Latest / The Reality Is / Unveiling the Promise of Hope in the Resurrection Story

Transcript

Unveiling the Promise of Hope in the Resurrection Story · The Reality Is

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You need to know and you need to understand clearly how much God loves us.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: The Trinity God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit before we were even born, said I've got a plan for them to spend eternity with me, and this is what I have to go through.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: And if this is what I have to go through in order for them to spend eternity with us, I'm going to do it Right, Because that's how much I love them.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Please know and hear this the reality is, you are loved by God so much that he sent his son to die for you so that you can be free from your sins and that you can celebrate in the resurrection and be adopted into the family of Christ and be called a child of the Most High God.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Reality Is podcast, where we're here to talk about real life and real faith, and I've got to tell you this is, in church life, one of the busiest weeks as we come preparing for Easter, and so I just wanted to know what has your week been like already, Because I know you're always doing some type of ministry.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Well, you know it's been a busy week, but it's just one of those times.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Well, you know it's been a busy week, but it's just one of those times.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: And then you have the Easter things that are associated with Easter, because we always have larger crowds and we have a lot of people able to make it in.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: But then there's other ministry activities going on as well yeah, always.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: So you can't cancel all those to do the others.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It's been a busy week, but it's been a good week it has been, and I know I joked.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: In our staff meeting I was like, can we push Easter back just by a week?
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Can we push it back one week?
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: And you're like, no, joey, we're not doing that.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: But I figured what a great topic to talk about, because Easter is one of those times where everybody's just going crazy Everything's busy, everything's happening and for a lot of times I think a lot of people are preparing for the wrong thing.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: They aren't getting their heart and their mindset for what the real meaning of Easter is, and that's why we wanted to talk about that this week.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: And so I looked up the definition for Easter and it says it's a feast that commemorates Christ's resurrection.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I thought, man, that is great, spot on.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: And then it goes on to say it's observed in various dates due to the calendar, because it's on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, well, there's some added information that who knew, who cares.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: But I guess, great, that's what Easter is, Great, that's what Easter is.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: But in a lot of cases Easter has become about the bunny that lays, I think, a Cadbury egg or a chocolate egg, I don't even know to turn it over to you, because I know you have a lot to say about the real meaning of Easter.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Right, you know, I think, as we come in on this time, the first thing is I hate the word holiday.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: You know we talk about holiday and we look more to Good Friday, which a lot of people will be off this Friday, but they won't look at it as the day that our Savior went to the cross.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: They'll look at it as a day of going to the river, down to the lakes, the beach, which I'm glad families have opportunities to get together, have a good time, spend time together.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: But, with that said, that has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Many people are going to gather this Sunday.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: They will come to church.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: We have a horrible habit of saying they only come to church on Easter, and I think there might be a little truth to that, but a lot of times it just happens to be the Sunday that businesses close and people aren't able to come out, and so I think there's a lot of that as well.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: But even at that, a lot of people are going to get caught up in the secular meaning of Easter.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: It's decorate eggs and the Easter bunny, and on and on we go.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: And yeah, just as you said a moment ago, I mean, it's what came first, the bunny or the egg?
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I don't know who knows and so let me just say chocolate eggs are not a bad thing, okay, by no means are they Exactly.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: But, seriously, we've lost sight, and that's the reason you and I talked about wanting to do this podcast At Christmas.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: We talked about losing sight of the real meaning of Christmas in the festivities, yes, and today we want to spend some time saying that Easter while letting the kids hunt an Easter egg.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's the end of the world, no, but if you fail to tell them about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you've totally missed what it's all about, and as much as we say, jesus is the reason for the season and Christmas, jesus even more so on Easter, is the reason why we celebrate, and that's what we want to talk about today.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: We want to talk about Jesus and the true meaning of Easter.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: You and I talked about it before.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: This is something that was actually brought up in the Old Testament, declaring who Jesus was and what was going to happen and what his life was going to look like, and knowing that God loved us so much that he was trying to prepare his people to let them know this is what is going to happen.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Please be ready for this to take place.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I think it just goes to show the love of God and why it is so important that we recognize Easter for what it is.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: You know Absolutely.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It points in the old, to the failure.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: You go to 1 Corinthians or, I'm sorry, genesis, and in Genesis we find God creating and then we find man's failure.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: The sentence of that was death.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, god said the day you do this, you will die.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: The sentence of that was death.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, god said the day you do this, you will die.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: And we find that immediately.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: He made a path, he made a way.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: In Genesis 3.15, he made that first promise of a Savior.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Everything from there is pointing to that coming Messiah, absolutely.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: And all of that culminates with the cross and we see the death, the burial and the resurrection In 1 Corinthians 15, we're going to spend some time in a few minutes looking at that.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: But in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul lays out the whole understanding of our salvation and the death, the burial and the resurrection.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Joey, if we remove the resurrection from the Christian faith, we have nothing.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: We're empty.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Paul says we're of all men to be pitied.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: I had a conversation several years ago with a man that was supposed to be a preacher of the gospel and we were actually visiting in a hospital room of a saint that was about to go home to be with the Lord and this other guy looked at me and we were just sitting there talking and he looks over at me and he goes well, I just hope everything's okay for them and he goes.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I just hope everything's okay for them.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: And I looked at them and I said explain that, please.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: And he rambled around with the family, he rambled around with our hope that everything's okay and I finally said we don't hope everything's okay, we know everything's okay Because we put our hope in Jesus.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly, he told me later.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: He said I think you put way too much credibility in the resurrection.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: He said we can't be certain it happened and you're saying this is a fellow preacher of the Word.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Well, he said he was.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I looked at him and I said I think you need to revisit your salvation.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: And that may sound harsh, but the reality is I am saved through the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: If I remove that, then I have absolutely nothing more than hope of whatever.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what is the hope?
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Because there's so many different hopes out there If we don't believe in Jesus.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: There's the hope I come back as a better person.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: There's the hope that I just go into this eternal sleep and I'm in nothingness now.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: But no, we have a hope of resurrection, life everlasting with the Father in heaven.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: You know, as a pastor, when we preach and lead in sermons, our sermon funerals you and I both have talked about this before is what would we say?
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Minus the resurrection?
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: There's just basic primary beliefs that people have.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: As you said a moment ago, there's the we die, and then there's nothing.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Well, you want to talk about a miserable existence.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: I spend my entire life, even if I live to be a hundred, dreading the nothingness that comes after, or reincarnation.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I think that's just as miserable as nothing.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: I got a shot at coming back and my karma impacts.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you, I am a worm when I come back.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Think about spending your entire life trying to improve your next life.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: And then there's other side runs of that.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: But only in the Christian faith do we know that another paid the price for us that we could not pay for ourself, and in that we have the confidence of eternal life.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And so I think that's the whole idea of Easter, the whole meaning of Easter, putting our hope, our faith and our trust in Jesus who did the work for us.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: So can we spend some time talking about Jesus?
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Because I think people have this false image of who Jesus is, and I don't mean from the movies and pictures and stuff, I just mean in their own heart and in their own mind.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: And you just actually went through this in the sermon you just did on Palm Sunday.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: In the sermon you just did on Palm Sunday, about how they were expecting Jesus to look a certain way.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: But their own scriptures told them what Jesus was going to look like, how he was going to come and what to expect.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: But they didn't want to see him that way.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: In Isaiah 53, 1 and 3, it says In Isaiah 53, 1 and 3, it says who has believed our message and to whom the arm of the Lord has been revealed.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: He was despised and rejected by men.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: A man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hid their faces and was despised.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And we esteemed him not Like Jesus.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Wasn't this wonderful almighty?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, oh, he was the most beautiful person on earth?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: No, the bible says he was actually somebody you really didn't want to look at.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Like somebody.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: You just go oh what's that?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Who's that dude?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Kind of like when people look at me who's that dude?
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: That dude's nothing.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: That was jesus yeah, and and it goes back to what you said a moment ago it was laid out in their own scriptures what to look for.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, and even though it was clearly laid out in their own scriptures, they were looking for a military messiah.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, let's just boil it all down to its finest sense.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: They wanted the literal earthly throne of David reestablished to where they would be dominant and they would no longer be under the thumb of Rome, and so what they were looking for was that military Messiah.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: There will be a day that Christ will return as King of King and Lord of Lords and he will rule and reign.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: That's what we're looking forward to.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: But the coming of Christ for our salvation was clearly laid out throughout Isaiah.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: I know you have some other scriptures that we can look to, and I mean it was laid out so clearly for us, but they rejected that and the other one that you brought up last week.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Isaiah predicted it.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He said it was going to come from humble beginnings.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: It says he grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of the dry ground.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: He had no beauty, no majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: And you brought up in the message that you know.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Here they are celebrating.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And then somebody says man, who is this guy?
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And they're like, oh, oh, that's Jesus.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: He says man who is this guy?
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And they're like, oh, that's Jesus.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: He's from Nazareth.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: And you told us Nazareth is not the real place you want to be from.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: In fact, I looked up Nazareth and it well, what I would call a podunk town.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: It was a podunk town of like 200 people.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: And then it says in John 1, 46, nazareth, can anything come good Like anything good come from Nazareth.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: And you brought that up to us last week.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly so.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: His beginnings were nothing that we would assume, even the idea of being out of Nazareth, and of course he was there because Joseph had to flee for his life with Christ as a young child.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: But when we look at all these teachings and all of the promises throughout scripture, it lays out clearly, as we walk through the old Testament and and we go back to, they knew, uh, even that's the point even at the birth of Christ, when the wise men came and they arrived in Bethlehem or in Jerusalem and they're like, okay, we see a star, we're trying to find him.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Um, the religious in Bethlehem or in Jerusalem?
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: And they're like, okay, we see a star, we're trying to find him.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: The religious leaders knew exactly where to tell them to go.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Oh well, bethlehem.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's written, it's where it says it's going to happen.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: But they didn't believe it.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: And even throughout, all they had to do was revisit their own scriptures in Isaiah to say this is the Messiah that's prophesied, and they didn't believe it.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: It's not what they wanted.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And it's hard to imagine that somebody who's claiming to be the king of the Jews and you are a Jew and you go all right, here's my king, and my king is going to come and he's going to conquer, and it says, no, he's going to come and he's going to conquer.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And it says, no, he's going to come and he's going to suffer.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Jesus is going to come and suffer, and this is the part that I think people really need to remember, especially on Easter.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: There was suffering that took place not because he had done anything wrong, but because he was doing it for our sake.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And yeah, there have been movies out there that show it, but nothing can really capture the suffering that Jesus had to go through.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: It says in Luke 9, 22, the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed, but on the third day he's going to be raised to life.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Why did Jesus have to die?
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Why was Jesus killed?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Well, you and I know it was for our sake, but there's other people out there who's listening.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Like you say they come to Easter because they can, they know it's something they're supposed to do.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: They have the time off, so let me go to church, because that's just something we do on Easter and I know you don't really get much time to explain the why, but you always tell us it's so important to know the why of the things that have happened.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Can you explain to us why Jesus had to die?
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you go back and you look at Christ or you go back again to the Old Testament, you look at Genesis and he promised a Redeemer.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: There, even in the garden, the first blood was shed when the clothes were made to cover Adam and Eve.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: That foreshadow that forethought of the coming of the Redeemer.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Foreshadow that forethought of the coming of the Redeemer.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: The scriptures tell us.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: And so when we follow through and we watch what happens, we understand that there had to be a sacrifice.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: In 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21, we read that he made Him who knew no sin, the sinless one, to be sin for us, and without that there would be no forgiveness.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Without that there could be If we could save ourselves, if we could work and become good enough and achieve that level of sinlessness.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: The death of Christ was the saddest event of history and the aspect of the cruelest, most unfair event in history.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: But sinful man cannot save himself.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: It is impossible.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: You stop and think about it.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: If we're going to argue that I can work my way there, that the shedding of the blood was not necessary, that I can do it, well, what's your standard?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I've got my standard, and I was just talking about this to somebody the other day.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I looked on at what somebody else did and said, whew, at least I'm not as bad as that person.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but how long did you have to find that person?
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Just asking?
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: You know, you've heard me say that all of us will compare ourselves to someone we're better than Absolutely.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Now, some of us have to look longer than others, but I'm never going to go and compare myself to an Apostle Paul, to a Billy Graham.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: That's not where my comparison wants to lie, and so there's where it's at.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Well, the other thing is is which works, save you, okay.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: So if we're talking about I can earn it, well, what do I have to do to earn it?
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Does that mean that I have to give more money than anybody else?
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Does that mean that I have to make pilgrimage or journeys?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Does that mean that I have to make pilgrimages or journeys?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Does that mean that I have to?
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: serve.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm serving harder, I'm working harder, I'm building more, I'm doing these things.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: But again, these are all man-made things in our own mind that we say, if I do this, then I am better than, therefore I can earn the right to.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: And that's not it at all.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: There's nothing we can do to earn it.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: No, no, and I think most of the time on our podcast we reference a lot of Scripture, and today I'd just like to spend just a few moments in 1 Corinthians 15.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I just want to read a little bit and kind of point to it, because when we're talking about Easter, we're talking about why is it necessary?
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: And the question of the shed blood is a valid question for people that are struggling with faith.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time one time talking to a person that my wife and I knew well, and we talked to her for a long time about the gospel and finally she looked at us and literally in tears and wanted to believe what we were saying, but said I cannot, in her words, believe in a bloody salvation.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: And she couldn't get past the sacrifice, and that's a reality in our world today.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: So why is it necessary?
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Listen, the Bible tells us.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, and he's recapping, if you will and he comes back and he said here's what I want you to know this is the gospel you received, this is the gospel you stand in, and he made this and it's also by which you're saved.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: So our salvation is anchored in this.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: And then he describes it.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I deliver to you first of all that which I received that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: And then he goes on to say that he was buried and how important that was, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: And so when we're talking about Easter, we're talking about the death, the burial and the resurrection, and if we remove that from the Easter story, we have no Easter story.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: If we remove the death, burial and the resurrection, we have no salvation.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: We have nothing to say on Easter.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: So we might as well talk about bunnies and eggs.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and I think it's a good point death and burial, and you talked about the shedding of blood, and that was a shedding of blood, the death and the burial.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: But the most important part is the resurrection, the celebration of what we are talking about Easter.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: He rose again.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: He conquered sin and death.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Isaiah tells us he bore our sins and that's what he was doing on the cross.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Because that's a lot of times people don't understand what was he doing on the cross, like, okay, so he died for our sins.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: No, he wasn't just dying for our sins, he took upon him all of the sins of the world and then said okay, god, it's finished.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Father, I'm done, I commit to you my spirit, here's my spirit, take it.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: And then, three days later, he rose again.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: That's the celebration, and I think it's important for us to remember and of course we could go on and on, so I have to be careful here but it's important for us to remember that it's just not Scripture.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: I know that there may be someone listening to our podcast and going okay, so it's in the Bible, what else?
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: There are hundreds and hundreds of pages of secular historical evidence of non-believers pointing to those who believe one raised from the dead, so it even literally goes back to the time of the resurrection that people were trying to cast doubts on it.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Here's what we have to remember Either Christ was the Messiah or he was insane, but there's absolutely no middle ground.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Some people will say he was a good teacher.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Some people will say he was a good man.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: But listen, if he was a good teacher and a good man, he was a martyr.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: A martyr is someone who dies for a cause they believe in, but they die.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And he was the Redeemer, he was the Savior.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: He wasn't just a martyr.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: He went to the cross.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: He did indeed die, but he rose again, and so when we're talking about how important it is that the bedrock of our salvation Now I want you to listen, because one of the things about anything that takes place is witnesses.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Now thinking about our witnesses.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: So we remember when Christ died on the cross, according to John's gospel, Mark's gospel, when he died on the cross, the women witnesses to that.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: They wanted to properly prepare the body.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes indeed, but they had to wait for the Passover to end, they had to wait for the Sabbath to end, and so on Sunday, the first day of the week, they were coming to prepare the body and they were talking on the way about how are we going to do this?
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Because the Romans put that big stone, and I think it's interesting to know the only people that believed Jesus's declaration that I will rise from the dead were the enemies of Christ.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: You know, they're the ones that put a stone, sealed it and put guards in front of it.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: And so when they got there, they're actually wondering as they go, how are we going to move that big stone?
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: And then, when they get there, that stone is removed.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: An angel is there, and I love what the angel says.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: He is not here, he is risen, and I love what the angel says he is not here, he is risen.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: He is risen, just as he said he would, and of course they leave there.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: They go and they tell the disciples, and Peter and John outran, the others, they got there Basically, John said, and I outran the other guy?
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: But it's interesting when John gets there, and I outran the other guy.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, but it's interesting when John gets there.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: He stops and gazes.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: But Peter rushed in and the evidence was there.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: It says that the grave clothes were folded.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you the argument that the body was stolen.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: You don't?
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: steal a body and unwrap them out of the grave clothes, fold them up and put them back neatly over in the corner, and you don't steal a body from Roman soldiers posted to guard.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: The biggest nonsense of history is to argue that the body was stolen.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: We have to understand that it can't be.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: It couldn't be.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: And so when we look at that well, so we go all the way back to that we see that.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Then we find, as Sunday as I'm going to be talking about, thomas being the one not there.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: And so as we look at the resurrection, and Thomas is the one not there, and when Thomas does show and Christ appears, how his whole world was turned around by meeting the resurrected Savior, well, why in the world was Thomas hanging out with the others?
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: That has to be the question.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: If he didn't believe that there was a resurrected Savior, here's what he knew.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know what to believe, I don't know what to make of this, but I know one thing All these guys that say they've seen the resurrected Savior, there's something different about these guys Exactly, and I think we have to recognize that.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: There were witnesses to that.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: There were the ladies, there was Peter and John, then there were the disciples.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: As he gathered the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: That saw the resurrected Savior.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Then we come and to again, as Paul's given the account he said.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Here's the deal he was seen by Cephas, that's Peter, then by the 12th, and then he was seen by over 500 at once.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, so to argue in hallucination to 500 people, for all those people.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that just doesn't make sense it can't be.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And so when we look at the evidence with that many witnesses, you know, if you go into a court of law and you have one eyewitness, they call that irrefutable evidence.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: If I walk into a court of law and I have 500 eyewitnesses, there's not even an argument, no way.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Now we're talking plea bargain, and so when we look at this and we understand these witnesses were there.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: And so, as Paul's building the case for the resurrection, he reminds us Easter is the foundation of our salvation.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: If the death, the burial, the resurrection, he reminds us Easter is the foundation of our salvation, if the death, the burial, the resurrection, you remove any of that, we have no salvation.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And he goes or a reason to celebrate, exactly so he begins first of all with as it is written, so we know we have the scriptural evidence, yes, indeed.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: But then he says and, by the way, not only do you have all the prophecies of Isaiah and a number of others, yeah, and others, he said but what about all the physical witnesses that actually saw this take place Exactly, saw the risen Savior and were able to testify to that?
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: And so that's so important for us to realize.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: It is literally the foundation of our faith.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you brought up another great point, because it wasn't just that.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, I witnessed it and there he is.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: But their life was changed.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: They were a different person.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: And that's still happening today, day, you know, 2000 plus years later, when somebody has had an encounter with Jesus and it is true, encounter with Jesus that person has changed and the evidence of their life proves that there is something different.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And that's why people are able to look at you and go man, there's something different about you.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I don't understand what it is, and then you can tell them it's because of Jesus.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: And Easter is something that, yeah, we celebrate once a year, but Easter is an everyday thing.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: It's a resurrection that has taken place.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: It's present in our life to this day, and every day we are celebrating a resurrected Savior who has done a work on the cross for us.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And I think you absolutely nailed it, joey, because what we're looking at is every other world religion when you look at the essence of their faith, the essence of their religion.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: I don't want to oversimplify, but it really boils down to being good enough, working hard enough and hoping in the end your good outweighs your bad, yeah, and Christianity alone says it has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with him.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have a basis of my good or my bad.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: It has a basis of the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and who he is, and only that radically changes people.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: And when we look at the number of changed lives that take place because of the gospel, now I know that minus the gospel, people can quit bad habits and minus the gospel, people can be good people, but it all is driven by themselves and at the end of the day, it's really not a life change and only the gospel changes.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: It's the only thing that can change and you and I can personally testify to that of who I was before Christ and who I am after my encounter with Christ.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: There were things I was doing in my life to try to be a good person and, yeah, I can make changes and become a better person.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I can be a good person but it didn't change my life.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: It didn't change my mindset of how I look at other people, how I treat other people, how I behave, look at other people, how I treat other people, how I behave, and then when I do something that offends somebody, before Christ it was just like all right, man, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, but now it's a complete different thing.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: It's like oh no, bible tells me to consider that person higher than I am.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I truly offended my brother and you guys can go back and listen to the Confrontation podcast about that more in detail but it's a changed life that takes place because of the resurrection.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: And we just can't say it enough If you take the resurrection out, everything that Christianity stands on is non-existent.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: There's nothing.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ said that our eternal hope is in that, because Christ said in John 14, because I live, you also will live.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: If he doesn't live, we don't live.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, romans tells us that we're partakers of his death, we're partakers of his life, and if he doesn't live, we don't live.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: And so it's so important as we look through 1 Peter 1, and verse 3 tells us that, according to his mercy, that he has caused us to be a born again, with a living hope through the resurrection.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Our living hope is through the resurrection Again.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Without that, we have nothing to hold on to.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Paul, really starts to break that down, and it's amazing what he does with it.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: And so where is our living hope.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing what he does with them.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: And so where is our living hope?
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's in Jesus.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: It says in Acts 2, 31 and 32,.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: It says Jesus was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all, as you said before, witnesses to the fact, and that's the whole reason for Easter and that's what I'm trying to get people to recognize and realize.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I know we keep saying the word resurrection.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Resurrecting that's the word that I want people to recognize, because it's not the word Easter that we're celebrating.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, jesus did die for our sins.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, he was buried for our sins, but his body did not see the grave.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: The grave is abandoned, the stone was rolled away and that is why we're celebrating.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I really hope the people who are listening to this podcast can get it in their head, get it in their heart and get it in their mind.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, you just said earlier, there's nothing wrong with a chocolate bunny or chocolate eggs, whichever one you want.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I think they have chocolate bunnies and chocolate eggs.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Nothing's wrong with that, especially if you dip it in peanut butter and eat it.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: It's phenomenal, it's the way the Lord intended.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Now let's just clarify real quick.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Don't want to get off topic, but there is something wrong with hollow chocolate bunnies.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: do you bake a whole thing like this and leave it empty in the middle?
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: we did a podcast a few weeks ago on Focus, so we get back on track.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: But there is nothing wrong with that, you're right.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with that, especially if you're just having a good time.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I know there are Easter dinners that are planned.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Somebody invited us to go to be a part of an Easter dinner and we're thankful for that.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: We're happy to go and enjoy some great fellowship and some great food, but that's not Easter.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Easter is not the dinner, it's not the bunny, it's not the chocolate.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Easter is Jesus and the resurrection, and that's why we call it Resurrection Sunday.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Like we don't even go around saying, hey, it's Easter Sunday.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: We talk about Resurrection Sunday because that's the key to it.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and I will tell you there's been no other, for lack of a better word, I want to be careful not to take this the wrong direction, but there's been no other religious figure in history that has so radically changed the world.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: There's been nothing else or no one else that has literally changed the whole concept, the whole thinking.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: We go back even to the first century and, as we're watching even secular writing saying we don't know what's different about this group that calls themselves Christian and as we're watching even secular writing saying we don't know what's different about this group that calls themselves Christian.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Because every other religious movement involved violence, involved, take it by force, take it by threat, dominate, and only Christianity says if you want to be the greatest, you're the least.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: If you want to be served, you become the servant.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: And it changed everything and our hope is in the way Christ radically changed everything, even when Jesus was going to the cross, it was.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: you know, they're accusing him, they're saying all these things about him and he just kept silent.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: He humbled himself and he didn't say anything to defend himself because everything that was being said was on why, right?
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: And now you've got all these people accusing him and Jesus, who is staying silent, you know, is now presented to Pontius Pilate and he looks at him and says man, you got anything to say?
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Like anything to say?
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: He has nothing to say.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: And even he looks on it.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: What everybody's doing.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: He goes man, come on, y'all, I got nothing against this guy.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Like what, what's your issue?
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: And Jesus stayed silent.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: He stayed humbled.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: And you're talking about the true King of Kings at any moment.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: In fact, he said it in the garden.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: He said man, look, I could call down lesions if I was trying to fight that type of fight.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: That's not the fight I'm fighting right now.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to teach you something different.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: This has to be done so that you can be saved.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: And I think that that's the anchor right there.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: That's where we are.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: It's not that he was taken to a cross, it's that he went to a cross and there's a difference there.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: You know if they're taking my life, they're going to take it.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying they can't, I'm just saying there's a fight happening.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: He went to the cross voluntarily, he came, he left the portals of glory and, you know, when we find that, we find our confidence.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, what's the thing, from the time we're really old enough to begin to comprehend life, what's the one thing we dread most?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Death, you know.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, think about it, even small children.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they look good, because somebody just said it to me the other day man, you're old, you know.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Because they're young.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: You haven't seen nothing yet.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: But they are freaking out about.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness, no-transcript.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: I'm closer to death than I am to, you know, but it's true, and there's a fear that comes with that.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: And look, I don't fear death.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I know what's going to happen to me after I die, but there's still some.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Well goodness gracious, I'm going to die.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: But why do we fear it?
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Because God said we would.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, we go all the way back to Genesis.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: What did Adam and Eve fear?
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Death?
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: They were hiding in the garden, like you hide from God, right, but they're hiding in the garden because they feared what God said would happen as a result of sin.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: And so even when we get into Romans and Romans 6.23 reminds us the wages of sin is death, and the only way to break that fear is the gift of God, Because the gift is eternal life through Christ Jesus.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: A couple of months ago, a dear friend of mine passed away, went home to be with the Lord and as I was talking with him, I mean he loved his family, he loved his wife.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: I'm actually going to be privileged to be part of his daughter's wedding in a couple of weeks and he wanted to be for all of that.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: But I mean, Kurt would look at me and he'd go.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm going to miss, but I'm not scared.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: And he wasn't scared because he knew where he was going.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: He knew his anchor, his salvation, his eternity.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: And you see, death has been overcome.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I could go through story after story after story of, and, as you can, of, saints of God that have gone through horrific times and circumstances with the confidence that heaven was their home Exactly.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: And the only way to do that is your foundation, your courage, your security, as Paul said, is the death, the burial and the resurrection.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: So it reminds us that death is a defeated enemy.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: It is, In fact, in 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle asked that question oh death, where is your victory and where is your sting?
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, a bee with no stinger is not scary.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: No, not at all, but not to sidetrack a bee with a stinger is pretty scary and when I see them I like run.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: And there's one time, well, no, here we go.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I know I was going to get a little, but I can't.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: But we'll talk about that later.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Something shiny, but we do know that death is a defeated.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: The power of sin is broken it is.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Romans 6 tells us if we've been united together in the likeness of his death, then we're also in the likeness of his resurrection.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, and in that he reminds us listen to what he said that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Now I want you to think about this Before the resurrection, before you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you are a slave to sin.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, you are.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: The devil doesn't make you do it, but you choose to do it.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: You're a to do it.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: You're a slave to it.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: That's your choice.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: As born-again believer in Jesus Christ, I have a different choice, because of the power of the resurrection, Exactly.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: And so the power of sin is broken minus the resurrection, that power of sin is not broken.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: And praise God that happened.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: And praise God Because, remember, he also, when he went away, said I have to go away because I'm going to send you a helper and I'm going to send the Holy Spirit who's going to dwell within you to help you overcome this being a slave to sin, as you call it.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Now we've got a power within us that keeps us from having to give over to that desire that's inside of us, but that's again something that we would never be able to conquer without Jesus, without him dying and resurrecting and sending us the Holy Spirit to dwell in us.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's where our victory comes from.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: That is how we can face life.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: We face life because we know that through the death, the burial and the resurrection, we have eternal life.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: We not only have eternal life.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: We have a defeated enemy.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Satan is defeated.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Listen, I love Romans 8, verses 1 and 2.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: There is therefore now no condemnation, and so the condemnation are for those in Christ Jesus who aren't fulfilling the lust of the flesh.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: He tells us that, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: So the death, the burial, the resurrection, I don't live a life of condemnation.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: My enemy, who is Satan, wants to point out I love the way I've heard it worded.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: I know you've heard it worded as well.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: It says the next time Satan points out your past, point out his future, his future, and he's a defeated enemy, and a defeated enemy is not to be feared.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: The Bible tells us, in the end we're going to look on at him and go seriously.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: This is what I have been fearing this whole time.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: He's a nothing.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Satan has no power over you.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Because if you have accepted Jesus in your heart, let's clarify if you've accepted Jesus, he's got no power over you.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: You've got the Holy Spirit.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: It's defeated, it's conquered.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: He is conquered.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: And if we'd lose the power of the resurrection, then our faith is empty and it's pointless.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Listen 1 Corinthians, 15 and 14 and 15,.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Listen to what he said.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is empty.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: We are found false witnesses.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: It's empty, there's nothing.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: And so if there's no resurrection, if there's no resurrection, if there's no eternity, then I mean everything we have is empty.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: I love the way one person put it.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: He said faith is no better than the object of your faith.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Why put faith in a dead Messiah?
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: A dead man can't save anyone.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly, our faith in Jesus Christ is worthless if he's still in the grave.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: When you think about that and you understand, if the resurrection is not valid, then nothing about us is valid and we have no forgiveness.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Listen to what Paul continued and I know we're out of time, but listen to what he said.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: And if Christ is not risen, then your faith is futile.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: You're still in your sins and so death is still to be feared.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Amen, and there is no eternity.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: And we could park here for hours.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say we could go on forever.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: So I'll just sit right back in you, because we've got some time.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: No, a three-hour talk, no, we won't go that long.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: We know we're coming up on time.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: We get that, we understand that.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: But I just think the importance of everything we've been saying today needs to be out there so that you guys can hear, you guys can understand Easter the day that we celebrate is celebrating the resurrection.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Celebrate is celebrating the resurrection.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: You need to know and you need to understand clearly how much God loves us.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: The Trinity God, jesus and the Holy Spirit before we were even born, said I've got a plan for them to spend eternity with me and this is what I have to go through.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: And if this is what I have to go through in order for them to spend eternity with me, and this is what I have to go through.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: And if this is what I have to go through in order for them to spend eternity with us, I'm going to do it because that's how much I love them.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Please know and hear this the reality is, you are loved by God so much that he sent his son to die for you so that you can be free from your sins and that you can celebrate in the resurrection and be adopted into the family of Christ and be called a child of the most high God.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: You know exactly and you know as we think about this.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: The reality is, 1 Corinthians 15 tells us and lays out for us and I want to encourage people to take a chance to read it further yourself and notice how Paul lays out we're saved, we have the confidence of that because of the resurrection.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: He lays out then a series of what ifs if it's not true, and he just finally says we're of all men most miserable if it's not true.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: But I want you to listen.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: He begins in verse 20 with the simple statement and I'm going to leave it with this but now Christ is risen from the dead.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: So he puts his series of ifs in place and he says but none of that matters, christ is risen from the dead.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: So he puts his series of ifs in place and he says but none of that matters, christ is risen from the dead.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: This Sunday we'll greet people in our church when they come in and we will say he is risen.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: He is risen indeed.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: And the church responds because he is risen, amen, and he is risen indeed.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And in that we have our hope and our foundation.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: The reality is he is risen.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Praise God.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and thank you for joining us on the Reality Is podcast, where we're here talking about real life and real faith.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Hey, would you do us a favor, Go on like us, subscribe to us, let us know that you're there and also comment and let us know what topics you would like for us to discuss with you.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: And until now or until then, we want to say God bless you and have a great day.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Goodbye now.