The King: The Story of Easter

This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

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This is the word of the Lord.

Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

But if there's no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.

We're even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you're still in your sins.

Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

This is the word of the Lord.

See, the Bible's not afraid to present the other side of the argument and say, if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile, you're still in your sins.

I need to get a real job.

And everybody that you know that died as a Christian just perished and they're a banquet for the worms.

But the Bible says all of that to point to the fact that because Christ has been raised, your faith matters.

Preaching matters.

What we're about to do matters.

My dad is on hospice care.

I get in my truck tomorrow and drive to East Texas to see my dad.

My dad, after years of living a wayward life, has made his peace with God.

And my dad doesn't deserve it.

I don't deserve it.

My dad has a lot of shame.

He can't look me in the eye hardly.

I get to look at my dad tomorrow and say, hey dad, the gospel is the same for both of us.

I need the good news as much as you do.

And I have hope, and my family has hope because of the resurrection.

Because my dad's gonna be raised with lungs that work.

He smoked for 44 years.

My dad's dying because of a habit he's had his whole life, and he'll tell you that.

But I have hope.

My wife said, How are you doing?

And I couldn't get the words out.

I just stared at her and she's like, All right.

Because I have hope because of the resurrection, my dad's gonna be raised again, and he's gonna have lungs that work.

So what we're about to do matters.

I'm gonna pray and we're gonna read the Bible.

I'm gonna tell you the story of Easter.

So wherever you are today, whether if you trust reason or intellect or experience or whatever you trust in, you're gonna have to listen through that filter.

But I'm gonna tell you the story of Easter, and I'm gonna tell you unapologetically, it's the only story big enough to live in the rest of your life.

You ready for that?

Let's pray together.

God thanks for the truth of the gospel that it puts all things in perspective and it bears out what is true, not just now, but what will always be true.

That's the danger of living in this world.

What's in today will be out tomorrow, and then something else will be in next week.

It's so temporary, so flippant, and so fleeting.

And yet the Bible and the gospel is so eternal, so secure, so definite, so available to us today.

So give us ears to hear, eyes to see, and a heart to respond.

We pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, You can have a seed if you would.

If you got a Bible, take it and open up to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

And if you don't have a Bible, don't worry about it.

It'll come up on the screen when I want to talk about the story of Easter.

I want to start reading in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 1.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

What I read just a few minutes ago, it was starting in verse 12, but I want to go back to the beginning of the chapter and read in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 1.

1 Corinthians 15:1

This is the story of Easter, beloved.

He says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preach to you, which you received, and which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word that I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, and then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

And then he appeared to James, then to all of the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me, whether then it was I or they, so we preached, and so you believed.

The story of Easter, I just want to make three points as I kind of unpack the story of Easter.

And the first one is this right here from verse 1, is that it's a story worth repeating.

It's a story worth repeating.

What do you mean?

Look at verse 1 again.

He says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preach to you.

Paul, this guy Paul, is writing to this church in Corinth, and he's kind of he preached the gospel to them, and he's writing to them this letter, and he says, Hey, I want to remind you of uh of this gospel that I preach to you.

Now, I want to answer the biggest question in the room before I go very far into this.

And the biggest question, whether we realize it or not, is this what do I mean when I say the gospel?

What do I mean when I say the gospel?

And so I brought you a very simple definition.

The gospel is the good news that God saw how messed up the world was.

By the way, when what happened in Brussels happened, everybody kind of sits up and kind of is like, what in the world?

Is anybody in charge?

Is anybody gonna do anything about this?

Is good gonna overtake evil?

Because human nature wants somebody to deal with evil.

But here's the problem: we want somebody to deal with their evil, their sinfulness.

We don't want somebody to deal with ours.

Because we're consenting adults, after all.

We're not hurting anybody.

But the gospel is, hey, the good news is that God saw how messed up the world was and how messed up I was, and he did something about it.

That's the gospel.

That's the good news.

Gospel is it literally means good news.

You engeleon is a word in the Greek, and it literally means good news.

So I want to just tell you that's kind of my definition of the gospel.

And this here's why I love this definition.

It's because it reminds me that the gospel is not just personal, it's cosmic.

And you say, what do you mean cosmic?

Big.

It's not just me.

It's not just, hey, God didn't send his son into the world just to fix my life and make me feel better about myself.

And if anything, the Bible teaches the exact opposite.

This is 1 Corinthians.

He writes another letter called 2 Corinthians, and in chapter 5 of that letter, the same guy Paul says to these same people, he says, Hey, we believe that Christ died for all and therefore all died.

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again.

He goes on to say that God's committed to us the ministry of reconciliation.

Why did I tell you all that?

Here's why I told you all that.

Here's how you know the person that really has a relationship with Christ.

They're not self-obsessed, they're not like, okay, I checked the box.

I uh I believe the gospel.

I'm gonna go to heaven when I die.

Now I'm gonna go ahead and do it and do it, do what I want to do.

No, no, no.

See, when the gospel's not just personal, but it's cosmic.

In other words, what we mean by that is that this person begins to look around and go, you know what?

It's not enough that God forgave me and loves me.

I I want to get better at loving my neighbor.

I want to get better at loving my neighborhood.

I want to get better at loving the mom on my son's little leg team, who I like to scratch her eyes at when she opens her mouth again.

Yeah.

Put it down here where we live.

Or that loud parent at soccer where you're just kind of like, it's just a game.

She's screaming, go get the ball, get the ball.

And your thought in your head consistently is, shut up, shut up, shut up.

Yeah, I gotta get, I if I'm a Christian, I gotta get better at loving that person, but I gotta care about the environment, I gotta care about the world that I live in.

Because here's what's happening in our culture.

We've shrunk it down to all we care about is ourself.

We it sounds noble.

We say things like, Who am I to judge you?

All that is is selfishness, dressed up as altruism.

It's kind of like, hey, I'm not hating on anybody.

No, that's selfishness.

See, as a Christian, they care about the world they live in.

You see stuff and you're kind of like, hey, this isn't right because God's working not just to redeem people, he's redeeming all of creation.

That's why the Bible, you read to the end and it says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth coming down.

Because that God, the gospel of Christianity is big.

It's not just people, it's God's redeeming everything.

So when I say it's a story worth repeating, I said, hey, the gospel's good news.

God saw how messed up the world was and how messed up I was, and he did something about it.

Now I say that phrase, he did something about it.

It sounds kind of vague and innocuous.

Let me unpack that a little bit by what I mean with that phrase, he did something about it, is this.

He sent his only son into the world, okay?

He was born of a virgin.

Let's start there, okay?

You say, what do you mean?

He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, never sinned.

Think about that.

Some of you sinned on the way to church this morning on Easter Sunday.

Take the suit off.

It doesn't make you better.

You're just kind of like, ah, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life.

So far, some of you are thinking, well, there's two things I can't really agree with right there.

Stay with me.

Born of a virgin, lived a sinless life.

He died on the cross as payment for our sin, for my sin and your sin.

He was buried.

He rose again on the third day to kind of establish, just to kind of say, see, I did exactly what I told you I was gonna do.

Why is it so important that Jesus was born of a virgin?

I don't know what's like in your house, uh, but every once in a while, when we have company coming over, my wife starts cleaning like a couple days in advance.

If her mom's coming to town, she starts cleaning a month in advance.

And I'm kind of like, what's the big deal?

Clean the house like this for me.

And she's like, shut up.

But she doesn't say that.

So my wife's in the kitchen, she's getting stuff ready, you know, when somebody's coming and she's chopping stuff up, and I'm kind of like, hey, can I help?

And she doesn't look up, she just goes, No.

Which is I know I've been with her 25.

Yeah, I know.

Get out of here.

I got this.

But I just kind of sit down in the moment and I start just kind of talking to her, and then I start singing and rapping and stuff, and she's like, Really?

I don't want to hear you or Sugar Hill Gang or Rapper's Delight or anything.

How about old school cool mode?

I don't even know who that is.

Get out of my kitchen.

And my wife, who y'all are like, your wife is so sweet, you don't live with her.

She had a knife in her hand, she turned and goes, get out of this kitchen.

And I just back up.

You go, why do you back up?

You never turn your back on a woman with a knife in her hand.

I'm looking at my kids and go, save yourself.

Your mom's getting all territorial.

And you know what it reminds me of?

You say, What's this got to do with the virgin birth?

Jesus was born of a virgin because he didn't inherit sin from his parents like you and I did.

Remember, Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, and God kicked them out of the garden because he didn't want them to stay in paradise forever as fallen people.

And not only did he kick them out.

If you read the Bible in Genesis, the Bible tells he put an angel with a flaming sword at the entrance to the garden so they couldn't get back in.

Because he put them out so he could restore them back in.

When my wife takes the knife and says, Get out of my kitchen, what she's reminding me of is the virgin birth.

I've never told her that.

I think next time she does it, I will.

Can you imagine the reaction?

Get out of my kitchen.

That reminds me of the virgin birth.

Whatever, preacher, get out of here.

No, no, no.

See, when I say God did something about it, God did something about it way back in the beginning.

Was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the cross as payment for my sin and your sin.

Why is that a big deal?

Why do you say he died on the cross as payment for our sin?

Because your sins separate you from God.

We were all by nature and by choice sinners.

You were not born a Christian.

That's why the Bible says we all got to be born again.

I'm not getting into heaven because I'm a preacher.

I'm getting into heaven because there came a point in my life in 1982 where I turned my life over to Christ.

I said, I believe and I trust you more than I trust myself.

That's the good news of the gospel.

God looked down and saw how messed up the world was, but he also saw how messed up I was.

Now, here's the difference.

If all you care about is how messed up the world is, that makes you an activist.

It doesn't make you a Christian.

I think I need to say that again.

Y'all kind of got that, uh, oh let me just grunt.

I don't get that.

See, you can get all obsessed about the world and everything going on and global warming, and apparently the global warming is causing everything, according to our president.

Terrorism, premature balding, everything.

Global warming.

It's global warming.

Some of you men looking around, kind of going, yeah, yeah, that's what it is, honey.

It's global warming.

Hey, if you obsess on just what's going on in the world, that makes you an activist.

It doesn't make you a Christian.

God's going to do something about the world, but He also did something about you as an individual.

It's very personal.

We'll get to that in a minute, but just hear me say it again.

The gospel story is a story it's worth repeating because if you're not careful, you slowly, unless you're around people in places where you're kind of reminded and reinforced, okay, I'm not crazy.

This really is the truth.

What happens is that you lose the gospel.

It's a very gradual but very consequential process.

See, the gospel starts off as being believed.

You believe it, and then if you're not careful, it's kind of assumed.

You just kind of assume, hey, we're all Christians, right?

We all get along.

I mean, well, we all live in Texas.

We're Christians, right?

We're God-fearing people.

And then after assumption, it moves to confusion.

And stuff starts creeping in that's really not the gospel.

Like, oh, well, I'm a good person, and God, you know, good people are gonna go to heaven.

Not so much.

And then the fourth step in the process is the gospel's lost.

You don't have good news.

So we just shrug and look down and focus on ourselves.

When we say it's me and my wife, my two kids, us four, no more.

And we sound politically correct, but really you're selfish.

It's not like I'm not judging anybody.

No, no, no.

You don't know what to say to anybody.

So you have to choose this path of, well, I'm not hating on anybody because you don't know what to say.

See, the story is worth repeating.

Like you say, what do you mean the gospel is believed and confused and assumed and then it's lost?

This past year.

Now stay with me, okay?

I'm fixed to quote a famous person, and some of you are gonna be like, oh, be careful.

This past year, the Pope, who I like by the way.

People ask me once what you think about the Pope.

I like that the Pope drives himself around in his little car, pays his own hotel bill, returns phone calls, kisses babies, is a down-to-earth guy, but I disagree with the Pope on this.

This past year, the Pope told an Italian newspaper that atheists can go to heaven if they just do enough good.

Oh, yeah, I show you the article because my phone blew up.

Guy in my church called, hey, did you see this?

I sure did.

What do you think about that?

This is the Pope and everything.

By the way, you don't have to vilify people you disagree with.

Otherwise, I couldn't be married.

Let me just put that out there.

But but and by the way, that's not a statement about her, it's a statement about me.

Uh, because I'm the guy that, you know, every once in a while I'll do something like somebody'll cut up.

Like, here's the thing, folks.

If you're turning, put a blinker on.

That's all I'm asking.

Just it's right there on your steel.

Just push it down or up and give us a give a brother a little shout out about where you're going so I can zoom around you and get to where I'm going.

But every once in a while you don't use blinkers, and I just look, I just say, what a moron.

And my wife, I honk, eh, what a moron.

And my wife just looks at me and she'll go, Neil McClendon, you're so much better than that.

I'm like, oh man.

Just can you just honk your horn at me and call me a moron?

No.

She just looks at me and shakes her hand and goes, You're you're bigger than that.

No, I'm not.

I'm not bigger than that.

Yes, you are.

I refuse to believe.

Hey, it's not about, hey, I gotta, I gotta, somehow the Pope's a bad guy because I disagree with it.

Not at all.

No, no, no.

I believe the gospel.

And here you say, what do you what do you mean?

Let's connect the dots here.

Don't miss this.

If an atheist can go to heaven just because he does enough good deeds, then Jesus Christ is the most pointless person who ever lived.

You don't need the resurrection, you don't need him to be buried, you don't need him to be killed.

See, Jesus has to, if you believe the Bible, Jesus has to die.

It's payment for your sins, because how else are you gonna get forgiveness?

You just gonna do good stuff?

How much good stuff you gotta do?

The Pope didn't unpack that.

Now again, I'm not disrespecting the Pope, but I am disagreeing with the Pope.

And a guy said to me on the phone, I'd be careful disagreeing with the Pope.

And I said, I'd be careful disagreeing with God.

He said, Well, yeah, yeah, you got a point there, preacher.

Now be careful, you know.

We live in a multicultural, very I I I I I got it.

I got my church.

The guy last week or two weeks ago came to me and said, Hey man, your church is not a lot of white people.

They got some diversity up in here.

And I went, so will heaven.

Heaven ain't gonna be a bunch of white people.

So the church should look like heaven.

He's like, All right, all right.

Is that too honest for you?

Maybe.

He just walked off.

There you go.

See, by the way, it's easy to look at the Pope and quote the Pope.

Well, yeah, the Pope said I can't believe that.

Here's how you know you're losing the gospel if you listen to yourself.

These are things people in my church that I love, by the way.

If you don't have a church home, you're visiting today.

It's like your wife said, We're going to church on Easter.

I bought you a suit.

You're like, thanks, honey.

Find you a church.

You're welcome at this one, but find you a church that teaches you the Bible, which is harder than you think nowadays.

But anyway, but these people I love have said these things.

I didn't get these out of books.

People in this church have said this.

Here's how you know you're losing the gospel.

Here's one.

I can talk to God in a deer stand just as easily as I can in church.

Here's my favorite one.

Uh friend of mine kind of struggled financially, started getting some money.

I've heard this from multiple people in this church.

I love my people in my church, but when you say crazy stuff, I'm gonna love you enough to say, that's crazy, man.

Here's what he said because he got a boat, started going fishing down on the coast on Sundays.

You know, it's just, you know, I said, Hey man, I hadn't seen you in a while.

Everything okay?

He said, Don't you think God would rather I be fishing and thinking about God than in church and thinking about fishing?

Now that cat has thought about that.

He's out there in the bays, I'm thinking about Jesus right now.

Aren't you glad I'm not in church thinking about this?

I just laugh and I said, How long's that working for you?

He goes, I don't know, my wife's starting to kind of grind on me a little bit.

And I said, Your wife's right.

I said, That great theologian Jimmy Houston says the fish bite better after church.

He's like, Oh, okay.

Uh-huh.

Or this from a soccer mom.

Well, the kids have so much going on that we've chosen to focus on them at this point in our lives and make them our priority.

Hey, look at me.

When your kids are 24 and want nothing to do with God, you're gonna weep tears of remorse into a pillow of regret, mom.

Because you worshiped your kids and not God.

You didn't love your kids enough to say, hey, we kind of order our our our lives around certain priorities here.

Now, yeah, I ask anybody that goes to this church.

I'm not the guy that says, You gotta be here every day, the doors are open.

No, I'm the guy that says, Hey, get your wife on your Harley and disappear in the hill country one weekend.

And don't go to church there either.

Somebody asked me, they said, Hey, your family went on vacation.

Do y'all go to church on vacation?

No, I've gone to church enough.

Jesus said, Sleep in.

So I ain't that guy, okay?

So if you're visiting today, don't think, oh, that guy boys is hardcore.

Uh here, here, here, here's one of my favorites.

Uh, well, I uh I've I'm not proud of things I I've done.

I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of.

And I'm like, because I ask a guy, I said, hey man, tell me about your spirits.

I see you in church, but I don't know you.

I want to get to know, I want to pastor you.

Well, I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of.

I who hasn't?

Who hasn't done things you're not proud of?

Raise your hand, we'll pray to you today.

I was like, and I said, is that all you know to say?

Well, I've just not done a lot.

I said, here's the thing, man.

You've relegated yourself to a life of shame management because you know what you're referring to.

I don't know what you're referring to, but you're trying to just work it out.

Well, you know, hopefully, hopefully the big man gives me enough time to do enough good to make up for my bad.

I got tired just hearing that.

By the way, the big man sacrificed his son on the cross so you wouldn't have to have some debtor's ethic.

Well, I just know I've done some things.

Don't say that again, man.

Or here's the last one.

This is from from somebody's grandma who's in the hospital and the prognosis isn't good.

I said, ma'am, have you made your peace with God?

Well, God knows I've done my best.

And there I am at the fork in the road.

I can be the cowardly pastor who just says, Well, ma'am, and you know, God loves those who try.

Or I can love grandma enough to say, I don't know what you mean when you say you've done your best, but our best is never enough.

The Bible, matter of fact, says in Isaiah 64 that all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags in the sight of a living God.

Well, and she pulled the cover up and said, Well, Lord knows I've done my best.

Well, you can rub the edge off that blanket, grandma, but see, God's best is better than our best.

Well, Lord knows I've done my best.

And by the way, look at me.

I'm not disrespecting me's grandma.

I was sad because that's all that woman's been told her whole life.

So, see, it's easy to lose the gospel.

The older you get, the more pluralistic, the more you just you get real broad.

See, I just want to focus this more on these two little words.

He didn't say a gospel or some gospel.

Paul referred to it as the gospel.

See, here's the word we don't use today because we're politically correct.

There's an exclusivity to Christianity that's not harsh, that doesn't say if you don't agree with us, we're gonna kill you.

That's not Christianity.

But it's unapologetic because if this is the only way, then how much do you have to hate people not to tell them?

Jesus said in John 14 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes to the Father except through me.

This same guy, Paul, says it to another church in Galatia.

He writes this in Galatians chapter 1, verse 6.

Galatians 1:6

He says, I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting him who called you in the great.

Of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed.

As we've said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

I want you to notice a couple of things.

Notice that he says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed.

In other words, Paul starts with himself and says, Hey, if I go off the resurrection, the reservation and get goofy, I need to be accursed.

So if we are an angel from heaven, you say, Why do you mean angel from heaven?

Every once in a while they'll knock on your door and they're wearing black pants and white shirts and they ride bicycles.

And they have name badges.

Because they've been to my house.

One of them texted me when I was in Florida in my condo, looking out the window at the ocean.

One of them texted me and said, Hey, friend, can we come by and have a lesson?

Yes, because I've had them in my home.

I was out running one day, and a couple of them rode by and I said, What's up, brothers?

And they turned them bikes around.

Here they came.

And I was like, Oh, what a friend we have in Jesus.

This is our target rich environment right here.

And we started talking, and I said, Hey, how long have you guys, how long has it been since you've had a home cooked meal?

And they were like, Oh man, man, it's like forever.

And I said, My wife is like Martha Stewart without the insider trading, okay?

She can lay it down in the kitchen.

They came to our house, they ate food, they said, but we got to teach a lesson.

I said, and then after the lesson, what happened?

They said, Y'all can ask questions.

I'm like, you haven't met my family, have you?

So we ate, they taught a lesson, we asked questions, they said, any questions?

My daughter was 14 at the time.

She raised her hand and she said, Now, you said that the angel Morona came down and appeared to Joseph's.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Oh, she's a good listener.

And I'm I know where this is going.

She's got a little Bible out, and she said, Well, it says right here in Galatians chapter 1, if we or any or an angel from heaven preaches to you another gospel, let him be accursed.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

According to the Bible, y'all should be accursed.

He looked at me and he said, How old is she?

I said, She's 14.

Answer her question.

Oh, uh, I'm not making this up.

One looked at the other and he said, Ah, uh, uh.

And this one looked back at that and goes, ah, ah, ah.

And my daughter, who we teach our kids to be to respect their elders, and she's like.

And they were like, Well, uh, that's a good question.

We'll have to get we'll have to research that.

And I said, they know research, man.

That's y'all.

Because by the way, Paul says, I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting him who called you uh by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Look at me, church people.

You need to hold on to the capacity to be astonished by nonsense.

And not be a jerk.

I wasn't hard to them, guys.

I didn't tell them you're going to hell on a slipping slide, you losers.

I said, Would y'all like some dessert?

I'll drink coffee because y'all cannot have mind-altering substances.

That means y'all can't have Mountain Dew either.

And they're like, that's right, brother.

We don't put any of that in our body.

Maybe you should, because this dessert my wife made is worse than Mountain Dew, all right?

But them suckers scarfed that dessert down.

And I said, Here's the thing, guys, all these rules ain't gonna get you there.

Well, so when the night was over, I walked them to the door and they said, You have really raised some interesting things for us to think about.

I said, My people say the same thing every Sunday.

A young lady was here at the 7 o'clock service.

We've been here since 7 this morning, you slackers.

Stopped me right by that door, and she's she's in her mid to late 20s, and she said, That was thought provoking.

I said, Good.

She goes, No, seriously.

I said, No, seriously back.

The first thing the gospel does is make us think.

So when we say, hey, hey, the Bible, the gospel, you know, it it's it's worth repeating.

Here's why.

Because it's according to the Bible, according to God Himself, it's the only truth.

It it's hey, this there's no other gospel.

This is the gospel.

Secondly, it's a story worth responding to.

Look at verse 1.

He says, I remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, what you received and what you stand and by which you are being saved.

If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain, unless you were just raised around this and you nodded and said yes, yes, yes.

But when you got out of the house, you just went off the reservation.

He's like, I don't believe any of that.

You didn't believe at all.

You believed in vain.

You said what you had to say to keep your parents off your back, but because when you got freedom, then that's who you really are.

He said, What do you mean?

The story worth responding to.

There's always a response to this to the Easter story.

Everyone of you in this room will have a response.

Some of you will walk out and kind of go, that wasn't as bad as I thought.

You look at your wife and go, Okay, thanks.

I I did it, and I'll see you next year.

Some of you'll walk out and go, I gotta think about that.

I never thought about that that way.

Some of you get angry.

That's okay.

I believe you should go to a church that teaches you the truth.

And sometimes the truth kind of pinches you a little bit.

When my wife says to me, here's what gets me when my wife just looks at me and says, You're a bigger man than that, Neil McClendon.

She uses my first and last name.

I just feel a little bit of shame, like, oh man, she's right.

Oh, God, I'm sorry I called that guy moron.

And when they're going slow in the fast lane, I pull up beside him and stare at him.

Yeah, my wife, I mean, she feels impulsive.

She goes, Don't stare, don't stare.

Sit there and hush, woman.

And then I'm so passive aggressive, I get in front of them and I put my right blinker on to let them know you should get over there.

And my wife just looks straight ahead and she says, You're bigger than that, nail.

No, I'm not.

No.

I'm 10 on the inside.

It's a story.

What do I mean when I say stop laughing?

You're in church.

Look at me.

What do I mean when I say it's a story worth responding to?

There's four responses right there in the Bible.

Paul says, Hey, this gospel I preached to you, first of all, he says, what you received.

You received.

You should ask yourself, have you ever received this gospel?

What does that mean?

That means to join to oneself.

This past week, on Friday, I had lunch with my little friend Braden Bement.

He's seven years old.

He's gonna be baptized by his dad in the next service, like that other seven-year-old girl was.

And Braden and I, he started asking questions, and I gave his mom and dad a little booklet, and I said, Hey, work through this booklet with him, because again, men, you're the spiritual leader of your family.

That's not my job.

I'm not gonna step into your role with your kids.

I ain't claiming your kids on my taxes.

I got two teenage daughters to raise.

You want to go there?

There and they're fighting yesterday about makeup.

I looked at my wife and said, Go throw yourself on that grenade.

I gotta get ready, I gotta get ready for Easter.

She's like, I'm gonna throw you on a grenade.

But Brayden and I are talking about his baptism, and so we meet, we're going through the little books, got little crossword puzzles and word searches and ask questions and just kind of walks them through what baptism's all about.

It gets to the part that says my testimony, and I noticed his mom's handwriting.

And I said, Nah, this is your mom's handwriting.

Is this your he said?

Well, I told my mom and she wrote it down.

I said, That's awesome.

Because what I'm trying to do is understand, is does he understand what this means?

And he, I read his testimony and I said, Is that what happened?

And he said, Yeah.

I said, You know what happened when you ask Jesus into your heart?

And he's like, That's kind of a big question.

He didn't say that.

He just kind of looked at me like that.

He looked at his dad, looked at me, and I was drinking a glass of water.

By the way, we met at a pub out in Richmond that I didn't know where it was, Clancy's pub public house or whatever, but apparently half my church does.

And so we're gonna get a Grand Parkway discount out there going.

Uh, and so we're we're we're sitting there, and I had a glass of water, and I picked up a sweetenlo and shook it down, tore it off, and just poured the sweetened loe in there and stirred it up, and I handed Braden the empty packet.

I said, now Braden, here's what I want you to do.

Now, again, this is what it means to receive the gospel.

I said, Braden, I want you to take a spoon or something.

I want you to get that sweetenl out of there back in the packet.

He looked at me.

He looked at his dad, like, where did we get this moron?

He looked back at me and he's like, in his seven-year-old mouth, he said, You can't.

And I said, That's exactly right.

When you accepted Christ, you he came to live inside of you, and you came to live inside of him.

The Bible talks about that we're in Christ.

And he's never gonna leave you.

You're never gonna do anything, and all of a sudden Jesus is gonna go, Oh, we're getting out of the water, we're getting back in the sweetenable packet.

Why?

Because they become one.

That's why in the New Testament, the most common synonym for being a Christian is in Christ.

So that's the response.

You gotta ask yourself, have I ever received this?

Secondly, he said, in which you stand, in which you stand.

Here's the beauty of the gospel, it's the only story big enough to live in for the rest of your life.

I have some friends, and a friend of mine built this kid a treehouse in the backyard, and I'd go to their house.

Uh they'd always say, Master Neil, Pastor Neil, come play in our treehouse.

And I'd be like, okay.

And then I'd forget until I was climbing up there.

My goofy friend built it about five feet tall.

And so I got to walk around in it like this, all hunched over, or I got to squat down to keep my back straight because my back will go out and that ain't good.

Hey, hey, the preacher's down in the treehouse.

So I'm after about 10 minutes, I'm like, okay, kids, I gotta go drink coffee, see ya.

Now, ask yourself, how long can you sustain this?

Because when you refuse to believe the gospel, you've got to accommodate yourself to untruth instead of living in the truth.

He says, in which you stand.

He doesn't say, notice the preposition, he doesn't say on.

He says, in which you stand.

In which you stand.

See, there's room for who you really are in the gospel.

You don't have to fake anything.

You ain't got to be perfect.

You gotta make progress.

But he says, hey, that's another response.

You received it and you stand in it.

Thirdly, he says, this saves you.

He says, which you stand, verse two, and by which you're being saved.

The biggest problem with not believing the gospel is that you have to come up with a way to save yourself.

And by the way, that appeals to some of us right there.

Our guiding principle is reason, our experience, our intellect, our scientific verification, or whatever.

We're gonna save ourselves by some means other than the truth of the gospel.

The Bible says, hey, this response to the gospel is, hey, this thing saves you.

Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

It is the power of God unto salvation to anyone who believes, to the Jew first, the religious person, and to the Gentile.

So that's why I can stand up here and say to you, I'm not ashamed to tell you that there's an exclusivity to this that we can't apologize for, because it is not a gospel or some gospel, it is the gospel.

The story of Easter is a story worth responding to.

The fourth response listed here, he says, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, if you hold fast, if you hold fast, the easiest way to hold on, by the way, this isn't about effort.

When I was in the sixth grade, I had Coach Seal for social studies.

I love Coach Seal at P.E.

I hate him in social studies because if you talked in class, he would have he had dictionaries up there in a bookcase.

And this is back when teachers were in charge of the classroom and not kids.

I know we don't remember that day, but there was a day when they ruled with an iron fist.

And in Coach Seal's class, you had to put your feet together and hold your palms up like this, and he put a dictionary on each hand.

And in the beginning, you were like, this is no big deal.

And then he would go on teaching, and you were just like.

And pretty soon you're like, we'd be looking at my friends, going, he's going down, he's going down.

Because here was the deal: if the dictionary hit the ground, you got licks.

Yes, yes.

They didn't have Saturday school where some teachers got to be paid extra to put up with your foolishness.

They beat your behind when I was in school.

And we deserved it.

Some of you are cringing at that.

And so you would after being just muscle fatigue setting in, you'd be like, like limbo and keep them thing, boom, they would drop.

And he would say, Come put your hands on the desk.

You had to put your trembling hands flat on the desk and take your whooping.

And Coastill played racquetball.

Whoop pow! I saw Jesus, he hit me one time so hard.

I had an apparition.

Oh man.

By the way, look at me.

When I say hold, hold on, hold fast, that's all I'm talking about.

I'm not like that's effort to avoid punishment.

This is, I'm talking about intimacy.

Look at me, because the punishment has already been taken by somebody else.

You don't have to be afraid.

Hold on.

What do you mean?

Let me let me give you a it basically it's constant exposure to the truth.

Some of you, your response today is to walk out of here and make your mind up if you're gonna be a part of a church or not.

You're just gonna flip in on Christmas and Easter like a CEO, Christmas and Easter only.

Now I ain't mad at you.

I got plenty of people to say graceover, but I'm just telling you, you were created by God to be a part of the truth.

Your gifts, your personality, your abilities and aptitudes, those are the things that God can use and wants to use for you to be a minister of reconciliation in this world.

So some of your responses to walk out and kind of go, you know what?

We probably got to find a church.

Find one that's not just a church.

Don't look for a church that go, oh, our kids like it.

Find a church that teaches the Bible.

That's easier said than done, I'm afraid.

Because you say, why?

Because constant exposure to the truth, and all of a sudden, you're like, yeah, absolutely.

Holding on.

It's like there there's a he's a writer.

His name's Gordon McDonald.

He's a Christian.

He he was in one of his books, he talks about their vacation home in New Hampshire.

Which, when he talks about a vacation home in New Hampshire, it's a cottage by a lake.

I just picture this idyllic little path, and everybody there, it's like 60 degrees all day, every day.

Everybody wears cable knit sweaters and drinks hot cocoa out of earthen mugs made by single mothers who are getting their life back together.

I've never been to New Hampshire.

It could be a CIA plot.

But he says, he's talking to him in this in this book, he's talking about this vacation cottage, and it's made out of wooden shingles.

And he says, in the in the summer, it gets up to 80.

And I was like, I hate you already.

It's 80 in January here.

But he says the wooden shingles expand and in the summer they constrict.

He says about every four years, this expansion and constriction.

My wife and I have to go up a week early and get hammers and hear this and repound the nails.

So the shingles don't work their themselves loose.

Holding on is you got to repound the nails, beloved.

You never outgrow the gospel.

You got to kind of reinforce and remind yourself, oh yeah, this is what we believe and why we believe it.

See, the story of Easter is a story worth repeating.

It's a story worth responding to.

And then thirdly and finally, it's a story worth believing.

It's a story worth believing.

Let me read in verse 3 and we'll be done.

You still with me?

This is what the Bible says.

Paul says, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.

That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

And then he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, and then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom were still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

And then he appears to James and to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain.

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, but it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Whether then it was I or they, so we preached, and so you believed.

See, that's the goal of this whole thing.

He says, whether it was I or they, so we preached and you believed.

That's the goal of the story of Easter, is to bring us to a point where we go, you know what?

I find myself with a desire to believe that.

Because see, Paul talks off, and there's three kinds of uh of exposure in there.

There's this historical, he says, we believe Christ died according to scriptures, he was buried and rose again according to scriptures.

That's the historical.

So you got that.

And then there's the secondary.

He appeared to Cephas and then to the 12, and then he appeared to more than 500, some of whom fallen asleep.

That's Bible talk for died, but uh most of them are still alive.

In other words, if the resurrection wasn't true, some of these people were alive, they could interview them and say, hey, is this true or not?

John, you were there?

And John goes, yeah, I was there when he appeared.

So it's verifiable.

So you got this historical response, then you got this secondary response where Paul talks about how it appeared to these other people.

Men, let me talk to us just for a minute.

Your wife cannot believe God enough to make you a believer.

And so he, because it's easy to kind of be like, oh, okay, I'll go to church.

Come on, honey, let's go.

That's a secondary response to the gospel.

See, there's historical.

Well, my grandma told me this and she had something crocheted on the wall about Jesus.

Okay, okay.

That's historical.

Secondary, that's not that's not sufficient.

A secondary response is not sufficient.

Well, you know, I bring my wife and kids to church, and and this this is good, no, no.

And then it gets really personal in verse 8.

Paul says, last of all.

Because he's it's going from, you know, one guy to 12 guys to 500 guys, it's getting bigger and bigger than all the apostles.

And then Paul says, but last of all, he appeared to me.

Last of all, as to one untimely born.

By the way, that phrase untimely born is where we get our English word miscarriage.

Paul says, My life was so out of sync with God's purposes.

I felt so unspiritual, so far from God, my life was like a miscarriage.

It just didn't make sense.

I I was just out of step with everything.

But look what he says.

He appeared to me also.

He appeared also to me, for I'm the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain.

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.

Though it's not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Now, you gotta read the Bible, listen to little words.

Can I show you one more thing before we're done this morning?

Paul talks about grace.

Look how he talks about it in verse 9.

He says, I was the least of all the apostles because I persecuted Christians, okay?

I mean, how bad can it be?

Verse 10, he says, But the by the grace of God I am what I am.

And his grace towards me was not in vain in the past.

In other words, that God's grace was real.

It changed me from who I used to be to who I am.

Past tense.

He says, hey, on the contrary, he says, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

He says, the grace of God was with me.

It did this thing in the past, but it is still with me.

Why do I tell, why do I point that out?

Look at me, and we'll be done.

Because some of you in this room, when you think about living the Christian life, you think that sounds great, but there's no way I could do that.

God doesn't send you to run an errand.

The grace of God goes with you.

The same grace of God that finds you and unwinds you, that accepts you and changes you, goes with you.

I became a Christian in July of 1982.

And I didn't stay with this out of duty.

I stayed with this because the grace of God has been with me that whole time.

So when you think about believing, don't think about this one-time thing.

Think about a life where the grace of God, because the Spirit of God goes with you.

It's kind of like this internal voice just kind of saying, Hey, this is the way.

Walk in it.

So when I, that's when we say, hey, it's a story worth believing, we all got to walk out of here this morning and ask ourselves, have I ever believed that?

Or do I have this historical appreciation for it?

Or this secondary, hey, my wife and kids, or my husband and my kids, or maybe it's just our kids.

We want our kids to be good moral people, so we bring them to the church because it's got some things to tell them.

But that's not believing.

Has it ever become personal for you?

Where you face the truth about yourself and say, hey, I was I was this one untimely born.

I mean, I'd done stuff I'm ashamed of.

I did all this stuff, but the grace of God towards me was not without effect.

It changed me.

If you hear anything today, hear this.

God is a God of grace, and grace can change anybody.

Are you willing to believe that today?

God, thank you that the gospel is that simple and that available.

It's believing on Jesus and living.

I pray for those that already believe that they'd be strengthened in their belief, that they'd find courage to be themselves to the glory of God.

I pray for my friends in this room that don't believe yet.

That you would say something today, that you already have said something that sticks in their head and in their heart.

Create a desire in them, Lord.

Draw them to yourself.

If we can help in that process, we'd gladly do that.

That's our privilege, God.

We've never gotten over that.

Thank you for the power, belief, and the beauty of the gospel and the story of Easter.

We hear and receive this today with gratitude and in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Stand to your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

He has risen.

He has risen.

He has risen.

Leave now and live as if you really believe that.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

Dismiss.