Easter 2025: Liar, Lunatic, Legit

Welcome to Venture Church ten fifteen service. This is officially

our eighth service this week, our fifth weekend gathering. The

fact that you're here with us today means a lot.

There are incredible churches throughout this region, and the fact

that you are celebrating Easter here with us, it really

means a lot. So thank you for being here. If

I've never met you before, I'm Brandon, I'm the lead

pastor of the church. I love the opportunity at some

point to shake your hand and to meet you. But

would you join with me by bound your heads closing

your eyes. I want to pray for each and every

one of us that's here this morning. Lord, Jesus, I

asked that in the next several moments that you would

speak to every single person that's here. Lord. There are

some that know you and have known you for a

long time. I want to pray that today you would

do something fresh their hearts. Well. Lord, I also know

that there are others that are new they've never been

here before, and for whatever reason, they find themselves at

this service, and Jesus, I very humbly ask that you

would reveal yourself to them, that you would speak to

every single person that's here. And Lord, I also asked

that you would help me as I speak your word.

It is a privilege and honor to declare your word.

I pray that I would not mess it up, and Lord,

that you would use me in these next several moments

in your name, I pray Amen. Today, I want us

to wrestle with a question that people have been wrestling

with for over two thousand years. And here's the question.

Is Jesus Christ really God? That is a huge question

that we all have to wrestle with because the answer

to this question has massive implications for my life and

for yours. Whether we choose to answer that question or not.

You might be one of those people that say I'm

not really sure. You know, I don't want to deal

with that question. Well, not answering that question, you might

as well be answering the question. But history has been

wrestling with this question since the day Jesus was born.

Different religions land on different sides when answering the question.

Some say he's God, some say he's a prophet, some

say he's an excellent teacher. I bet there's many of

you that have heard some say he's a good moral teacher.

Others don't think anything about him. The jury was out

on Jesus very show time here on earth. A couple

called him son, a few called him brother, some called

him a king. One king tried to have him killed

as a baby before Jesus was even able to teach once.

Some called him rabbi and began to follow him. Some

even called him the Messiah, the chosen One. Many religious

leaders called him a blasphemer. The Roman executioner that stood

witness to Jesus' crucifixion in Matthew twenty seven point fifty

four said this, He said, surely this man is the

son of God. History has said many different things about

this person, Jesus Christ. But what do you say about Jesus.

Do you think Jesus Christ is God? It's impossible to

answer that question until you understand what Jesus said about himself.

You see, Jesus made massive claims about himself. In fact,

this morning, I want to highlight just seven of those claims,

seven statements that Jesus made about himself. And I want

to tell you that this list is by no means exhaustive,

but I do want to say, if you're here today,

you're here Easter Sunday, twenty twenty five. I am hoping

that you are at least a sincere seeker, and as

I share these claims on the screen, I'm going to

give you the passage and reference where the claim comes from.

My hope is that you will do some research on

your own, that you won't just take my word for it,

but you will see if these are words that Jesus

actually said and claimed about himself. The first claim is

in John six, and Jesus claimed he came from heaven.

In John ten, his second claim, Jesus claimed that he

had the power to perform miracles. In John eight, Jesus

claimed that he was sinless. His fourth claim we can

find it in Mark chapter two. Jesus claims the authority

to forgive mine in your Sin. His fifth claim in

Mark eight is Jesus claimed that he was going to

die and come back to life. One of the most

powerful of Jesus' claims is in John fourteen six, Jesus

claimed that he is the only way to heaven. And

the seventh claim that I want to highlight is Jesus

boldly claimed that he is God. These are seven massive

claims that have eternal impact. They have huge implications for

your life and for mine, especially if they're true. Do

you believe Jesus Christ is God? Do you believe the

claims that Jesus made are true? Do you believe that

Jesus came down from heaven, that Jesus has the power

to perform miracles, that he is sinless, that he has

the already to forgive your sin. Do you believe that

Jesus died and came back to life like we celebrate

on Easter every single year. Do you also believe that

Jesus is the one and only way that any one

of us is getting to Heaven. Do you believe Jesus

Christ is God? Do you know that you can't just

believe one and not the others. You either believe all

of the claims that Jesus made about himself or you

believe none of them, because it is impossible to separate

the claims of Jesus from the person himself. Is Jesus

really God? There's a famous author by the name of

us Lewis. He wrestled with this idea, is Jesus really God?

And he wrestled with all of the claims that Jesus

made about himself. Some of you don't know who C. S.

Lewis is. I want to describe him. He was an

intellectual giant in the twentieth century. He was a fellow

at Oxford University. He was unanimously elected to the Chair

of Medieval Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University. He authored over

thirty books. He is most famous for the Chronicles of Narnia,

which have sold over one hundred million copies. But it

was his book Mere Christianity that spoke to me when

I was in college because it was in the book

Mere Christianity where C. S. Lewis was wrestling with this

question is Jesus really God? And he was wrestling through

the claims of God. And I'm going to read an

excerpt from that book, specifically him answering all of the

people that make the claim, well, I think I don't

think Jesus is God. I just think he's a really

good teacher. This is C. S. Lewis's response to them.

He says this, I am trying here to prevent anyone

from saying the really foolish thing that people often say

about Jesus. Here's the statement, I'm ready to accept Jesus

as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his

claim to be God. And this is C. S. Lewis's

response to that. He says, that is the one thing

that we must not say. A man who is merely

a man and said the sort of things that Jesus

said would not be a great moral teacher. He would

either be a lunatic on the level with a man

who says he is a poached egg, or else he

would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice.

Either this man was and is the son of God,

or else he's a madman or possibly something worse. You

can shut him up for a fool, you can spit

at him and kill him as a demon, or you

can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.

But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about

his being a great human teacher. He has not left

that option open to us. He never intended it. C. S.

Lewis famously answered this by saying, the claims of Jesus.

You have to conclude one of three things. Jesus was

either a liar, he was a lunatic, or he was Lord. Today.

I want you to wrestle with that answer yourself. I

want you to determine what do you think about the

claims of Jesus. For us, Jesus was either a liar,

he was a lunatic, or I'm gonna say he was legit.

I use legit. It's short for legitimate. But we know

someone who is legit. They are honest, truthful, trustworthy, genuine, sincere.

That is a person we can put our faith and

trust in. If Jesus is legit, your answer to that

question bears massive weight, because, according to Jesus, your answer

has eternal consequences. We have to make a decision which

one we believe, lord, liar, lunatic. We can't be wishy

washy about it, and we unfortunately can't ignore the question.

You're probably wondering, Brandon, why can't I just hold off

on this question for a while, Because if Jesus's claims

are indeed true and he is God, our answer to

this question has massive implications for our life and our future.

Do you realize how you respond to Jesus in this

life determines your destination in the next life. If the

words Jesus spoke are true in John chapter fourteen, Jesus

made many of these claims. John chapter fourteen is a

discussion Jesus had with his closest disciples. We refer to

this as the Last Supper. It's actually a time when

Jesus was celebrating passover with his disciples, but throughout history

we've referred to this as the Last Supper because this

was Jesus' last moment before he was betrayed and crucified

and died. And it was during this conversation he makes

these massive claims, and we get to be sort of

an eye witness to the response of some of his disciples.

Here it is starting in verse one, Jesus said, do

not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God,

believe also in me. My father's house has many rooms.

And if that were not so, what I have told

you that I am going there to prepare a place

for you. And if I go and prepare a place

for you, I will come back and take you to

be with me. That you also able to be where

I am. You know the way to the place where

I'm going. Well, just as that confused you, it confused them.

And so Thomas very sheepishly raises his hand, and he says, Jesus,

we don't know where you're going, so how can we

know the way? And Jesus responds by saying, Thomas, I

am the Way, the truth, and the life. No one

comes to the Father except through me. If you really

know me, you'll know my father as well. From now on.

You do know him, and you've seen him. Well. Philip

is more confused. He raises his hand and he's like, okay, Jesus,

can you show us the Father. Just let us see

the Father and that'll be good enough for us. And

Jesus responds to Philip by saying, Philip, don't you know me?

Even after I've been among you for such a long time.

Anyone who has seen me has also seen the Father.

Jesus makes this massive claim. He says, I'm God in

the flesh. I am the exclusive gateway to heaven. Jesus said,

I am the way. No one can experience heaven unless

you go through me. There's only one way. As you

hear these claims, you were either comforted by them or

you're pretty concerned about them. You're comforted because you came

to a point in your life where you believed in

and you follow Jesus, you have a relationship with him.

You're concerned because you're not quite there yet. But what

if the claims that Jesus made are true. I've been

a minister for thirty years. My wife and I with

a group of people started Venture Church twenty years ago,

and I think of all the conversations with people about

spiritual things that I've had over these thirty years, has

got to be tens of thousands of them. The one

thing that every person agrees with when they're given only

these two options, everyone chooses the same thing. When they're

given the option heaven or hell, everybody picks heaven. Every

single person wants to believe that their loved one who

died is in heaven. If what Jesus said is true,

we owe it to ourselves to examine what he said

and come to our own conclusions. And you'll either conclude

that Jesus is a liar, he's a lunatic, or maybe

Jesus is legit. But no matter how you answer those questions,

it's always going to lead to more questions. Some of

you think Jesus is a liar, then how were we

getting to heaven? If Jesus is a liar, What do

we need to do to get to heaven? If Jesus

is lying, who actually determines who goes to heaven? If

Jesus is lying, why was the tomb empty? If Jesus

was lying, why were there all those people that claimed

over five hundred of them to have seen him after

the resurrection? If Jesus was lying, there are numerous questions

that should deeply concern you and I and they are

questions that we unfortunately cannot ignore. Well, what if Jesus

was crazy? What if he is a madman? What if

Jesus is a lunatic? Then what hope do we have

when it comes to God and heaven? And if Jesus

is crazy, why would a crazy person lead people to

radically love and serve others even to the point of

his own death? And frankly, if Jesus is crazy, over

the last two thousand years, there's been hundreds of millions

of people who have put their faith in and believed

in him. If Jesus is crazy, those are the most

pitied people in history. But what if Jesus is legit?

What if Jesus is God? What if everything he said

about himself is true? Than at the minimum, we owe

it to ourselves to look into these massive claims. I

don't know why you're here. I don't know if you

came because someone invited you, you got a direct mail,

you got an invite card, maybe your husband made you come.

I don't know why you're here. But if there is

a chance that the claims that Jesus made are true,

we owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our kids.

We owe it to our grandkids to seek more on

the subject, to understand what he taught. If there is

a chance what Jesus said about himself are true, we

owe it to our future generations to learn more on

the subject. I was about sixteen years old in high

school when I wrestled with this question and I came

to a conclusion on my own. It was in that

moment when I determined that Jesus Christ was God. When

I started telling my friends about it, they didn't understand.

They literally thought I'd gone crazy, and they would argue

with me about it. And the way that I answered

my friends, very ironically, is the same way I answer

people today when they want to talk to me about it.

And I said this to my friends. I said, if

I'm wrong about Jesus. In the end, what did it

cost me? It cost me nothing. But I looked at

my buddies and I said, but if you are wrong

about Jesus, what does it cost you? If what Jesus

said is true and he is God, what does it

cost you? I said, it costs you everything for an

eternity at a minimum. If you're here and you're not sure,

you should come back next week and learn more about

him at best. And I also pray there's a ton

of you that are in this category. This is your moment,

this is your opportunity to believe in Jesus. What do

you believe about Jesus? What are you going to do

about Jesus