Messiah - Part 1

so you're in the market to buy a new

house like good for you glad you can

afford one um so you've uh set your

non-negotiables you know it's got to

like have a hot tub in the backyard it's

got to have so many acres it's got to be

in such and such a school district it's

you set your price point you got all

your information ahead of time so you

pull up to the curb with the realer and

you look at the house from the curb and

you tell the realtor "I'll take it." And

the realtor's like "Don't you want to go

in first and like make sure it has all

the stuff that you want?" You're like

"Nope I'll just take the house where do

I sign?" No one's going to do that when

they're buying a house but unfortunately

a lot of us do that with our salvation

we do that with Jesus we're just like

"Okay I I trust you with my eternal

salvation but I don't even know who you

are." So this sermon is designed to

teach you what you believe because it's

my conviction that every believer

whether you're a a seasoned adult or

whether you are a teenager or even a

child every believer should have a

defense or an answer for why they have

placed their faith in Jesus look I don't

want you to believe just because your

your parents told you that Jesus is the

only way i don't want you to believe

just because your grandparents told you

that Jesus is the only way to heaven i

don't want you to believe just because

your pastor told you that Jesus is the

only way to heaven now kudos to all

those people for telling you the truth

but you can't inherit somebody else's

faith and so what I want you to be able

to do is actually have an argument for

why you believe what you believe this is

a four-part sermon really uh it's going

to go through the whole month of April

uh we're going to start off with some

like statist some uh history today uh

and then we're going to move into

something uh a little bit more powerful

as we move through the month of April

but what it's designed to do is help you

establish a faith-based response to the

gospel that's more in line with the

biblical definition of faith which we

will learn in Hebrews

Hebrews 11:1

11:1 which says "Now faith is the

reality of what is hoped for it is the

proof of what is not seen so I want to

give you some reality and I want to give

you some proof that Jesus is who he says

he is so let's pray and then we'll get

started father as we open your word as

we look at some historical evidence for

the existence of Jesus I pray that those

who receive this message would be

encouraged in their faith that they

would begin to put together an

apologetic or a an argument for why they

believe what they believe and for others

Lord maybe this is the first time

they've actually thought about the fact

that Jesus may or may not be real and so

I pray Lord that today through this

evidence that they will see that you

will draw them closer to you and help

them to see that faith is not something

they can just inherit from their friends

or their family faith is something that

they have to come to on their own and so

Lord I pray that you would give them

through the power of your Holy Spirit uh

a reality check about who you are so

they can be confident on who they're

building their life around it's in Jesus

name I pray amen give a shout out to

Pastor John McKenzie at Hope Fellowship

and also Josh McDow who wrote the book

New Evidence that Demands a Verdict for

uh giving a lot of the information that

you'll be receiving today so first of

all we got to talk about the question of

Jesus because there are people outside

the faith that will tell you that Jesus

was just a good idea in fact most of our

universities in this country if you take

any kind of religion class they will

tell you that the Jesus that we study

from the Bible is more akin to a myth or

a legend than a real person who actually

existed and so we need to be able to

answer this question is there historical

evidence that Jesus really lived the

life that the Bible says that he lived

apart from the Bible okay so I'm not

throwing out the Bible as evidence i

mean that wouldn't make any sense like

if you're studying George Washington you

wouldn't just throw out all the

English-speaking American authors

because they were too close to George to

be able to write a story about him right

so you wouldn't do that when studying

any other historical figure so I'm not

going to do that with Jesus either

however I do believe that it is edifying

for us to look at sources outside of the

Bible that prove that Jesus is who he

says that he is so have you ever heard

of

Confucious really have you ever heard of

Socrates plato not Plato

plato

Aristotle have you heard of Muhammad

alexander the Great maybe William

Wallace braveheart you've heard of these

people do you believe they were

real well here's the deal there is more

historical evidence that Jesus is real

than there is for all of those people

combined there are secular authorities

on the evidence of Jesus that we're

going to look at today they're going to

be on the screen they're also in your

notes and uh if you want to go back and

do your own research on this I would

encourage you to do so but I do want to

walk through these uh with you today

first of all we have Cornelius Tactus he

was the first century Roman historian he

wrote a book called Annals and in his

book not not he's not a Christian but in

his book he says that Christians were

followers of Christ which would be short

for Christ or Jesus and he says who was

executed by Pontius Pilate during the

reign of Tiberius he says they existed

separate of the Jews and that the

emperor Nero blamed them for the fire

that took place in 64 AD we have Lucian

of Samosota and death of the paragine he

wrote that Christians believe that they

are immortal immortal for all time which

he saw as the reason for Christians

contempt of death and self-devotion he

also notes that Christians consider

themselves brothers from the time of

their conversion he says that they

denied the Greek gods and that they

worship a crucified sage we have

Satonius in lives of the 12 Caesars in

an account of Emperor Claudius he

mentions that Claudius expelled the Jews

from Rome because they were causing

disturbances at the instigation of a man

named Christ in his account of Emperor

Nero he mentions that Nero punished

Christians because he saw them as a

group of quote new and mischievous

superstition that's pretty cool pony the

Younger he uh was the governor of

Bethnia in Asia Minor this is like

second century stuff and in his letter

to Emperor Traan he asks him how many

Christians the emperor wants him to kill

basically because they were killing so

many Christians that he's arguing that

perhaps they should just kill the

leaders of the Christians instead of all

the Christians because they're having to

kill so many people he then asks him if

they recant from Christ if he could

spare their lives and then he asks if

the mention of Christianity alone is

worth a punishment he also mentions that

there was a man named Jesus that was

crucified so Emperor Traan writes back

to Pelony the Younger and he says "If

the accused are found guilty of being a

Christian then they must be punished."

He says "If the accused deny that they

are Christians and show proof that they

are worshiping other gods then they will

be spared or pardoned." Yep thalus this

Roman historian in the first century

wrote a three volume work of the history

of the Mediterranean and in it he

attempts to explain the darkness during

Jesus crucifixion you remember when

Jesus died on the cross and it said that

darkness covered the whole land he he

explains that he tries to explain that

as some type of a celestial event rather

than a supernatural event and then you

have Fleon who was also a first century

Roman historian that said the same thing

there was a complete blackout when this

man Jesus died on the cross and he was

blaming it on a solar eclipse instead of

a supernatural event then finally you

have Mara Barerpion first century Syrian

philosopher in a letter to his son he

writes these words he says but Socrates

did not die for good he lived on through

the teaching of Plato for Pythagoras did

not die for good he lived on in the

statue of Hera nor did the wise king die

for good because he lived on in the

teachings which he had given later on in

that letter he defines the wise king as

the the king that the Jews had crucified

pointing of course to Jesus then you

have these Jewish references to Jesus

remember the Jews did not believe Jesus

was the son of God so this still counts

as non-Christian evidence and in their

Babylonian Talmet that it contains a lot

of passages that portray Yeshua or Jesus

as a sorcerer and an enticer who

rightfully was executed on the eve of

Passover for leading Israel astray and

in the trackctate Sanhedrin page 43a it

says Yeshua's execution on Passover Eve

came with a herald proclaiming his

crimes and calling for anyone with

evidence to exonerate him remember how

Pilate asked if there was any more

evidence that would save Jesus and even

offered a substitute for him because he

did not think he was guilty then you

have a man named Josephus first century

Jewish historian recorded all the

happenings in Rome and in in his book

Antiquities of the Jews he mentions

Jesus describing him as a wise man who

performed surprising deeds a teacher who

drew many Jews and Gentiles to him and a

man that was crucified by Pilate all

non-Christian sources talking about the

same stuff that is in your Bible so why

are we having this history lesson this

morning here's why i went to Chick-fil-A

on

Friday smooth transition you like that i

went to Chick-fil-A on Friday at 8:59 i

pulled into their parking lot they

closed at 9:00 so I saw one of the

employees come out of the store as soon

as I pulled into the parking lot and I'm

like "Oh no she's not." because I saw

her walk walking right toward that

drive-thru entrance so I went as fast as

I could around that turn and through the

parking lot and right before I got to

the drive-through entrance you know what

she had the nerve to do she took that

little yellow chain and locked it right

in front of my car pray for her she's

not a Christian she's working at

Chick-fil-A i was like "Thanks a lot."

She's like "My pleasure." I'm

like drove around the building went to

Burger King

anyway access denied look the reason

we're having this history lesson this

morning is I do not want anyone in your

life to be able to come and and talk to

you about your faith and and

metaphorically pull a yellow chain

across your faith and lock you out from

believing what you believe i want you to

have solid biblical evidence i want you

to know that the historical fact of

Jesus and his crucifixion is

absolutely undeniable in the writings of

numerous hundreds even thousands of

non-Christian sources but we also have

some Christian authorities on the

evidence of Jesus my favorite of all of

them is the pre-New Testament Credle

Confessions i had to write a thesis

paper on this back when I was in

seminary studied all of the early creeds

these things are amazing because early

on the apostles who dispersed after

Jesus went back to heaven they went all

over the world and they wanted to make

sure factually that they taught people

exactly the same doctrine and so before

they dispersed they came up with what's

known as the Apostles Creed so that when

people came to Christ they would have to

recite the Apostles Creed at the moment

of their baptism and it just made sure

everybody believed the same thing

because we didn't have the New Testament

written yet and so they needed this

statement of faith in order to make sure

we're all on the same page and in the

first apostles creed which was said by

people that were led to Jesus by the

original apostles and the Apostle Paul

this statement says this as you were

being baptized you would say "I believe

in God the Father Almighty creator of

heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his

only son our Lord who was conceived by

the Holy Spirit born by the Virgin Mary

suffered under Pontious Pilate was

crucified died and was buried he

descended into hell and on the third day

he rose again from the dead he ascended

into heaven and is seated at the right

hand of God the Father Almighty from

there he will come to judge the living

and the dead you have credle statements

before the New Testament was ever

written that showed the historical

accuracy of your scripture you you have

these New Testament documents we've

talked about this before there are

5800 manuscripts written in Greek of the

Bible the New Testament part of your

Bible there are 10,000 Latin manuscripts

there are 9,300 manuscripts written in

completely uh different languages that

all are used to translate your Bible

into English so we know that this is the

unified word of God there is more

manuscript evidence for the Bible the

New Testament part of the Bible being

accurate and true than any other book in

human history and it's not even close

thousands of creeds thousands of

documents that affirm the absolutely

undeniable life death resurrection and

ascension into heaven of Jesus Christ

then you have the

post-apocalyptic writers the the people

that that the Apostle Paul and the other

apostles led to the Lord that became

leaders in the very first churches you

got guys like Clement of Rome Ignatius

Cuadraius uh Barnabas Aristades Justin

Martyr these are all first generation

church leaders that put their lives on

the line and even died for their faith

to affirm the absolutely undeniable

truth of the life death resurrection and

ascension of Jesus you have guys like

Microbius in the fifth century and his

Satanella recounts that King Herod

ordered the execution of young boys in

Bethlehem because he was scared that the

new king was being born in Bethlehem

exactly what your Bible teaches we have

guys like Thomas Pas Antonius Pas he he

received a letter from Justin Marty

mentioning that Jesus was the son of God

who taught Christians you have juvenile

coolest name in scripture juvenile the

OG juvenile uh it was among those who

affirmed the union of the two natures of

Jesus divine and the human coming

together without separation or or

mixture 100% God 100% man explain that

you have Cynica who lived during the

time of Jesus and he wrote all about the

teachings of Jesus on living a virtuous

life and how that impacted his life you

got Herokles who criticized Jesus

portraying him as a gang leader with

uneducated followers who tried to

discredit Jesus miracles not by saying

them that the miracles weren't true but

by saying that there were other great

feats performed by the Greek gods that

were more impressive than what Jesus was

doing here's the point of that history

lesson anyone who says there's not

enough historical evidence for Jesus is

absolutely positively wrong here's

another way of saying that it takes more

faith to deny the existence of the

historical Jesus than it does to believe

the scripture and to believe the other

documents that we have about

him howard Marshall says it this way he

says it is impossible to explain the

rise of the Christian church or the

writings of the gospels and the stream

of tradition that lies behind them

without accepting the fact that the

founder of Christianity actually existed

there is a historical figure named Jesus

and he is absolutely historically

undeniable but there's a problem with

him there's a problem with Jesus and the

problem is the claims that Jesus made

see it's not too hard to convince people

that the man Jesus actually existed and

that he did all the things that he he

said the Bible says that he did that's

not a hard thing for any historian to

uncover what's hard are the claims that

Jesus makes this is what takes actual

faith because Jesus in John

John 14:6

14:6 says "I am the way i am the truth

and I am the life and then he goes on to

say that no one comes to the father

nobody goes to heaven nobody is saved

except through him and then he did stuff

like in Markap

2:5 where it says "Seeing their faith

Jesus told the paralytic son your sins

are forgiven." But some of the scribes

were sitting there questioning in their

hearts why does he speak like this he is

blaspheming because no one can forgive

sins but God alone see there are people

that struggle with the claims of Jesus

to be the only way to forgiveness and

the only way to eternal life the

Sadducees and the Pharisees hated his

teaching and this is what led him to be

crucified by

them so we had our directory pictures uh

taken well I had mine taken on Saturday

yesterday and uh everything was going

great till I had to get my picture taken

with my wife and so he tells me to sit

right beside her on this stool and then

uh he goes to the camera he grabs the

camera then he puts the camera down

without taking the picture and I'm like

"Come on man." And he comes over to him

he's like "Stand up real quick let me

raise this stool so you'll be the same

height as your wife." Right in front of

a whole room full of people i'm like

"Dude couldn't you be a little bit more

discreet?" Then we go over to the place

where you buy the pictures and the lady

looks at me not not my daughter not my

wife looks me right in the eye and says

"Don't worry we can touch up any

blemishes and even whiten your teeth."

And I was like "Why don't you just get

Channing Tatum to sit here beside my

wife next time if that's what you want

to do look it's fake it's fake." Okay

but that's the way the Pharisees and the

Sadducees saw the law so if you followed

all of the the thousand commandments in

the Old Testament they saw that as being

externally clean they saw that as

allowing you to be seen in the eyes of

God as somebody that's worthy of

salvation that this is how you earn your

salvation and then Jesus comes along and

he claims to be the only way to g to to

God he's like "No the Jesus is like "No

this this Old Testament this law this is

to show you that you can't fulfill the

law that there's no way that anyone

could live a perfect life a sinless

life." He says that this is like a

mirror showing you the the the disease

that you have the stain on your tie the

showing you the sin in your life so that

you'll know that you need a savior that

you need the Messiah that you need faith

and they hated him for saying that and

they still hate Jesus

today there's a lot of uh animosity I

don't know if you've noticed outside the

walls of this church when you talk about

the the statements the claims that Jesus

made to be the only way to

heaven but this exclusivity that that

people hate so much is not exclusivity

it's actually the most inclusive

exclusive statement that's ever been

made in human history jesus said himself

in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world

John 3:16

that he gave his only begotten son that

some people who believe," what's it say

that the rich people no that the good

people no no no it says that whosoever

believes that's everybody that the

ground is level at the foot of the cross

we're all at the foot of the cross we're

all equal there anyone who wants to

believe in Jesus can be saved you don't

have to follow all the laws because you

can't you don't have to do more good

things than bad things because really

you can't what Jesus is saying is that

eternal life is available for all these

claims are incredible forgiveness and

eternal life they come from one

source they're wonderful and they're

undeniable

but are they true see we can prove Jesus

was the historical Jesus but can we

actually prove truthfully that Jesus

came back from the dead because that's

the the crux of

Christianity paul says if that's not

true we should be pied more than any

other group of people because we have

been lied

to if Jesus did not come back from the

dead then all of this is a lie

so what we need to do is we need to have

faith we need to prove that Jesus came

back from the dead well how do you do

that well you take scripture you read it

and you believe it or there's another

way ask yourself this how did a small

sect of people called

Christians in a Roman world that was

littered with literally thousands of

religions thousands of gods this little

group of when Jesus left around 120

people how did their belief system

spread around the world as fast as it

did well the reason is the undeniable

resurrection of

Jesus ask yourself this why did the

apostles go from these guys that are

hiding in an upper room when Jesus had

died because they think that they're

next right they're hiding in an upper

room and then all of the sudden they all

die for their faith telling people about

Jesus how did they go from cowards to

courageous men just seemingly overnight

the answer is they met the

undeniable resurrected

Jesus why were there so many Christians

read the book of Hebrews why were there

so many Christians that were willing to

go to the grave for their

faith the undeniable

resurrection of Jesus

i love this one james the the

half-brother of Jesus he hated his

brother so much for leaving the family

business behind as the oldest in the

family Jesus was supposed to take over

for Joseph when Joseph died and we do

believe that Joseph died relatively

young because he kind of disappears from

scripture even though we see Mary

popping up all the time so Joseph is

probably dead and Jesus is in charge of

the family business and at 30 years old

he walks away from it to go into

ministry and his halfb brotherthers

hated him for that they hated him so

much that they did not even come to his

crucifixion we know Mary was there and

so Jesus asked the apostle John to take

care of Mary in her time of of suffering

in her time of bereiement because his

brothers did not even show up but then

James goes and writes books of the Bible

what happened in that man's life to make

him hate his brother so much that he

wouldn't come to his crucifixion to

being someone that writes books of the

Bible proclaiming Jesus to be God's son

the answer is simple it's the

resurrection of Jesus that was

undeniable he saw Jesus alive after he

was dead ask yourself this too why did

the Romans who wanted to snuff out

Christianity why did they not just

produce the body of dead Jesus that's

all they had to do go open the tomb put

the body of Jesus up front say "Look

he's dead and the uprising is over." Why

couldn't they do that any

guesses because the tomb was empty you

say "Well maybe the ro maybe the Roman

soldiers were paid off to give the

disciples the body of Jesus." If they

were to lose the body that they were in

charge of they would also lose their

life there was no money on earth that

was worth losing your life

over if you're going to start a a cult

or a false belief you would not start by

allowing women to be the first witnesses

of the resurrected Jesus not at this

time in this culture because women had

no rights they were treated about as

equally as livestock back then so if

you're the disciples and you want to

convince everybody that Jesus is alive

you would not allow the women to be the

first ones to have testimony because

they weren't even allowed to testify in

court think about it how did the faith

get all the way around the world to here

in Camden County and the answer is that

Jesus undeniably rose from the

dead and here's where I want to end

today so we have this historical Jesus

it's very easy to prove that everything

the Bible says is real and we have this

this claim of Jesus to be God's son the

only way to heaven the only way to

forgiveness and salvation and we can

prove that pretty well as as well apart

from

scripture but what was his mission what

was his purpose well it says in

Colossians that Colossians chapter 1

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

that he is the visible image of the

invisible God so as God's representation

when Jesus came to Earth it just blows

my mind that when he walked onto this

planet and saw just how badly we had

messed things up it it blows my mind

that he wouldn't just be like "All right

it's time to get things in order it's

time to get this fixed." Like I would

picture Jesus coming to this earth and

looking around at all the sin around him

and grabbing a sword and just going to

town right but he didn't come with a

sword he came with an invitation in

Matthew chapter

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

11 this is his invitation he says "Come

to me all of you who are weary and

burdened and I will give you rest." He

says "Take my yoke upon you and learn

from me because I am lowly and humble of

heart and you will find rest for your

souls for my yoke is easy and my burden

is light." Jesus tells us that he came

to fulfill the law to do for us what we

could not do for ourselves to live a a

perfect life that we could never live

and to take our punishment on the cross

our punishment for sin that we would

never want to pay ourselves he says

"Come to me all of you who are burdened

by your sin and I'm going to teach you

my ways." And by the way my ways are

easy and light he's talking about your

purpose your purpose is easy and it's

light it's to love God and enjoy him

forever so Jesus this undeniable

historical figure who claimed to be

God's son who claimed to be able to

forgive sins who claimed to be the only

way to truth and life said to us that we

don't have to be perfect in order to be

saved we just have to

believe that's why the gospel is called

good news

all we have to do is believe in him

jesus said all that he said and did all

that he did so that we could find rest

and we could find purpose that's the

invitation he says "Come to me and allow

me to lift the burden of your sin off of

your shoulders and replace that with

righteousness and give you this eternal

life and then set you out on your

mission which is to be the salt and the

life the light in a broken world

jesus and his claims are

undeniably real so the question we're

left with this morning is the thing we

have to decide is are we going to accept

his invitation or not so we're going to

dig into this more over the next three

weeks but today I just want to leave us

with that thought are we going to accept

the invitation of the historical Jesus

who made these incredible claims are we

going to accept the invitation of our

undeniable Lord close your eyes for just

a

moment i want you to think about that

question

ask

yourself if this is

true if all these historical sources are

to be

trusted if all these claims are

real if the world really did change that

day when Jesus came back from the

dead if that's the reality of the

kingdom that I live in here on

earth then have I aligned myself with

the

king has there been a time in my

life where I've recognized my sinfulness

and asked Jesus to forgive me has there

been a time in my life where I've given

my life to him through faith and allowed

him to cleanse me of my unrighteousness

and adopt me into the family of God to

relieve this sin burden that I've been

carrying around for all these years and

replace it with this purpose this

incredible purpose that only God can

give us

that's a question that deserves an

answer and unfortunately I can't answer

it for you your mom your dad they can't

answer it for you your grandparents

cannot answer it for you only you can

answer that question do I

believe friends if the answer is no this

morning I would just encourage you to

not leave this place without giving your

life to Jesus it's a simple little

prayer you just say something like this

say "I know I'm a sinner and I need a

savior and I believe that savior's name

is

Jesus and I give my life completely and

fully to

him i believe he lived a perfect life i

believe he died on the cross and I

believe he rose from the

dead so I trust

him to me he is undeniable

for the rest of us father I pray that

today would be a great reminder a more

one of those solidifying moments in our

lives where we realize that faith isn't

just some abstract thing where we have

to turn our brain off to believe no

faith is real it's grounded in reality

it's grounded in the historical

undeniable Jesus and the claims that he

made to be the son of God and the only

way to him so Lord help us today to take

that message to a community that needs

to hear it lord help us not to waste

opportunities when we have them to share

the gospel help us to take every moment

to fulfill our purpose to be the salt

and the light lord I thank you for what

you're doing in this this church and

other churches in our community that are

preaching the gospel lord that mission

field is so vast out there and so I

thank you for calling disciples from

these places to go out to those fields

that are white for the harvest and I

pray that the Holy Spirit would go

before us that would prepare hearts and

minds and gospel conversation

opportunities and that when that door

opens Lord help us to have the courage

to step through it and engage knowing

that the Holy Spirit will give us the

words to say as we proceed

father as we close this part of the

service with song of invitation I pray

that if there are any that need prayer

any that need to just come to the altar

and kneel before you and pray for a lost

loved one any that need to rededicate

their lives Lord or any that may want to

get baptized or saved I pray that today

that you will have full access to their

heart that you will reign supreme in

them and they will listen to that still

small voice of the Holy Spirit telling

them what to do in these moments in

Jesus name I pray amen