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Andy Stanley - Easter Matters · Andy Stanley Sermons

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I want to welcome all of our campuses around the city of Atlanta, around
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the state, around the country, and more and more around the world as
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people join us from all over the place. And it's so fun to see
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this growing network of people who understand that being a Christian isn't simply about believing
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things. It's about doing things with what we believe, because that's what that's
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what makes the difference. And I absolutely love Easter. I'm often asked Andy
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Easter and Christmas. It's like, you know that story, It's pretty much
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the same every year, you know, how do you come up with new
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stuff to talk about? Christmas is challenging, Easter not so much, because
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I just absolutely love Easter. M If this is your first time with us
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or the first time watching, here's something you need to know up front.
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If you lose you know, interest or electricity between now and the end of
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the message, here's what I want you to hear. We believe that Jesus
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rose from the dead, but we don't believe Jesus rose from the dead because
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the Bible tells us so. It's actually the other way around. If Jesus
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had not risen from the dead, there would be no Bible, there would
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be no church, and I would have no job. Okay, So the
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sequence of these things is so important. The reason, the reason we believe
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is because the men and the women who were there in the moment for this,
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and the men who spent time with Jesus after he wrote from the dead
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talked about it, and then they wrote about it, and those documents were
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so valuable in the first century that they were protecting people protecting these documents with
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their life. Matthew, who is a tax collector who had scribes working for
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him, documented the life of Jesus in the first century Mark, who spent
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time with Peter. Peter was a fisherman, probably illiterate, and Peter dictated
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his story to Mark, a Greek who wrote down Peter's account of his time
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with Jesus. Luke who opens his account of the life of Jesus by saying,
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I thoroughly investigated all of these things, talked to the eyewitnesses, and
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here's what I discovered. He wrote it down. John, who was with
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Jesus from the beginning, he gives us his account. Then Paul the apostle.
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Paul steps out of the pages of history. We'll talk about him in
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a minute as a Jesus hater who persecuted the church. The apostle Paul meets
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the resurrected Jesus, and he's one of the people who early in the earliest.
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In fact, his document in One Corinthians is the earliest written testimony to
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the resurrection of Jesus, just a few years after this event took place.
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And then my favorite one of all, and I know I say this all
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the time, James, the brother of Jesus believed his brother was his lord.
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And I just have to ask you, what would it take for your
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brother to convince you that he's the son of God. You're like, it
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would never happen exactly, But James this document in our New Testaments written by
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James, the brother of Jesus. When James later was dragged outside the city
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walls of Jerusalem and stoned to death, Josephus tells us about this. He
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was James the just He was leading the church when he was martyred. When
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James died, Get this, he died believing Jesus, his brother, was
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his lord. So that's why we believe Jesus rose from the dead. And
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then these incredible first century documents that were so important were protected and collected and
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collated. And then when it was safe for the bishop to come out and
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talk about this out loud. Later the Roman Empire, they were put together
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in what we call the New Testament. It was added to the Hebrew scriptures,
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and that's where we got our Bible. So the Bible didn't start this
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off. Christianity wasn't launched by the Bible. It was launched by this event
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that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. And then here's one other interesting fact.
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The men who brought us this story and who documented it, they were
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so honest. And one of the things they were so honest about was they
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did not believe Jesus was going to rise from the dead. They believed that
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Jesus, when he died, was going to do what dead people always do,
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stay dead. And when they visited the tomb and found it empty,
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they were shocked. And all of them acknowledged. Nobody writes themselves into the
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story as a hero. I believed it the whole time. Nobody. They
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were all shocked when they visited the tomb. Say this with me. Nobody
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expected no body, that's right. Nobody expected nobody, and they acknowledged that.
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But when that tomb was empty and they met their living lord, their
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lives were changed and the world began to change. But here's what I want
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to talk about for the next few minutes. Here's what I want us to
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focus on. So what so what I mean, what does that have to
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do with you? And what does it have to do with your kids?
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And what does that have to do with your future? What does any of
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that actually matter? Does any of that actually matter in the real world?
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Does the fact that Jesus rose from the dead solve anything? Does it resolve
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anything? Does it change anything about your life? Does it make your life
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better? Does it make anybody better? Does it make anything better? I
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mean, you know, do we really need Easter? Do you really need
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Easter? And the answer to that question is absolutely yes. And the reason
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is this because Easter addresses and answers the two questions that every single person wrestles
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with at some point in their life. And you may not have wrestled with
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these yet, but you will wrestle with these two questions at some point in
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your lif life. But most of us already have. The two questions are
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is there a personal God? And if there's a personal God, what does
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that mean for me personally? Now? Before the resurrection of Jesus, ancient
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people wondered, and they wandered. They searched, just like many people today,
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for a context, a meta narrative, some grand narrative that would make
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sense of life, that would make sense of the sorrow and death and injustice
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and loss and pain and the joys of life, something that would sort of
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be a framework to make sense out of life. Every ancient people tried to
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piece this together. And that's why they worship how they worship, and that's
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how they live their lives. And that's why they were so superstitious. There
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is something in every single person that wants to know does this matter? Do
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I matter? How do I fit in? And is there even anything to
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fit in? Two? And like us, they suspected there's more to this
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life than this life? But what And before Jesus came along, everybody buried
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loved ones, but they grieved without hope. If there was a god,
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or if there were gods, these gods were cruel, they were uncaring.
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Before Jesus, there were just hints and shadows that perhaps there's something beyond this
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life the world, and every ancient civilization was left guessing, and maybe you're
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guessing even now now. If I were to talk to you over at coffee,
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you have a theory. If I would say, how do you think
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this whole thing works, you've got an answer. Everybody has some coort sort
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of an answer. But regardless of your answer, you still wonder at times,
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and you still hope there's more at times, and then at times you're
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afraid, afraid to even hope. You've almost convinced yourself, or maybe you
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listen or watch today and you have convinced yourself. Hey, Andy, I
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know you're paid to do this, but the truth is we can't know.
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We can't we can't really know. We're all just guessing. And even though
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maybe you're confident that you can't know, every once in a while, something
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breaks through, a little light breaks through, at a little question breaks through,
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and you find yourself second guessing your confidence. You say things like everything
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happens for a reason, Well who's behind that? What's behind that? Or
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I don't believe in coincidence, well why? And then maybe you've just decided,
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Hey, I've just come to the conclusion all there is to this life
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is this life that when you die, you die and that's it. But
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the truth is, when you're lone and you're honest, you're not absolutely convinced,
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and you know that chemistry and biology can't explain the internal yearning, the
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questioning that goes beyond what you understand and how you can make sense of life.
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You hope, but you suspect, and you hope and you suspect it.
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Maybe there's more, and here's the good news. And maybe you've never
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heard this before. That's why Jesus came and spent three and a half years
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walking among us, being one of us, to fill in the gap,
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to remove some of not all of to remove some of the mystery, and
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to add some personality to who God is like, who God likes, what
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God cares most about. This is why, and that is why the resurrection
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of Jesus absolutely matters. Now, I want to tell you a quick story
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around fifty a D. So work with me here. Fifty eighty, about
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twenty years after the resurrection of Jesus, all the eyewitnesses are still running.
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Around fifty a d. The apostle Paul, who again steps onto the pages
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of history as someone who hates Christianity does not believe Jesus is the Messiah,
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and then becomes a Jesus follower, and he becomes so committed to the fact
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that Jesus is the Messiah and came for the entire world that he spends years
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of his life traveling around the Mediterranean Riom, the Mediterranean basin, at port
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city after port city after port city, telling people, telling strangers that God
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has done something in the world in that generation, for the entire world.
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So on one of these trips, he gets dropped off at a little port
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city and he's going to walk to Athens and spend a few days in Athens
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waiting for a couple of his tra traveling companions to catch up with him.
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Now, one of his traveling companions is Luke, and Luke's the man that
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wrote the Gospel of Luke, and Luke traveled with Paul, and so Luke
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is the one who tells us what happened. So here's what happened. While
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Paul was waiting for a few days in Athens, he was greatly distressed to
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see that the city, the city of Athens you can visit today, same
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city was full of idols. In fact, literally you can look this up.
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In these ancient times, the city of Athens, there were hundreds of
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idols, thousands of shrines, dozens of temples built to worship and to celebrate
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and to commemorate many, many, many gods. In fact, as soon
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as he gets off the ship, before he even gets up to Hilton,
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to Athens, at that very port little town, there are shrines to gods
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we've never even heard of, and all the way up the road that were
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shrine after shrine after shrine. And then he gets there and there's the sanctuary
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to Athena, and a sanctuary to Zeus, and the Temple of Poseidon.
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You can still see the remains of some of these in the temple to and
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Apollo and Hermes and Dionysus. There's the temple to the Nine Muses. The
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Muses were the gods of music and poetry and art. Everywhere he looks,
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there's temples and temples and temples and shrines and altars everywhere. And he shocked.
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And the reason he shocked is because this is supposedly the intellectual capital of
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the world. These are supposedly the brightest and the smartest people who've come together
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to figure out how the world works, and who makes the world work?
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And he realizes these people are just as superstitious as everybody else in every city
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I visited. These people, as smart and as educated as they are,
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they are as superstitious as the peasants that they look down on and make fun
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of. Paul realized they're asking the same questions that everybody in the world is
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asking. They were asking the same questions that maybe you're asking. They're asking
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the same questions that again all of us ask at some point, is there
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anybody out there? Can anybody make sense of this? Does this make sense?
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So here's what he did. He went to the marketplace, and we
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don't have all these details, but he sees some men who look like they're
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important guy men, and he walks up and starts talking to them because he's
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on a mission. He wants everybody to know God has done something in this
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generation for all generations. And he starts a conversation with them, and he
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starts telling them about Jesus. Imagine how this goes over. He's an unelectional
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capital of the world. He's a Judea and actually he's from Tarsus, but
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he's a Jew. And now he's going to tell them about a rabbi from
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Nazareth, and they're like, Nazareth, not familiar with that? A rabbi
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from Nazareth? And what And so Luke says, here's what happened. They
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look at each other and they're like, what this is such a slur?
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What is this babbler trying to say? It's like, this doesn't even make
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sense to us. What is this babbler trying to say? Others remark,
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he seems to be advocating another God. Just what we need in Athens,
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another God. And Luke says, the reason they were confused and the reason
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they were saying that is this. They said this because Paul was preaching the
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good news about Jesus. Now, I just have to stop and say something
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that I say often here good news. If the version of Christianity that you
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were raised with that you left didn't strike you as good news, it wasn't
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the right version, it wasn't the first century version, it wasn't Paul's version,
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it wasn't Peter's version, it wasn't the Jesus version. And if the
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version of Christianity that you are considering leaving, you're considering leaving it because there's
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not very much about it that's good news to you. Perhaps it's not the
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version that Jesus launched into this world because the message of Jesus was such good
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news, it was branded good news. Back to the text. They said
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this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus. But specifically what he
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was preaching in Athens about Jesus was his resurrection. Now, this is so
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fascinating. Paul was not sharing the parables of Jesus. He wasn't sharing the
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narratives from jesus life. He wasn't going over the you know, the sermon
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on the Mount. He wasn't quoting Jesus. His message was focused on the
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resurrection of Jesus, not even love one another. And the reason he focused
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on the resurrection is this. If Paul had simply gone in there and said,
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let me tell you about a man named Jesus who taught the following,
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well, then Jesus is just another burger on the grill. Okay, Jesus
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is just another god and another altar, and that's the last thing they needed.
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And Paul's point was he's not just another god with another altar. He
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has come to replace all the gods and all the altars, because God has
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done something new in the world for the world, and he punctuated the claim
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by raising this man, Jesus, his Son, from the dead, a
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resurrection of a human who claimed to be more than human in their lifetime.
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If this was true, okay, if this was true, this trumped even
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the best philosophy of the dead philosophers and the dying philosophers in Athens. This
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was like if God had done because all the philosophy was guesswork and all the
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stories were ancient stories. But if God had done something in their generation,
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in their lifetime and it involved raising a man from the dead, then that
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would change everything. So they take Paul to a place that you can visit
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today if you ever go to Athens. They take him to Mars Hill.
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Mars Hill is this giant outcropping of rock at the foot of the Acropolis.
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You you can google it and see it. And this is where the philosophers
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met and argued. So they take Paul to Mars Hill. You can go
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there today and climb up on the top of Mars Hill and see the acropolis.
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They take him to Mars Hill. They invite you know, the best
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in the brightest of the philosophers. Because what Paul is advocating for is so
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different and so unique, they decide the city fathers need to hear what he's
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talking about. And so there he stands, can you picture this? Now
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on the acropolis there are even more temple So there he is with that is
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a background, and they ask him, They say, look, stranger,
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these strange things that you're teaching us and trying to introduce to us, what
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do they mean? And so he tells them, because now he has their
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undivided attention. Now I want you to picture this. He is all alone
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in Athens. He is a foreigner, and he is about to do his
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best to dismantle not simply their worldview, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years
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of Athenian and Greek worldview, to which we would ask Paul, or ask
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Luke who documented this for us, what in the world was he thinking?
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I mean, why would he do this? And it's because the apostle Paul
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was absolutely confident God had done something in their generation. He raised Jesus from
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the dead, which punctuated everything Jesus claimed about himself, about God and about
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you and about me. Here's what he said, people of Athens. Can
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you imagine this moment they're quiet, you can hear a pin drop. They
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didn't have pens. They could hear something drop anyway. Anyway, people of
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Athens, I see that this is such, and this is a bit of
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a slur. I see that in every way you are religious. Actually,
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this word should probably be superstitious. They didn't have religions back then. I
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can see in every way you are very superstitious, meaning I can see that
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you think there is more to this life than what we see. I see
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that you are convinced there's more than meets the eye. I'm convinced that you
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believe there is a supernatural factor out there somewhere that impacts the daily lives of
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the people of Athens and the people of the world. You you got that
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part right. You are very religious, And he said four. As I
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was walking around, I saw something very interesting. As I walked around and
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looked carefully at your objects of worship, and there are so many of them.
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I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown god. Now,
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if you want to do something fun, look up what this referred to.
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Because hundreds of years or dozens of years before, there was a plague
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that broke out in Athens, and nobody could figure out how to get rid
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of the plague. And they had so many gods they didn't know which god
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to call on. And they had this very interesting thing that happened that revealed
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to them, oh, you've missed one of the gods. The god is
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angry. That's why you have the plague. They built an altar to this
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unknown god, and then the plague went away, and they thought, my
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goodness, what if there are other unknown gods? So as not to offend
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the unknown gods a little bit like my grandmother, I would go to her
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house for lunch on Sunday afternoons, and she would always have an extra place
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setting at the table. I'd say, Grandmama, who's that for. She's
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like, well, in case somebody else shows up. So they had the
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altar to the unknown god. They didn't want to offend anyone. Now,
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Paul, he's all by himself, so he's you know, he can kind
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of get up in their business a little bit because it's just him against all
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of them. And he says, because of this, it's apparently you are
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ignorant of the very thing you worship. You have all these alters and all
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these amazing temples, and these temples were torn down and burned when the Persians
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took that part of the world. Then they were rebuilt, so there was
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so much money and so much emphasis given to these temples. He's like,
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even with that, you aren't confident that you really know how this works,
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are you? You're not confident that you know what's up and what's not up
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with the gods. You're ignorant of the very things you worship. And this,
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this is so powerful. And this this thing that you're ignorant about,
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the gap in your thinking, the questions that you can't seem to answer.
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This is what I'm going to proclaim to you today. I'm about to fill
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in the gaps. I'm about to bring some clarity to what you know in
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general is true. I'm gonna give you the missing piece. And then he
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would imply and say, in a minute, and the missing piece is not
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a new philosophy, and the missing piece is not a new idea, and
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the missing piece is not an organizing andnciple that's going to make sense of the
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universe. The missing peace is a person. Then he says this to God.
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Then he steps way back. He dips into his Jewish heritage, but
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he doesn't quote chapter in verse, because they could care less about Torah or
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about anything the Jews believe. In fact, they believe they were superior to
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the Jewish people. The God who made the world, the God. Of
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course, the first thought is which one, And he's like, no,
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no, no, not which one. The one, The God who made
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the world and everything in it, including you, is the Lord of heaven
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and earth. And he does not live in This was such a slight,
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And he does not live in And he can turn to the point of the
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acropolis behind him, and he doesn't live in any of those those magnificent buildings
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you've built. The God who created the world does not live even in one
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of your beautiful temples built by human And here's the good news. And to
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God who created everything is not served by human hands. As if he needed
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anything, He's like, look, I understand how this works. My people
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had the same system where it seemed like God always needed to be satisfied.
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God always needed to be appeased. More incense, more blood, more incense,
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more blood, more incense, more blood, anything to get the gods
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to pay attention and to bless us in battle, to allow our children to
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be healthy, for the crops to come in on time, and to be
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able to feed our families and feed our nation. In the old days,
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it was all about appeasing the gods. But those days are over because the
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God of the universe is not a taker. The God of the universe is
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a giver. Rather, he himself look what he says, Rather he himself
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gives everyone life and breath and everything else. I mean, this is complete
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paradigm shift. And they listen for from one man again, he dips back
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into his Jewish heritage. From one man, he made all the nations,
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including your great nation. He would say to the Athenians that they shouldn't have
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it the whole earth, and he marked out they're appointed times in history and
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boundaries of the boundaries of their lands. And God did this. Now he's
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going to give him the point the purpose, he says. And God did
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this so that they, the peoples of every nation, would seek him.
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This is amazing. In other words, Paul says, look, I understand
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your sacrificial system. My people had one as well. I understand that all
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over the world, every single people group have their own gods, and they're
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doing their best to figure out how the world works, and they're doing their
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best to look up and to seek him. This is why I said earlier,
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even if you feel at times maybe you got it all worked out and
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there is no God, and this is us. This life is all there
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is. Every once in a while, there's there's a question, there's a
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shadow, there's a oh my God, there's a God help me, there's
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a if there's anybody out there, there's something in you, and there's something
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in me that instinctively looks up and said that is built into every single human
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being. That God did this so that they would seek him, not seek
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an idea, not seek an answer, not seeking explanation or a philosophy,
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but something personal. Seek him and perhaps this is the best part. And
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perhaps reach out for him, and maybe this is the message for you today
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and find him, because God wants to be found. Paul leans in and
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he adds this and this made no sense to them with their way of thinking.
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And he talking about God and his son Jesus, and he he is
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not far from any one of us, He's not far from you. Then
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he quotes, it's so amazing he quotes one of their poets. He doesn't
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quote the Psalms, he doesn't quote his own literature, quotes one of their
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own poets to say, Hey, this whole idea. I'm not making this
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up. This has been here from the beginning. Everybody is searching. Everybody's
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asking some of the same questions. Everybody has buried someone and wondered, well,
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I see them again. This is the human race on a quest and
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there is eternity in our hearts, and everybody from time to time looks up.
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And God has heard the cry of mankind, has answered the cry and
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has shown up. He is not far from you. We, he says,
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should not think. He says, now, come on, this is
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this is tough for them. We should not think that the divine being is
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like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human design and skill.
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In other words, no offense to what you've built here. It's magnificent.
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But God can't be contained in a temple, and God can't be imagined
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with something fashioned by human hands. And then he says this in the past,
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He's like, I'm not you know, I'm not getting on your case.
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In the past, God overlooks kind of strong such ignorance. God overlooks
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such ignorance because there was a gap, because there were unanswered questions. And
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God understood that everybody's asking the same questions and coming up with different answers.
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And God and his compassion waited and overlooked our ignorance. But the day has
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come when we're about to lose our excuse. In the past, God overlooks
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such ignorance. But now he commands all people everywhere, not simply here in
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Athens and not back home in Judea. It commands all people everywhere to repent.
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Now, when we see this word in church, it's like, oh,
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yeah, now I'm supposed to give up my sin and walk away.
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He's not talking about sin. He's never mentioned sin. This isn't about sin.
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In fact, the Greek word repent is a is a is two words
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put together. It's oh, meta means change, means your mind. He
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says, it's time for everybody to adopt a brand new way of thinking,
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to change their mind about how the world works, to change their mind about
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the gods, and to recognize there is a God who has left heaven and
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come to live among us because he wants to close the distance he is not
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far. He's revealed himself. He showed up, he walked among us,
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and Paul could have said, Guys, I realized how hard this is for
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you to believe. But I'm telling you. You get on a ship with
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me. I'll take you to Jerusalem. I'll show you where he lived.
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I'll introduce you to his mother. I will show you where he died.
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I'll show you where he was buried. I'll tell you I'll show you an
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empty tomb. I'll introduce you Peter James, John Matthew. I'll introduce you
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to his brother who thought he was crazy until he saw him die and had
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breakfast with him after the resurrection. I'm telling you this wasn't one hundred years
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ago or a thousand years ago. This happened in our generation. Men,
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Pay attention, because God did this for you. For he has said a
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day, he says, when he will judge the world with justice. Now
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justice, this was something there was not much of in the ancient world,
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in a world filled with injustice. This was a big promise. And Paul
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says, the God that I'm talking about is a god of justice, and
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one day justice will be served. And how will this come about Paul.
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I mean, you're kind, You're painting a pretty big picture for us.
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You're you're making a lot of promises. It will come about by the man
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that he God has appointed. What if that was true? That was his
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point. What if that's true? What if God has done something in this
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generation? He would say to them that impacts every single person in this generation,
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generations before, in generations after. What if God had just been waiting
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for just the right time to enter history and he overlooked the ignorance and the
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questions, because well, what else could we do but ask if we didn't
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have answers? And what if God has closed the gap and wants to be
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discovered and wants to be known and all you have to do is reach out.
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What if there is a God man who is the explanation for what God
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is like? And what if he actually cares for his creation? And what
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if he's a giver not a taker? What if he's concerned about justice?
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Well that would be great, Paul, But are you just making this up?
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How do we know? How can we be sure? Paul's like,
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I'm glad you asked. He this is the big clothes is the big finale?
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He God has given proof. He doesn't expect you just to believe and
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believe. He certainly doesn't expect you to just to believe my story. Paul
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would say, He's given us proof, and he's given us the proof to
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everyone by raising him Jesus from the dead. Now, there is something baked
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into this that's so powerful that I don't want you to miss. When Paul
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says everyone, he meant everyone, because everyone listening to him on that day
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was alive when Jesus was raised from the dead. That generation was alive when
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the eyewitnesses were testifying to what they saw. In fact, most of his
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audience was alive when Jesus was raised from the dead. This was not an
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event a long long time ago, as I said, this was a current
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event. That He has given proof to this to everyone by raising him from
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the dead. This was a current event, but it was a current event
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that watched this. This was a current event that validated everything Jesus claimed about
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himself and the resurrection was that a current event that validated everything Jesus said about
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God. And the resurrection was a current event that validated everything God said about
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you and about me. That God so cared about you that God so cared
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about you, and that God so cared about me, and that God so
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cared about us that he sent his son into the world to close the gap,
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to bring some personality, to bring some answers, to clarify who he
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is, and then to lift up our sins, our individual sins, and
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carry them off and hold them against us no more so that you could experience
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what we sometimes sing God's reckless love. And it was reckless. It was
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reckless because of what we talked about last time. It was reckless because this
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is amazing. Only a parent would do this for their child. That's it.
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It was amazing because God announced your forgiveness in advance. God announced that
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regardless of what you do, you will be forgiven. God announced that he
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loves you so much he has pre paid your sin debt because he loves you.
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When he wants to unite with you, and if you will just reach
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out, Paul says, you will find him because he is not far from
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any of you. Before you sin, he paid for it. And of
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course he knew this would sound too good to be true, and so he
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validated that claim by raising Jesus from the dead. So it's Easter matter.
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Oh yeah, it matters. It matters because it answers the two questions that
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we're all going to ask at some point in our life, and maybe you're
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even asking that question today. Is there a personal God? Yes, there's
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a personal God who sent his son to die for your personal sin. That's
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how much he loves you, and that's how well he knows you. And
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that's good news because if there is no personal God, play any kind of
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mind games you want. If there's no personal God, there's no hope.
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If there's no personal God, there's no purpose. If there's no personal God,
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you can keep looking for a way to make sense out of this world,
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but it just doesn't make any sense. The honest atheist just say it.
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Purpose is feutile. There is no purpose at the end. It's an
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endless void of purposeless existence. And perhaps you have tried to live with that
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mindset, and isn't it true you find it almost impossible to do because eternity
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in your heart. And until we come to recognize that there is a God
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who loves us, all we have in this life are seasonal idols. Remember
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your idols in high school, then your idols when you were single, then
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your early idols and they're just seasonal idols, mystery, empty altars. Does
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Easter matter? Yes, it matters because it validates the claim of Jesus first
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century followers who said, Hey, we sat across the table from God and
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a body, and if God in a body is anything like God in heaven,
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and God is love and God loves you, and the resurrection of Jesus
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provides us with that assurance, the assurance that we sing about sometimes that God
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doesn't just tolerate us. He doesn't have some place to go that were not
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like his trophy children, that he abandons when we roam right. His mercy
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is not a favor, and his presence isn't rushed. On the contrary,
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the men who knew Jesus personally would tell you no. On the contrary,
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God, God is and Jesus is love. The cross was it not some
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kind of vehicle to prove that he finally cared. It wasn't like a last
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resort thing. Jesus made it clear that God's mercy has always been there in
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every generation for all people, and that's why it was good news of great
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joy for all people when Jesus was born. Acceptance never withheld from us,
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No need to measure up. God's not like your boss. God's not like
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your earthly father. God's not like the person who's always comparing you to somebody
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else. Acceptance not withheld from us, no need to measure up. It's
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true. God is loved, and God has revealed himself because he loves you.
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Paul is right. If you reach out, you'll find him because he
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is not far from any of us, and he is not far from you,