, can't fit that many candles on the cake. Right. See? So I heard a story about a 15 year old girl who is in a really tragic accident. She's in an accident. Terrible. So she's paralyzed. She can talk in here but she can't see she's lost her sight now. And it's really interesting because the doctors were their parents the bedside and she can hear He's kind of lamenting, really, he's like, No, there's nothing I can do. That's it. Her best days are behind her.
She can hear and speak. No doctor, you're wrong. The best days are ahead of me. I'm looking forward to an icy my king and all his glory.
That's what faith and this will do for you know, it's not pleasant at all times. But instead of that dark cloud of there, we have something bright, we can look forward to kind of washes that away. Are we going to be perfect in our faith all the time? No, they stopped by the clouds, not there. So don't stay in that like level of depression. That's our hope. We don't have to like sink into this like annihilation. This fear this defeat. Since Christ rose from the dead, we have the hope. The fact that we can rise from the dead two. So the resurrection is essentially the great antidote for the fear of death. That's it. Nothing else can take its place. Not worldly pursuits, not riches, not our jobs, not our spouse. That our smarts, nothing, nothing will bring us that type of comfort and consolation. Only Christ of joy, there's a freedom. Freedom from the fear of death. This really, especially if you're new here, just a few things for you guys. Know, maybe for believers too, because we kind of slip sometimes the disappointment of this world is gone. Maybe you've invested in things. It doesn't always have to be it could be money, maybe you've made a monetary investment. And you put a lot of hope in that monetary investment. It just didn't work out. disappointed you. Maybe you put your hope and a person, perhaps that person was a spouse, and they disappointed you. Maybe a loved one, maybe a friend. Maybe you put your hope and a mentor. He's great. And you just put your hope and a person maybe you put your hope in a political system or a political candidate who maybe they've let you down. Maybe you put your hope and someone famous, you looked up to someone right? They say never meet your heroes, right? And they let you down. But here's the thing, Jesus will never let you down. Put your hope in him. Maybe people do try to make yourself God. Have you tried to control everything around you everything is just hyper dependent on you. If I don't get this new job, you know, what's my family going to do? You're God. Speaking to a lot of men out there. We're not going to die I trust the Lord's a little bit better at providing than I am. And this is freeing. This is free. Sure, I'm going to do my job. But ultimately, you're not going to worry about it.
It's free. It'll be okay. I'm not God. So if you're tired of that kind of trying that kind of work, relax. Hoping this brings freedom from that heavy burden, trying to be God, isn't it?
And everything that we do a monster just not going to pick on the moms because in my experience, it's just a bad idea. But you don't need to use a phrase and you know, let it stay in your helicopter parents, right? A helicopter parents? Like it's going to be okay. It's fine. It's free. Listen, don't be like, Hey, you playing traffic and 40 want to go? It's not what I'm talking about. Right? So we have some responsibility, right? So it's not in menu. Guys, like I'm going to quit my job. It's not what I'm talking about. You get what I'm saying. Right? Free to not be God. Sorry, job. Christ brings us a greater purpose than our own pursuits. He's the best person to work for. He's the king of all kings. He's the Lord of all lords. Whatever. If you're working for him, okay? Imagine it, not me. But he's never going to mess up. He's never going to have a scandal is never going to let you down. He's never going to fail. It's better luck that you that you're tired of, like this hamster wheel, living this life of like, disappointment, like no meaning no purpose. Maybe there's sin involved, right? And so this answer, I get it, I get it been there, right where it's just chasing a pursuit, then the shame and the regret right then chasing the pursuit, and the shame and the regret. And when does it know it's not going to end? You can get off that hamster wheel. Right? And be free experience something that brings you real joy, you don't have to be ashamed about you don't have to have
regrets about this decision. You're invited into this family of faith. And so that's the thing, guys, you're looking at the world, like, how corrupted is the world? How
much drama is there in the world? Like, it's just nuts if we're being real, regardless of what you believe, or what you see. Come on. Is anybody else sick of it? You can't just be me. I'm like, this is just stupid. The stuff I'm seeing this again, I'm not even speaking into what side of anything you're on. Because I just even being on that as a stupid, right? This is just insanity. While again, you can get off that hamster wheel. We don't do that here. No, we're just going to talk about what's real, what's important. And that's it. We have a hope and something that will truly last forever. And that's what Easter is all about. So, I want to invite you, if you are new here, if you're vacationing and coming through Naples, I'll recommend about 15,000 restaurants that you won't have time to go through. For those who know me that he talks about the Bible and food. So yeah, welcome. Have a good time, right. So we can have fun while we're waiting online to die. Right? So that's kind of the way I look at it anyway. But if you're a local, right? Look, I want to give you an invitation to come on here. Get off the hamster wheel, right? Because this is all we talked about. We talked about Jesus, we love each other. We're doing great things in the community for the people, we just love everybody. And we're just trying to use this church is just a vehicle to get the community to come to Christ. That's it. So you'll be told we're going to have some food afterwards, Dan food and Jesus ate. So we'd like to fellowship together to get to know you. We're not trying to be some kind of megachurch, and scandalous and all that. Nope. My job, I want to learn everybody's name here. And what you guys do what you're going through, we want to do life with you. And so if you're feeling a little alone, you're feeling fearful. You're going through some of these things you don't have to. You don't have to, you can, first of all, and most importantly, right? accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. He's always with you, you will never be alone again. You will never be alone again. Hear that and know that. And then through the process, even sometimes I even forget. We have each other. We have a family of faith here. And that's what we're all about. So thank you for coming today. We love you again. I hope I get to meet you if it's your first time here. Let me pray for you, Lord, I thank you for everyone who took the time to come in. And hear your words today to celebrate what is truly important. That is your resurrection from the dead and that is our hope that we too will rise with you. Or I pray that you fill everyone with your Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. build them up with your love, your grace, your peace, your mercy, Your kindness. Bring them that peace and then let it radiate. Most everyone they run into this week. We ask these things in Jesus's name. Amen.
Happy sir. He is risen. He is risen indeed, I guess not a lot of traditional people here. So that's okay. If you're new here among us, my name is Gene & I serve here at C3 church as your pastor. And maybe you are new here today. Maybe you googled the church, maybe you're here on vacation great spot to take an Easter vacation. So that's cool. And I'm really glad you came to church today. Good job. So maybe some of you though, drug your kids in here, right? So maybe some of you didn't drug your kid you dragged your right, so maybe we'll just use a different one. You know, you never know these days, you just never know. But you brought your kids in, right? So it made me think of a story that I heard about a guy bringing his family to church. And so he has kids, and they're in the backseat, and they're all excited. They're like, Whoa, this is great. We're going to have candy and a church and they're asking him stuff. Like, is there going to be an Easter egg hunt? And he's like, you know, Is there good Easter Bunny? Is the Easter Bunny going to be there? The Easter Bunny going to be there? He's like, No, you're not getting it. This is about Jesus. It's about how he rose from the dead. Is he going to give us candy? Like, no. It's about how you rose from the dead. And so one of his children. So is he going to be in church today? I hope so. Right? Or not depending on our anyway. So we're not going to be bad for a lot of people. Jesus shows up that it gets good for me. Anyway, glad you guys think this is funny. So here's the thing, like, if you're an unsuspecting victim this morning, aka new didn't look at the website. Not sorry, but it's going to get a little rough in here. But if you know what we do, you're ready for it. You know that every Easter I give kind of a different message. It's not really what you'd expect. So most churches, you know, they're going to do the bait and switch Sunday, so they're going to have the Easter Bunny is going to show up. And he's doing all this different stuff, which is fine. If that's what you like, right? We're going to have food afterwards. And hangout. It's all good. We make you sit through a message first, right? So And anyway, you know, and then you come back next Sunday, and they're like, why is this guy still preaching? It's like, after 20 minutes, why is it? You're right? And there's a lot of scriptures. Oh, my gosh, he's talking about the Bible. He didn't do that this Sunday. So we don't really do that. But here's the thing I want you to think about today. Maybe it did. Bring your kids in, right? Maybe you brought your kids with you? And here's kind of a question. In all seriousness, do they know what this is really all about? Do they know why they believe? Like, If prompted, could your children's say why you believe in Jesus? Got heavy, right? Told you like a switch we got there quick. So the message is a little different today. Because here's the thing, if we're looking at Christianity, and being very honest, if you've been in church for a long time, or if you've been in the outside, on the outside looking in, you may see this as well. Sometimes you see it better than we do. But if you've been in it for a long time, a long time, you know that the standard Christian messages didn't work. If we're being honest, and you've seen churches across the country shrinking, what's going on? So the latest statistics I looked at 67% of young people are leaving the church has not good. Well, it's like almost 70%. And so in the past when I've given this kind of more apologetic, they call it message, you know, geared towards the history of why we believe, and a lot of longtime Christians like Oh, come on, you're just making me feel good. I don't want to know all this stuff. The 30% That's the problem. Good for you. But Jesus talked a lot about a thing called discipleship. So you should care. But the problem is, is like 30% of the church, it seems doesn't care. They don't care about that. 70% So today, we're going to do something a little bit different. And here's the thing, just the environment that young people are in, right, so my daughter is 19. So, you know, I kind of know what's being thrown at her, you know, we tried to raise her not, you know, your own style of parenting is your own style of parenting, but, you know, we kind of just got thrown in the pool. You go, this is what you're going to have to deal with. And we believe that that was one of the main things like I saw a lot of Christian kids that grew up kind of in a bubble, and they get out there and they're like, ah, you know, and they just go nuts. Right, so well. Like are you know, let's see how you do let her spar with some of these non believers, right? See what happens. Here's the problem. The problem is when we look at other worldviews, the stuff that the kids are seeing out there, what they see is vastly different from like a Christian, someone's saying they're faithful. And so what they see are, let's just talk about Islam. Let's just say right, Muslims, they're out there, they do the smartest, most economical kind of evangelism, it's on the internet. It's free, they can reach you like, you know, 1000s of miles away without paying a dime. They got you in there inside your phones who really smart guy to give them that. Here's another thing they do, they pray five times a day. They stop everything they're doing five times a day and pray for like 10 to 15 minutes. So they're in their version of church, right? They go to the mosque a lot. So the problem for them, but five times a day, so they're watching this and they're going to win. These people are really committed. It's believable. In fact, we talked about Revelation saw the theme, the real theme revelation last week, well, they're actually willing to put their lives on the line for what they believe. How many Christians can even make it to church every Sunday? Don't get me started. I don't want to shame anyone, you know, if you if you just comment on Easter, okay, it's a good starts, right? But that's not where we want to end up. So it's very convincing. And so Easter, it's kind of in marginalized by culture and tradition, right? So it's very consumer type of thing. But it's important that today, we defend the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. It's important. So maybe you know, some of this stuff. Maybe you've been a believer for a long time. And it's called apology. Right. So apologetics mentioned in the Bible, right? Peter talks about it, we need to be able to defend our faith. Like, why do we believe this stuff? So we're going to look at that a little bit today, or try to have some fun doing it. So it's not going to be too much like school? Don't worry. So the first thing, let's just talk about the resurrection accounts that we have in the Bible. And one thing to understand about the Bible or be reminded of if you know this, the Bible is not in chronological order, right? And sometimes you get different perspectives of the same account. Notice I didn't say story, right, the same account. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're looking at the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, the bulk of which is like, you know, his ministry, right? So he's older, doing his ministry and stuff. And they're giving you different perspectives, different angles, not differences, right? So noncontradiction. So just, for example, maybe Matthew or mark, they write first incomes loop looks like okay, yeah, got it. But you know, what, from my perspective, there were some other things that happen, maybe you didn't feel they were born, I'm going to put them in there, right, or something I saw you didn't see. And that's kind of what it's like. So when you're looking at these accounts, when they can be very confusing is, let's say you're just reading one of the Gospels and you're looking at and be like, it doesn't say that, you know, because you have to keep reading, you have to look at the other Gospel accounts, to put everything together. So what I'm going to do today, we did a chart last year, and you know, I think you're done with the charts. And that's okay. I'm not but I got old school, you hear like, whatever they want to call it, right? So I get nerdy and excited. So I'm going to kind of like, paraphrase it and put it together. Not every word, but I'm going to kind of put it together for you. So now we know what's going on. Then we'll get into the facts just to kind of put together so let's just remember so passionate weeks remember what Jesus did for us. He died on the crossroads, right? So this is amazing. And it's a crazy thing because he's bounced around on trial a lot. Right? He's tortured for us. So just horrible, horrible experience. Crucified, excruciating, right from the cross what it means he dies on the cross. But it's six hours that goes by, and what you have happening here is a few things. So I'll bring this up again, interestingly, disciples, except John, nowhere to be found. What you know, but a Roman soldier is he says, this, this must surely be the Son of God. A Roman soldier, witness one. So Whoo, kind of a crazy thing. Right? So you have Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, they go to get the body of Jesus Pilate surprise because normally if you're being crucified, it takes a long time could take a day or two. This is six hours. Why? Because they beat him so badly. He was dead. That was it before he even got to the cross. He was going to die. They don't have surgery to heal him from what he was dying off, right. So he died for us.
Crazy. So, then what you have is a scene where now when you're burning, so Joseph man with the other barren, new tomb, his tomb buried in there, and the Jewish leadership They're worried they go into the complaint and they're like, can we seal that tomb up, right and put guards in here because here's the thing, if they steal his body, and literally what it says is the first second fraud will be worse than the first, right? So they're worried they're going to steal his body and say, See, what he said was true, he rose from the dead. So they seal it all up. This is important, important them. So now, in the account, you get many Mary's like to say, it gets really, really confusing, because there are a lot of women named Mary. But the focus shifts onto these women, which is really interesting. And the store, it's, I'll get there, but just something interesting to ponder. They're not talking about the man or anything like that. It's just on the women. And so they're watching. So they're even watching, like, where they put the body, they're checking it out. And so what they do, they're, they're very like, say, say, like, religious. They're Jewish people. So I'm trying to make this simple, because there's new people here. And so they observe a Sabbath. And so that's a problem that can't go right away. So if the wait until the Sabbath is over, and they prepare these spices, what they want to do is just prepare Jesus's body for burial. Make sure that it's done, right. And so they do this with, you know, spices and stuff like myrrh and aloes and things. And they're on their way to the tomb, but then they're having this conversation. Well, hold on a second. How are we going to move the stone? A bunch of women presumably, they're not as strong as men, we're not going to get into it. So who's going to roll the stone away? So as they're having this conversation they set out for the toon. Boom, there's this earthquake, and the stone has rolled my angel says, rolls his son away, the guards that were there, dead faint. So they go into a dead fate. Oh, they pass out. This is totally crazy. So when the women get there, they find that the stone has moved now it gets very confusing because it's hard to tell like what happens and in what order so kind of put it in order ish. So what you have here, the women find the tomb somewhere in here, Mary's like, I'm going to go get Peter goes and gets Peter. And then there's a funny scene in John, where you have Peter and John like racing to the tomb. And in John's account, the disciple of Jesus love, he beats Peter in the race so he makes sure he lets us know he gets there first. So I just think that's funny. So now he looks in doesn't go in Peter goes into tomb they find the linen wrappings, all this stuff. Okay, Jesus isn't here, then, you know, John goes in, kind of looks around and make a note, you know, the cloth is wrapped up real nice. I made this joke before, like, why? And well, it's probably to show that the body wasn't stolen. So I made this joke, right, like, so, you know, if you your house got robbed. And like, all the laundry was done, you'd be like, like, who does that? Right? You know, so it's like someone robbing you and doing your laundry. So nobody robbed you. So it wouldn't take time to do that. Alright, so the interesting part, I just want you to just remember these things, little bricks here. In this case. What do they do is they say you have Peter and he's, he's like the lead apostle. And then John, the disciple Jesus love, are they do? They go home? That's it. They just go home. That's it. And so now we get the women if you're putting it together, and so you have like, one angel appears, and unless it appears, and there's like two angels, but then one speaks, right? And so the dialogue is like, don't you remember when he said he was going to do right? So he is risen. That's where this line comes from. So they tell it to the women. Interesting, right? So then you have Mary in this scene somewhere, and she's upset, right? So to the angel, there's like this little brief conversation there, where it's like, you know, Where's my lord? Where's Jesus? Right? So then there's a gardener, and she thinks he's talking to a gardener for a minute. You know, again, if you've taken a body somewhere, you know, telling me where like, you know, I want I want my lord, Mary. My bonus, she recognizes it's Jesus. First person Jesus appears to is a one, Mary Magdalene. By the way, there's a woman, really interesting. So she claims to him don't claim to me, I've not yet ascended to my Father. So there's that dialogue there. So then, what happens? Again, the scene goes back to the women, now they're going back, right? So they're coming back, they were told to go tell the disciples, so they're going back, Jesus appears to them, and they worship him. Wow. Right. So there's a lot of interactions with these women. Now there's a bunch of other appearances so you have like the Emmaus road, and Luke Cleopas and friend, and Jesus didn't recognize them like Jesus explained to us from the scriptures they take him to get some eat right so blesses the bread and disappears, he appears to the disciples Peace be with you. They're like, ah, the door was locked. They're probably kind of freaked out by that. But again, he eats with them Thomas doubts that had happened, that Thomas comes to believe, very interesting. He worships My Lord and my God as what Thomas said doesn't get credit for that isn't it said right so he calls him God and later the longer the any of John there 153 fish so Jesus kind of watches them fish and like throw your note out to the right side. There get 153 Fish Jesus again. eats with them. So I'm like, Look, he's like, I'm kind of hungry. I have some boiled fish. But in this scene here, they're just kind of eating breakfast together eats why is Jesus eating so much when he's hungry? Right? So, because they want to prove he's alive in a real body, right, so it goes to Dhoni. So they're going to prove it's part of the proof that he's alive in real body. So within these accounts, in the conversation with Peter, right, so we have do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me like Feed My Sheep tend to my lambs. So reversing those denials, so to speak, right? So within these accounts, and we see that Peter does come to believe, we see that others like Thomas, they do come to believe, but we also read this, Mark 16, nine, after Jesus rose from the dead early on Sunday morning, the first person who saw him was Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went to disciples who are grieving and weeping and tell them when it happened. But when she told them that Jesus was alive, and she had seen him, they didn't believe her. Afterward, he appeared in a different form the two of his followers, who were walking from Jerusalem to the country, this was a mass road thing. So see, when we put it all together, he's just summarizing, they rushed back to tell the others, but no one believed them. Still later, he appeared to the 11 disciples, as they read any other he rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refuse to believe those who had seen him after he had been raised from the dead. If we look at what happened between Jesus's appearance to the one and the Emmaus road account, Matthew 2011, as the women were on their way, some of the guards went to the city and totally increased what had happened. And meeting with the elders was called, and they decided to give the soldiers a large bribe, they told the soldiers, you must say, Jesus's disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and stole his body. If the government hears about it will stand up for you, so you won't get in trouble. So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to say their story is widely spread or spread widely among the Jews. And they still tell it today. And indeed, this continues today. There are many worldviews trying to take down Christianity. And some are kind of from without, and some are from within, if we're being honest, so again, we talked about Islam, I still have the Swoon Theory. They have this theory that like that Jesus was taken from the crops couldn't possibly have died. Well, why would they even care about Jesus? Here's what you got to know. Most of these other worldviews competing, they're what I call counterfeit fates. They're knockoff things. And so what you have here is someone going and having an experience are saying they did right. And then writing something new on top of the already existing Bible, a corruption of the Bible. Let's have the Koran as a corruption. It includes Abraham, Moses talks about Jesus talks about the Virgin verse. So in there, it's changed. Problem is it comes in like 600 years later, so hundreds of years you have the Bible, people recognize Christianity is really growing, you have people recognizing what's going on. And then someone just comes along one person, and says, you know, I've just decided that all those events you talked about are wrong. Here's my own version. Here you go. You'd be crazy to believe that. Like, no, we already that that's the store, right? So this is what young people everybody needs to know about Islam. Well, people don't understand this. Right? It's a counterfeit faith. You know, I mean, sorry, but not right. So it's just wrong. Like, no, no, we already had the facts. Abraham, Moses, us, we already had these facts online hundreds of years. And you're going to just want you believe one that well, you know what, maybe you guys do have a lot of faith. This one guy goes as well. Gabriel, talk to me or whatever, right? I wrote this whole thing. Here crazy. But that's what it is. Right? So from within. You have cults very, very like sneaky, trying to take it down, worming their way into our churches and into Christian media, changing the story about Jesus making him someone he isn't. So Mormonism, right? They're really into production companies nowadays.
Fake Christianity, same thing as Islam. But Joseph Smith goes and sees a vision somewhere, right? And that just tells everyone welcome Marvin, and it's awesome. It's better than the Bible. It's read that and then even changes the Bible. But again, one person has an experience. I were to believe him, and I was even later, right, so over 1000 years after Christianity, like everything's all codified, you're going to change it. It's a cult. That's what it is. This doesn't change. That's it. Right? So anyone comes and changes any bit of it. Just stop, turn it off. I don't care if most Christians think this is awesome. I'm glad I'm not most Christians. Amen. Alright, so they're trying to take it down. But here's the thing. It still With the test of time Christianity for, let's just call it 2000 years. There's a good reason why. And so recently and here's a Christian movie, I do recommend, I don't know what service it's on now. But case for Christ, it's actually really good. Now if we're being honest, most Christian movies, right? In my opinion, they're wrong. Right? They don't get this right. And that bothers me where they're just cheesy. Let's be honest, low production values, like, this one's pretty good. A lot of people don't laugh, so you know. But this is good, it's really good. And what I like about this guy, Lee Strobel, he's like an investigative journalist, let's call him that. And he sets out to take out Christianity, right? He's going to take it out. He's done. And so he goes to all these experts, and they basically boil it down to this look, just prove the resurrection. Well, let's take out Christianity just proves resurrection. They're done. Like, that's how you do it. And so he goes around, he just like meets with all these like top guys that are still alive today. And they're really still our top guys like William Lane Craig, really good. Gary Habermas. He goes in really interviews like the top guys in Christianity, even like doctors to figure out how the crucifixion might happen. All kinds of stuff. And through the proper process, right, the historical method that he's using, right, like a good journalist, you know, he's gathering his information to see whether this is real or not. When he applies that to Christianity, he becomes a believer. Amazing. He's like, this is bulletproof. And this is recently, so 2000 years, no one can take it out. Now, let's look at like what most people are going to claim here. And I'll give you like, a little window into why it's not true. And then we'll just talk about it a little bit. So we've got other worldviews and why they're wrong. Right? So and they do have criminals, not all of them, but they have Christianity in mind here. But most people will say you don't want to accept Christianity at all. And you'll say, look, the Bible, it's like a big game of telephone, right? And so it has written hundreds of years after the events, we don't really know what happened, right? Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla, right. So that kind of thing. Well, here's the problem. Is that for them is that let's just talk about the New Testament. That's what we'll say, because that's where these accounts are. When you look at it, they're actually 27. And scholars have called them witnesses. I call them so you listen very carefully to a good scholar they call the 27 books in the New Testament witnesses. And there's a reason because they were all written in the witness period by witnesses or people who interviewed the actual witnesses. And so Luke is one like, he's, he's not a direct witness, but he's just as good as like any reporter today was like, interviewing the witnesses like Peter, what happened? You know, so just like that, you know, so you had that maybe mark, probably a young boy during that time we read about him in Acts that his mom, Mary, so lots of Mary's right, so, but they're witnesses right? So, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So you got Matthew, Mark, probably, Matthew, clearly one of the apostles, John, one of the apostles, right. So Luke, maybe he's interviewing people here, Mark, like I said, well, then Paul writes 13 letters, he's a witness to the risen Jesus. Right? So if there was Hebrews, okay, I'll give you that one. Maybe not. Right. James, Jesus's brother, Peter, right, the lead disciple here, right. So Jude, one of the apostles the lead apostle, I should say, there. So, witnesses, John wrote revelations, so they're witnesses to Jesus, all people realize that these are the people writing really important primary documents, and we'll get into that in a minute. So one of these books and I like so just, it's not important, you guys, but anyway, First Corinthians is one of the books of the New Testament that even secular scholars will agree is like a real historical document. Like they're all argue about some of them. I don't know if all right this. So you don't bother engage. If you're me, you don't bother engaging with that. You just okay. What do you want me to work with First Corinthians, well let you have that. Great. Let's talk about First Corinthians. Right. So I'll start my argument from this point. Again, you don't even know. But it's important. So a book of the Bible that even like I said, unbelieving historians will accept and they will say interesting things about it. It is a real historical document. They say that, okay, so they're with us on that. Paul, real person who believes what he's saying, writing people believes what he's saying. So what did he say? When he talks about what we're celebrating today? First Corinthians 15. Let me now remind you do your brothers and sisters have the good news I preached you before you welcomed it then and you stand for a minute. It is the good news that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you, unless of course you believe something. It was never true in the first place. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me, Christ died for our sins, just as a Scripture said he was buried and he was raised from the dead on the third day, you Just as a Scripture said, he was seen by Peter and then the 12. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of the followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, as I says, untimely born, and maybe in your version, I also saw him. So here's what you have happening here, if you're looking at it, like from Lee Strobel standpoint, or from like a historian standpoint, you have a primary document. So this is called cert as a witness. But this is special because he's doing something that even a lot of like primary documents they don't do. Well, he's not just saying, Hey, this is what I saw. Believe me. No, this is what I saw. Go ask those 500 people, most of whom are still alive, go ask Peter's like famous in the church, go ask you go ask any puzzles, check my work. And then he appeared to me and see what he does there. He doesn't just make some crazy claim. No, he starts off with Gocek. Instead of just having to believe like one person's word for it. This is significant. So this is very important. They call it historical gold. This is great. And here's the thing, guys spent 25 years after the crucifixion. Now, to us today, we get everything like that just happens immediately, right? Our phones go off, and we know about stuff happened. And that's not the way it happened back then. So you have to compare it to other things like before the internet, or other things like that, or radio, or any of those other things. So I did my best like Sesame Street voice with the radio thing. But anyway, remember this gives? So here's a question for you guys. So here's where it will start. So we'll do some comparison real quick comparison. Question. Do you believe that Alexander the Great existed? Most of us would say yes, right? Reasonable people? Yes. He exists. Okay. Why? Because of history, right? Because what's written about Alexander the Great. Okay, let's look at that. So what you have here is there are probably things written, like earlier, like close to his time, but we don't have them. So we can only look at what we can see. So you have a library of history appears in there, but the soonest you get something like what we have for Jesus in the gospels is Plutarch, life of Alexander. That's the first thing we really have for solid, like best attested work to Alexander the Great, the oldest, if that makes sense to you, right. Like I said before, that we have a little bit, but it's about 100 years before that. Well, this is interesting, because Plutarch wrote life of Alexander around the same time that the New Testament was being written a little bit later, but that's okay. Right around the same time, maybe revelation later books are being written about them. So we're looking at about 100 ad. Sounds good, right? Except for one thing. Alexander the Great died in 323, BC, June or July. That's about 300 years before Jesus's crucifixion, makes it about 400 years after Alexander died. Are one guy, not a witness? Based on what other people told him? Not in a witness period, not even close 400 years later? We believe it implicitly, don't we? Maybe they have more faith than us. So we just believe it. But that's the truth about it, and you can go check my work. That's the truth. So what people normally accused the Bible of well, then Alexander the Great, and the writings about him are actually guilty of that. It was written hundreds of years later, we're not really sure blah, blah. Yeah. But not our Bible. The events today, again, that were that are recorded here. First Corinthians about 25 years. It's amazing in history, and I just want to tell you in defense of Alexander there, that's actually normal. For like history, ancient history Greco. You know, if you want to uncomplicated Greco Roman biographies, ancient Greco Roman biographies, that's what the Gospels are, the literary genre that they're in, but this is normal. It's normal to wait a long time before someone writes about something. We don't have a lot of like volume of copies. Not always based on witness testimony, but when you look at the New Testament, it is. It is so you're looking at about depending on how you count it, you know, 60 different witnesses, not one, not one that didn't witness anything 60 different witnesses writing 27 books. That's a lot. And in history, we have nothing like that. There's just absolutely nothing like it. Again, it's based on eyewitness testimony. We have to take one person's word for it. And a lot of these guys who start these religions, right, they're writing about first, Jesus didn't have to. They were watching and writing about him. So it's the opposite of what you normally get. were true witnesses. Now, this is significant. And I kind of dropped these Easter eggs in there earlier on.
So the women, why is that important? The women, I don't know why I didn't like that. So
why is it a practice near my wife? I say. So that's important. Well, well, here's the bad news. At that time in history, women weren't allowed to be witnesses in a court of law. Their word was worthless. So, wait a minute. Why would you have the women discovering? Jesus? That's kind of embarrassing. And then think about it for a second. Peter? Where is the healing lead? Not just not just like the cross? He's not there. Like, you know, your Lord, your master. Your best friend is dying right? Later. Hey, look, what? This is crazy. He's not there. They're painted as a bunch of cowards. But not the women. They don't even go to prepare the burial. They're not there. Think about it. They're not even like watching it. Nothing. They're at home eating. What? But the women are there the women? This is insane. All right. So they're not the CrossFit the Roman soldier is Surely this must be the Son of God. Like, what? So technically, like they're the enemy. So if these women the enemy, this is crazy. Let's call the embarrassment factor. Why would you add that? Or why would you put that in there? Here's why. Because that's just what happens. Despite embarrassment, if you were writing a made up story, right? You got Peter cutting off zero Huff, right? You can't or as he is, and you have two swords, right? Whatever. And they're like trying to hack these guards apart here. See, if Jesus saved his butt in their valiant efforts. They take Jesus. Oh, no, you know, then they're at the cross. They tried to get him again. Right. And then you have Peter taking down Jesus, not Joseph Arimathea. Wait, what? Oh, yeah, that's right. So the Jewish leadership who got Jesus killed, he's the one who buries Jesus. What, not Peter, but who was made up, let's go back to the metaphor and quick. So he's taking you'd have all these paintings through the renaissance of Peter, taking Jesus's body, right? Burying Jesus wrapping up Jesus, right. He's like, this hero and women, they're home cooking for us, you know, that kind of thing. And then, Nope, it's not there. Because it's true. Despite the embarrassment, it would cause the leaders, the founders, you know, of this movement. Jesus is the founder. But these are like, I don't know, the leaders of the moment at the time, they're the heads of the church, disgraced. This is a disgraceful story for them. Because Jesus gets all the glory. Because it's true. It's not a made up story. And this is a part of what was like, early people reading this are like you kidding me. But it must be true. The other thing a lot of people don't really look into as well. And just quick, it's a wealth of information that we have. A lot of young people don't understand this the way, you know, without getting into it too much. But they don't understand the way like textual criticism, all this stuff works when we're looking at ancient documents. And so when you're looking at ancient documents, you don't get a whole lot. And a lot of people don't understand this for ancient writings, you're just getting like fragments, sometimes if something and you're kind of like Jigsaw together, you know, like a puzzle, or something like that you're missing pieces. And so they have methods of like filling in those blanks. With the Bible, we don't need that. It's amazing. We don't need that. But you really do need that with a lot of other documents. So right now, they're probably up to about copies in New Testament or fragmentary, even about 6000 copies. Today, you're like, whatever, you know, like there's like a bazillion copies of everything in the world and my phone. That's a really big deal back then. So just in Greek alone, 6000 copies. Well, what's the big deal Jean? Well, when you look at other works of that time, right, so you're looking at Aristotle, Plato. stuff like that, or before that, you know, seven copies 47 copies, or Homer's Iliad, like probably has the most 686 They say, but you know, people counted all the way up to 1800. Still not 6000 copies. Right? So what we have for other people, it's not even close. It's a wealth of information. Now, here's the thing, too, when you're looking at the copies, they're all within like, 95% Agree, which is really good, because you got to think about it right? You know, no, I was going to say ditto machine. But you just can't make a copy of it, where they Xerox facts, we do that anyway. But anyway, you get my point, right? So you know, doing that you're sitting there hand copying these things, right. But it's just punctuation and grammar, just for lack of a better term, right? It's amazing. So let's just go back and look at something on today's subject matter. So back to First Corinthians three number 25 years after the cross, Paul's writing this, it's just unbelievable. He says this first Corinthians 1512. But tell me this, since we preach that Christ rose from the dead? Why are some of you saying there'll be no resurrection of the dead, for if there's no resurrection of the dead, and Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised either, then all of our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless or worthless. And we apostles would be lying about God, we have said that God raised Christ from the grave, that can't be true, if there's no resurrection of the dead, if there's no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised in your faith is useless, and you are still guilty of your sins. And in that case, all who have died, believing in Christ are lost. And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more be pity than anyone in the world. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, He is the first of a great harvest of all of die. That's how important the resurrection is. So that was the first thing people were going after. Back then. Oh, he's already about whatever it already happened. It's not going to happen, whatever it is, no. Did you notice something else? If our hope is only in this life, I think a lot of Christians need to hear that. We should be pitied. Our hope is not here. It's in that resurrection. So some facts, let's just look at some facts. Because it's important to review the facts. A lot of things that people will say we're going to dispel that Jesus claimed to be God. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise, he claimed he got it got him killed. So if you know the Bible, you know the burning bush account extra three, to see the burning bush Moses is like, Oh, what do I tell them? You are? I am? I am that's the name God assigned to himself. That's what Jesus is saying, especially the Gospel of John but others I am. It keeps saying that about himself before Abraham was Johnny. I am. Alright. So if you look at Mark 1462 is lesson one, the Son of God, I am. And you will see the Son of man coming with great power and authorities quoting Daniel seven, they all knew that it got him killed. He's saying he's God made that claim. And then when you look at the New Testament books, who've been here for a while you see it all over the place. They all understood that Romans nine five, you know, look at the second Peter one, it's inside is all over the place, calling Jesus flat out God, He is God. You must understand that Bible says it clearly. Jesus's existence and death are recorded not only by the New Testament, authors, 27 Witnesses unlike anything in history, also by other people, I'm not going to get into I don't have time Tacitus Josephus, they wrote about Jesus. He's very real, even if people who didn't believe in him. He was buried, he died and was buried. But then he rose from the dead after three days, we see the witness to that there are many of them in the gospels, and then Paul talking about it. And again, he appeared to hundreds of people. Fall challenges that go ask, they saw nothing like this in history, nothing. 40 days after he rises to heaven, He ascends to heaven. And we just don't have time for today. This series of events was predicted in the Old Testament in hundreds of prophecies that Jesus miraculously fulfilled. If that wasn't enough, nobody has that. This is you can just go read about it. What hundreds of years before fulfilled, the miracle unreal. So these are the just undeniable historical facts about Jesus, that we should all know and understand. despite many attempts to disprove or change, or here today, believing in it has not the truth has not been defeated. So, like, if you believe that Alexander the Great existed, you have like 1000s more reason to believe that Jesus did, and did what he did. So, what does this mean to you? What does it mean to you? Well, a lot. If you believe this, you made Jesus your king, you've come under His Lordship, which then means he's your Savior.
It means you're going to rise from the dead to means that death has no sting. You don't have that fear, if you really believe. So, you know, apart from being a really bad comedian, I'm also a full time pastor. And so I talk with a lot of people, right, and so people will let their guard down because they know, I'm going to keep it confidential. You know, I think I have a bad phone God or something like that.
But I do. It's awesome. It's rad. You know, what I'm not answering all signal goes up in the sky. It's anyway.
But you all do if you ask Jesus to find Jesus. But it's really interesting, just looking at people in the way people live their lives. And
it's funny, if we're being honest, most people live with this kind of just overlying cloud, this fear of death over them all the time. And it does a lot of different things. It directs the way people behave, the way they think the way they experience life, the way they experience joy. It's really disrupted by this. You know, it's kind of interesting turn 50 Recently, right? So you're supposed to go Oh, like, I didn't hear what I wanted to hear. But really, so you know, and like, you say, you just you start thinking like, oh, no, you know, like, back nine, right? So like, it's almost over. Like, I have less in front of me the do behind me, or maybe, maybe not, but I think I just want to die before that. But anyway, anyway, but you know, there's just less there's less and less days ahead than back, right. So that occurs to you, but I see what it does to people. Right. So hey, that'd be fun being on. It's got me a little bit. I was like, you know, I have some things I want to do, but that's okay. And I snapped back right. Because, you know, I like to think that I have faith, but I watch a lot of people and you watch them go through like midlife crisis or why did they do that woman die right? I got to go do all this stuff again, right? Or whatever it is. They're trying to redo right? So you have people redoing so they'll they'll break their marriage whatever they redo. I want to try there's a reason why death. Yes, they're afraid of dying. That's it. That's the boil it all down. You're afraid of dying. It makes it make a lot of weird decisions. Sometimes they make you get like a crazy job right to prove that you're not afraid of death. Like I don't know, I'm not pointing to anyone in particular, like be a cop. Like you could just decide you
that's an inside joke if I had to not sorry, just right. So you make crazy decisions to either prove that you're not afraid of dying. And he's not. Which is great. Like, it's a lot of faith. But there are other problems that come with you just she's not laughing all right, we joke, right? But it really sways our decisions, right? That fear of death or not? But it does. It controls a lot of people I see it really control people. Especially the joy just like sucks the joy. You know, it's like it's suddenly like 50 I made it. You know what I mean? It's like, No, can't fit that many candles on the cake. Right. See? So I heard a story about a 15 year old girl who is in a really tragic accident. She's in an accident. Terrible. So she's paralyzed. She can talk in here but she can't see she's lost her sight now. And it's really interesting because the doctors were their parents the bedside and she can hear He's kind of lamenting, really, he's like, No, there's nothing I can do. That's it. Her best days are behind her.
She can hear and speak. No doctor, you're wrong. The best days are ahead of me. I'm looking forward to an icy my king and all his glory.
That's what faith and this will do for you know, it's not pleasant at all times. But instead of that dark cloud of there, we have something bright, we can look forward to kind of washes that away. Are we going to be perfect in our faith all the time? No, they stopped by the clouds, not there. So don't stay in that like level of depression. That's our hope. We don't have to like sink into this like annihilation. This fear this defeat. Since Christ rose from the dead, we have the hope. The fact that we can rise from the dead two. So the resurrection is essentially the great antidote for the fear of death. That's it. Nothing else can take its place. Not worldly pursuits, not riches, not our jobs, not our spouse. That our smarts, nothing, nothing will bring us that type of comfort and consolation. Only Christ of joy, there's a freedom. Freedom from the fear of death. This really, especially if you're new here, just a few things for you guys. Know, maybe for believers too, because we kind of slip sometimes the disappointment of this world is gone. Maybe you've invested in things. It doesn't always have to be it could be money, maybe you've made a monetary investment. And you put a lot of hope in that monetary investment. It just didn't work out. disappointed you. Maybe you put your hope and a person, perhaps that person was a spouse, and they disappointed you. Maybe a loved one, maybe a friend. Maybe you put your hope and a mentor. He's great. And you just put your hope and a person maybe you put your hope in a political system or a political candidate who maybe they've let you down. Maybe you put your hope and someone famous, you looked up to someone right? They say never meet your heroes, right? And they let you down. But here's the thing, Jesus will never let you down. Put your hope in him. Maybe people do try to make yourself God. Have you tried to control everything around you everything is just hyper dependent on you. If I don't get this new job, you know, what's my family going to do? You're God. Speaking to a lot of men out there. We're not going to die I trust the Lord's a little bit better at providing than I am. And this is freeing. This is free. Sure, I'm going to do my job. But ultimately, you're not going to worry about it.
It's free. It'll be okay. I'm not God. So if you're tired of that kind of trying that kind of work, relax. Hoping this brings freedom from that heavy burden, trying to be God, isn't it?
And everything that we do a monster just not going to pick on the moms because in my experience, it's just a bad idea. But you don't need to use a phrase and you know, let it stay in your helicopter parents, right? A helicopter parents? Like it's going to be okay. It's fine. It's free. Listen, don't be like, Hey, you playing traffic and 40 want to go? It's not what I'm talking about. Right? So we have some responsibility, right? So it's not in menu. Guys, like I'm going to quit my job. It's not what I'm talking about. You get what I'm saying. Right? Free to not be God. Sorry, job. Christ brings us a greater purpose than our own pursuits. He's the best person to work for. He's the king of all kings. He's the Lord of all lords. Whatever. If you're working for him, okay? Imagine it, not me. But he's never going to mess up. He's never going to have a scandal is never going to let you down. He's never going to fail. It's better luck that you that you're tired of, like this hamster wheel, living this life of like, disappointment, like no meaning no purpose. Maybe there's sin involved, right? And so this answer, I get it, I get it been there, right where it's just chasing a pursuit, then the shame and the regret right then chasing the pursuit, and the shame and the regret. And when does it know it's not going to end? You can get off that hamster wheel. Right? And be free experience something that brings you real joy, you don't have to be ashamed about you don't have to have
regrets about this decision. You're invited into this family of faith. And so that's the thing, guys, you're looking at the world, like, how corrupted is the world? How
much drama is there in the world? Like, it's just nuts if we're being real, regardless of what you believe, or what you see. Come on. Is anybody else sick of it? You can't just be me. I'm like, this is just stupid. The stuff I'm seeing this again, I'm not even speaking into what side of anything you're on. Because I just even being on that as a stupid, right? This is just insanity. While again, you can get off that hamster wheel. We don't do that here. No, we're just going to talk about what's real, what's important. And that's it. We have a hope and something that will truly last forever. And that's what Easter is all about. So, I want to invite you, if you are new here, if you're vacationing and coming through Naples, I'll recommend about 15,000 restaurants that you won't have time to go through. For those who know me that he talks about the Bible and food. So yeah, welcome. Have a good time, right. So we can have fun while we're waiting online to die. Right? So that's kind of the way I look at it anyway. But if you're a local, right? Look, I want to give you an invitation to come on here. Get off the hamster wheel, right? Because this is all we talked about. We talked about Jesus, we love each other. We're doing great things in the community for the people, we just love everybody. And we're just trying to use this church is just a vehicle to get the community to come to Christ. That's it. So you'll be told we're going to have some food afterwards, Dan food and Jesus ate. So we'd like to fellowship together to get to know you. We're not trying to be some kind of megachurch, and scandalous and all that. Nope. My job, I want to learn everybody's name here. And what you guys do what you're going through, we want to do life with you. And so if you're feeling a little alone, you're feeling fearful. You're going through some of these things you don't have to. You don't have to, you can, first of all, and most importantly, right? accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. He's always with you, you will never be alone again. You will never be alone again. Hear that and know that. And then through the process, even sometimes I even forget. We have each other. We have a family of faith here. And that's what we're all about. So thank you for coming today. We love you again. I hope I get to meet you if it's your first time here. Let me pray for you, Lord, I thank you for everyone who took the time to come in. And hear your words today to celebrate what is truly important. That is your resurrection from the dead and that is our hope that we too will rise with you. Or I pray that you fill everyone with your Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. build them up with your love, your grace, your peace, your mercy, Your kindness. Bring them that peace and then let it radiate. Most everyone they run into this week. We ask these things in Jesus's name. Amen.