Easter | Risen King (April 1st, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

All right, well, if you want to get your Bibles, uh open them up to John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

If you're thinking, hey, I don't have a Bible or I didn't bring mine, don't worry about that.

We are going to have uh the following verses that we'll be going through today up on the screen for you to follow along with there.

All right, well, last Sunday uh we began, of course, to prepare ourselves uh for this weekend, right?

By by looking at how Jesus was the rejected king.

The rejected king.

He was being hailed as the the coming Messiah of Israel, uh, one moment, to being despised and tossed aside the next.

We went from that, of course, to just three days ago, gathering in this room here where we focused on the murdered king, right?

The actual moments of the resurrection, the crucifixion, rather, and how his sacrifice uh satisfied God's wrath meant for us.

Okay, all of that in one final payment.

Sin paid for in full, forgiveness, salvation secured.

Right?

Today, today is different, right?

I think to put it mildly.

Okay, it really is.

Today is just, it's it's full-blown excitement, right?

It is go time, you guys are there, you guys are, you guys are with us, all right, and we're here as we celebrate, of course, the risen king.

He didn't stay.

Jesus is alive, as we say, as we have sung, you know, having overcome sin and death, Satan defeated, hell avoided, victory assured, our hope for salvation locked down.

Okay?

All because the king has risen.

All right, so we're gonna get into this here.

We're gonna jump into these scriptures, but before that, why don't you join me as we give this time to the Lord and as we pray?

Father God, thank you.

Thank you.

Or at the end of the day, it's simple words like that that hopefully sum up the core of how our hearts feel today.

As we ponder and think about the empty tomb, we think about your resurrection, we think about how death is obliterated, we think about how our sins have been covered over, washed over by your blood.

You are victorious, God.

I pray, oh, I pray that our hearts would sing.

I pray that we would be an excited church, a passionate church.

Lord, not emotionalism, but Lord, excitement and joy over what you have done.

And so, God, as we gather and as we talk about these things today, God, fill us, fall on this room, Lord, fill me with your spirit.

Lord, bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ who the things that we are going to cover this morning.

God, be glorified.

We pray this in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, a lot to get to today, and if you've got your notes with you, we're gonna jump right into it here.

Here's the first thing, all right?

The king has risen, and the evidence compels me to believe.

The evidence compels me.

All right, so we're gonna pick it up here in this in this passage here.

It's of course three, it's been three days since the crucifixion, three days since Good Friday, and in the verses just preceding the ones that we're gonna jump into here, Joseph of Arimathea, who who was a like a secret disciple of Jesus, and he was a member of the Sanhedrin, which was kind of like the Jewish Supreme Court.

Okay, and we know that the Jews were were not exactly pro-Jesus, right?

Again, that's an understatement.

They're the ones responsible for putting him to death.

And so, so this Joseph of Arimathea, though, he was he was a follower of Christ.

He was a disciple, though he was pretty secretive about it because of his position.

And what uh the the deal here is that he'd been given permission from Pilate, he'd gone to Pilate and asked for permission to take the body down off the cross and be able to prepare it for burial.

That was a big deal, and then lay it in a tomb that he actually owned.

And so he paid for that.

It was a tomb that had never been used before.

And so all of that now brings us to verse 1, chapter 20.

Again, follow along, either in your Bible or up on the screen.

It says this.

Now, on the first day of the week, okay, that's Sunday morning, all right, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark.

All right, well, well, Luke chapter 8, verse 2 actually tells us a little bit about who Mary Magdalene was.

Luke 8:2

She was a woman whom Jesus had cast out seven demons.

And so through that, through that probably quite wild experience, she'd become a follower of Jesus and followed him around and was in his inner circle here.

And so she was coming now in the morning here while it was still dark to pay her respects.

And she had also been there when he was put into the tomb and entombed in there, Matthew 27 tells us.

Okay, you'll keep going now.

It says, and she saw that that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

Okay, she wasn't expecting that.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved.

Okay, that's that's John, the author of this gospel, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.

Okay, other gospels tell us that she was with a number of other women as well.

And so Peter hears this, and it says that, you know, he went out with the other disciple.

Again, that's John, and they were going toward the tomb.

Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter.

He had his Wheaties, okay, and reached the tomb first.

All right, and stooping to look in, he saw, what did he see?

The linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.

Okay, why didn't he go in?

Well, probably because he was he was stunned.

He was shocked by what was going on here, and maybe even maybe even scared to go in, too scared.

But it says there, then Simon Peter, okay, we know a bit about him, right?

Ever the bold one.

Okay, Peter came following him and went into the tomb.

Look at this.

He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself.

Now, these seemingly arbitrary details here actually tell us a lot when it comes to the validity of the resurrection.

Okay, just think about how Peter would have been processing this situation as he cut as he hears the report from Mary.

She's running, she's out of breath, she can't believe what's going on.

She's probably hysterical about all of this, because again, not expecting any of this, you know, the empty tomb, the the stone rolled away, all of that, and then he he takes off in haste and he runs uh to the tomb as well.

What would he have been thinking on his way there?

Most likely he's thinking grave robbers.

Right?

Someone has has defamed this, someone has desecrated uh this tomb of our friend.

Okay, but think about this.

Okay.

If you were a grave robber, okay, how would you go about pulling off a job like this?

Okay, how would you how would you do that?

Well, let me tell you, you'd probably want to get in and get out as fast as possible.

Right?

Like you're you're not likely you know gonna go in there and and take your time and sort of unwrap the body and and and you know, and all of that.

No, no, no, you you'd probably get like one of you at the feet, one of you at the head, not trying to be too morbid about this, but honestly, just think about it, and you'd probably just, again, get out of here, job over, job done.

Right?

You even if you did unwrap the body to take the you know the 70 pounds worth of very expensive spices and aloes that John 19 tells us were there, okay.

Even if you did take the time to do that, okay, you you likely wouldn't take even more time, think about it, to take the face cloth off of Jesus, fold it carefully, and then place it down beside where he lay.

Would you do that if you're a grave robber, grave robber?

Yeah, probably not.

Okay, and so Peter, what is he doing?

He's entering into the tomb, he's he's he's assessing the scene here, he's processing everything, taking it in with his with his eyes.

Okay, and then verse 8, take a look.

It says, and the other disciple who had reached the tomb first, the speedy John, okay, also went in, and here it is.

He saw and believed.

He believed.

Believed what?

Believe what?

Well, look, take a look.

It says there.

For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.

He must rise from the dead.

Then it says the disciples went back to their homes.

Okay, so Peter and John, they observe this with their eyes, and though they hadn't quite put the entire picture together yet, and and really, you know, kind of recognized that that Jesus had had risen, okay, they hadn't they hadn't put together all the prophecy from from the Old Testament.

They hadn't they hadn't quite processed all the words of Jesus Himself about the fact that this was going to happen, even though they didn't quite get all of it yet.

Okay, they see all of this, they see the evidence in front of them, and they were compelled to believe.

Now, I can just, I don't know, I can just imagine what some of you sitting here might be thinking right now.

Okay, some of you might be thinking, like, come on, man.

Right?

Like, you don't you don't expect me to believe the resurrection actually happened, you know, based on a folded up cloth.

Give me a break.

Right?

Maybe that's what you're maybe that's what you're thinking.

Perhaps for you, you would need more evidence or more compelling evidence before you would ever believe that Christ came back to life.

Maybe you'd consider yourself, I don't know, like a skeptic.

Right?

And you're like, I don't know, I don't know about this, you know, or you know, it's it's of Christianity in general, or it's the Bible specifically.

And and listen, maybe you're somewhere on the spectrum of being a skeptic.

Maybe for you you're you're an agnostic, and you're at the place where you're like, I just I don't know what's what.

I don't know what to believe, I don't know what the truth is, or or maybe you're further down uh the spectrum here, and you're uh you're an atheist.

That's what you consider yourself, and I don't believe in this whole God thing, and this is so dumb, and I can't believe I'm even here right now.

Okay, well, let me just say first off, how much I am so glad that you are here today.

Right?

And I want to tell you, and I want you to know, I've been praying for you uh a lot this week and just so grateful that you would come.

Right?

This is for some of you, I'm sure, just like way outside your comfort zone.

Right?

This is not the crew you would normally hang with on a Sunday morning.

And so for you, you're walking in and and you're like, man, this is weird, you know, or or someone kind of twisted your arm a little bit, and and you're here because you feel like you have to be, and and all of that.

And again, let me just tell you, I want you to know this.

I respect you.

I respect who you are, I respect where you're coming from and and wherever you're at on, you know, in terms of belief or disbelief or or all of that.

Again, I'm just again, I'm just really glad that you're here.

And and also on top of that, to request evidence, to request compelling evidence is not an outrageous demand.

Can I say that?

It's not.

That's an okay thing, that's a good thing to ask.

Okay, it really is.

Christians everywhere, I think, for for decades and centuries and all of that have been slammed constantly by the unbelieving world for you know our blind faith.

You know, and they they don't think things through, and and you just you just gotta believe, and you just gotta have faith and you know, all of that kind of thing.

Okay, well, well, faith is certainly crucial because faith is really just another word for trust, okay?

We believe as Christians, as Christ followers, as the church, we believe the claims of the Bible because we believe that there is compelling evidence to support those claims.

Right?

That's why we believe.

And to the Christians in the room, let me speak to you for a second.

It's not enough to know what we believe.

Can I say that?

It's really important for us to know what we believe.

Let me say that, okay?

Very important.

Our church is all about sound doctrine and believing the Bible and aligning our thoughts and our actions and our emotions and all of it with this book, with the scriptures, but it's not just enough to know what we believe.

We have to know why we believe what we believe.

Are you aware of the evidence that supports the the faith that you hold to?

So I think it's important here for really for all of us that we spend a little bit of time here on Easter Sunday just exploring some of the evidence of the resurrection.

Okay, really key and I think hopefully very helpful for us.

Why?

Well, just as Peter and John gathered the evidence and it compelled them to believe, you know, we should do the same thing.

So let's do that here.

Okay, now in past Easter services, uh, we've gone through some of the alternative theories for the resurrection.

Some of the alternative theories that that people had have put forward to try and explain the way, uh explain away the resurrection and all of that.

So you might remember some of these we've talked about, the swoon theory, right?

The idea that, well, you know, Jesus didn't actually die on the cross.

He was more j he just passed out, right?

And he kind of fooled the guards and the Roman soldiers, and and he revived three days later with the cool air in the tomb, and you know, somehow managed in his bloody state to get the you know the stone rolled away and overpower these trained assassins, basically.

Okay, that's one theory.

Okay, there's the hallucination theory, the idea that the disciples and all the people that claimed to see Jesus, they just kind of hallucinated the entire thing.

They saw a vision, they saw a dream, something like that.

There's the wrong tomb theory.

The wrong tomb being that the you know, that that Mary Magdalene and the other women and then and then John and Peter, they they showed up to the wrong tomb and it was empty.

It was like next door and they accidentally ran to the wrong place.

Right, people have put that forward before.

There was the the Jesus was never buried theory, that that was all just kind of a lie and a myth, and he was actually just discarded like in a common, kind of in a common gravesite, and they lost track of the body.

There's also the disciples stole the body theory, and they just sort of made this entire thing up and and duped an entire world and started uh this religion.

Hey, truthfully, can I tell you this?

Truthfully, no one holds to these theories anymore because they're so lame.

Right?

They really are.

Right?

They're, you know, even ardent opponents of the Bible, of Christianity, of the resurrection laugh at these theories now.

No one really holds up to them, no one holds to these at all.

And so we're not gonna really go into them uh anymore here, uh, because they don't hold water for a lot of different reasons.

And so what I want to put forward today for us and spend a bit of time in here is three truths, okay?

Three truths that all serious scholars and historians admit.

Okay, three truths.

Now, with these truths, it's really important for us to believe here that you don't even have to believe the Bible to agree to these.

Because you've ever gotten into a conversation with somebody who's, you know, who doesn't agree with your faith and all of that, and you're like, well, in the Bible it says, and they're like, yeah, I don't believe the Bible, sorry.

And you're like, oh, okay, I don't know, I don't know where to go from here.

Okay, well, with these, okay, everybody, every serious scholar, every serious historian, okay, would agree with all of these.

You don't need to believe the Bible.

The Bible's not a prerequisite, okay?

Now, guys like William Lane Craig, perhaps you've heard of some of these names, JP Moreland, Gary Habermas, or are some of the giants, okay, when it comes to uh being scholars and historians and philosophers and apologists who have you know have just been so amazing at defending the faith and specifically defending uh the resurrection here from a Christian worldview.

And so a lot of what we're talking about here, really all of it, is coming from their hard work, okay?

If you're uh anyone's like, hey, wow, Mike's really smart to be thinking all that through between Good Friday and now, I just want to say, no, I'm not, okay?

This comes from them.

And a guy named uh Matt Perman, an author and desiring God, have been uh very helpful to me in all of this as well.

Okay, so here are the three truths.

Let's get to them.

Here's the first one.

Okay, the tomb in which Jesus was buried was discovered empty by a group of women on the Sunday following the crucifixion.

Okay, everyone agrees with that.

Okay, everyone agrees with that.

The second one, Jesus' disciples had real experiences with one whom they believed was the risen Christ.

Okay, pretty hard to deny that.

Third one.

Okay, as a result of the preaching of these disciples, which had the resurrection at its center, the Christian church was established and grew.

Okay, these three truths, people hold to that.

Now, if you're like, hold on a sec, that went so fast, I couldn't write that down.

And come on, what are you doing?

We're gonna go back to this.

Don't worry, we're going back to the first one.

Okay, throw that back up.

All right, so here it is the empty tomb, right?

The tomb in which Jesus was buried was discovered empty by a group of women on the Sunday following the crucifixion.

Okay, a couple of things about that.

First off, you have to recognize that the disciples, okay, they began to give witness to the resurrection in the very city, okay, in the very city that Jesus was killed in.

Hey, why is that key?

Why is it crucial that we understand that?

Well, it's not like they, you know, it's not like this all happened in Jerusalem, which it did, and then they went to like Sydney, Australia, a couple of weeks later, and were like, hey, there was this guy, Jesus, who, you know, died and then, you know, rose again.

And then a bunch of people who hadn't, you know weren't familiar with the situation and what was going on, they're like, oh wow, that sounds kind of interesting.

Tell me more, and then from there everything kind of grew and exploded.

No, that's not what happened.

They were they were proclaiming the resurrection, the empty tomb in the very city that all of this went down.

Okay, no one in Jerusalem would have believed them if the tomb wasn't empty.

You understand that?

Okay, to shut down the disciples' claims that Christ had risen, that all they would have had to do is be like, uh, no, he didn't.

Here's the tomb, here's his body.

Okay, but people didn't do that.

They couldn't do that.

Okay, secondly, secondly, even the Jews, okay, remember them.

The Jews who wanted nothing more than to suppress the disciples' claims, okay, admitted that the tomb was empty, and even tried to cover it up.

In Matthew 27, verses 11 to 15, you see this interaction that the Jewish council, the leaders, had with the very guards that had been guarding a tomb.

Matthew 27:11–15

And they're like, let's, you know, they paid them a bunch of money and and and kind of put forward this cover-ups and and tried to get this rumor going that the disciples had had stolen the body.

Okay, so that even they admitted that the tomb was empty.

Okay, they would only admit this if the evidence was too strong to deny.

Okay, when opponents of an argument acknowledge its truth, it generally means that it must be.

Okay, third thing.

Scholars of of all walks agree that Mark's account of the resurrection, right, Mark's gospel, the gospel of Mark, okay, we know that that Mark was the first gospel of the four uh to be written.

It was written around uh mid-50s to 60s AD, and it was based on on an early, uh, very likely eyewitness source.

You know, why is that important?

Well, because some have claimed that the empty tomb account uh simply became legend uh over time.

Right?

It started off as a rumor, and it was, you know, sort of like this game of telephone.

Over time, it turned it turned into legend and became a story that people would pass down throughout the generations and and tell to their kids and their grandkids.

Okay.

Now, typically, legends don't develop quickly, they develop over many, many years.

Whereas Mark's source has been dated by many people to as early as five to seven years after the resurrection.

That's where Mark was getting his information from.

Now, I actually just read an article just yesterday afternoon.

Some people are even saying that that source that Mark got was even from just months.

After the resurrection.

Okay, much, much, much too early for the legend theory to hold up.

Okay, fourth thing.

The accuracy of the burial account gives evidence to the accuracy of the empty tomb.

Okay, that remember Joseph of Arimathea?

Remember we just talked about him?

Member of the Sanhedrin, all of that?

The fact that he is mentioned is actually huge.

Okay, because he was, again, he was well known.

Members of the Sanhedrin, everyone knew who those guys were.

And if the disciples were just making all of this up, they wouldn't have name-dropped his name.

Because all people would have done is just gone to Joseph of Arimathea and said, Why are they including you on this?

This is a farce.

You would have been like, Yeah, I don't want nothing to do with this.

He didn't deny it.

He didn't at all.

And so they wouldn't have included him unless it was an accurate historical account.

Listen, on top of all of this, okay, uh, literary gurus would tell you that the literary and grammatical style of the burial account is true and and and very similar, okay, to the empty tomb account.

Really, all of that and just the way it all works in terms of linguistics signifies one continuous account, meaning that if the burial account is is true, then the empty tomb account is likely true as well.

Okay, furthermore, if the the burial account is widely accepted as accurate, then it would have been, again, easy for opponents of the resurrection to just, again, point to where Jesus' body lay, refuting the disciples' message that he had risen.

Okay, final thing, and then we'll move on to the next one.

Okay, the empty tomb was discovered by women.

Okay, have you heard this before?

Okay, it was discovered by women.

Okay, so why is that important?

Well, because back in the day, the the testimony of women was considered inadmissible in court.

Okay, it was considered worthless, all right, completely worthless.

And so if the disciples were making up a fairy tale here, all right, they would never have used women as the first eyewitnesses of the empty tomb.

Okay?

The most, right, they wouldn't have done it, they wouldn't have thrown that in.

They would have said, uh yeah, we saw it first.

And right, they know how it happened, they knew how it worked back then.

All right, so the most plausible explanation here for the empty tomb, or really, is that these women actually saw it happen first.

And so these disciples are just recording these events as they actually happened.

Okay, the evidence of the empty tomb is is so strong that again, it's that even scholars who oppose the Bible and oppose Christianity can't refute it from a historical standpoint.

All right, let's throw the second one up there here.

Three truths.

Here's the second one.

Okay, Jesus' disciples had real experiences with one whom they believed was the risen Christ.

Again, critics and proponents of the resurrection would agree with this.

Okay?

And hey, listen, you don't you don't even need to believe the gospel accounts, let alone the entire Bible, but you don't even need to believe the gospel accounts to agree that the disciples at least believed that they saw Jesus alive.

Okay, 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 to 5.

1 Corinthians 15:3–5

I don't know if you want to jot that down or even get flipped over there in your Bible, uh, but I'm gonna actually read it for us here if you want to listen along.

This is the Apostle Paul.

Um, he wrote this down.

I'm gonna read it for you.

This is what he says.

He says, For I delivered to you as of first importance that uh would I also received, that Christ died for our sins and according with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and then he appeared to Cephas, that's Peter, and then to the twelve.

Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles.

All right, so what Paul is doing here is very easy to read that and think, oh, Paul's just kind of writing this down.

Well, what that actually is, those verses there are actually an ancient creed, okay, which was an eyewitness account that Paul himself received from Peter and James.

Okay.

The most critical scholars of this entire account would agree and say that this was given to Paul just three to five years after the resurrection.

Okay, this is about 50 years he was given that before he wrote 1 Corinthians, before the first gospel was even written.

Yeah, that's pretty strong evidence right there.

Now, of course, we have to understand this.

Just because just because the disciples claimed to see Jesus, right?

They they they said that they saw him alive, doesn't mean that they actually did, right?

Anyone can claim anything, right?

I could claim all kinds of stuff.

It doesn't mean that it's actually true.

All right, so if that's the if that's the case, it really leaves us with three possibilities when it comes to these disciples.

First of all, that they were lying, right?

That's one option.

Okay, were these guys lying?

They just fibbed, they made the whole thing up, it's a big tale.

Right?

Well, that's pretty unlikely because we know that 10 of these disciples ended up being martyred for what they believed.

Right?

So they they believed that they really saw this.

Okay, they they didn't they didn't lie.

No one's going to their death, no one's going to be brutally murdered as these men were for something that they know was a lie.

Okay, so the lie hypothesis, that doesn't hold a lot of water.

How about this one?

That they were hallucinating.

I kind of refer to the hallucination theory a little bit before.

Right?

They just had they had a vision and they were just, they were so desperate to see Jesus risen that they had this emotional, otherworldly experience.

However, you want to say it.

Well, listen, any any psychologist will tell you that that people don't hallucinate the same thing.

Okay, hallucinations might happen, but no two of us in this room are gonna have the same hallucination about all of this, let alone all of these guys, and it says in 1 Corinthians there, 500 at one point at one time.

That's just that's just so unlikely.

It's it's not happening.

Right?

Not to mention, they weren't expecting the resurrection.

They were so they were grieving.

They thought it was over, they were crushed and defeated, and they thought, you know, what was this all about?

Can you imagine Saturday for the disciples?

As Jesus is in the tomb, as the Lord is silent, that would have been that would have been an awful day.

Right?

So the hallucination theory doesn't really hold up.

So really the only explanation left is that they actually saw Christ alive.

They actually saw him.

They believed that they saw him because they did.

Okay, let's jump into the third one here.

Okay, the third one here is again, these are truths that every historian, every critical scholar would believe.

As a result of the preaching of these disciples, which had the resurrection at the center, we realize that the church started because of what took place this day.

Right?

Because of all of that, it had the resurrection at the center of the Christian church, was established and grew.

Okay, the explosion of the church from this moment in history onwards is strong evidence for the resurrection.

Okay, some have argued that the church started as a result of these disciples borrowing from you know other pagan beliefs and and myths and simply used them to invite uh or invent the Christian faith.

Okay, well, this is unlikely.

And again, most serious scholars have have long rejected you know this theory for a few reasons.

First of all, because most of the pagan religions that had some type of belief in in a God who dies and then miraculously rises, all of that came after Christianity.

Okay, they but they actually borrowed from Christianity in that sense.

Okay, not to mention that that these pagan beliefs didn't really have any influence at this time in history, at this point in the world in Palestine.

Okay, secondly, the disciples were Jewish.

Right?

They were Jewish, and so for centuries, well before Jesus Christ, they had considered pagan beliefs and and syncretism, which is kind of the blending of uh of different religions and different beliefs and putting it all together to make kind of one new one.

They believed all of that was abhorrent.

Right?

It was it was a repulsive concept.

So it's pretty hard to believe that the the disciples just be like, yeah, now let's borrow from this, that, and the other thing.

Listen, the best explanation for the explosion again, the rise of the church immediately following the empty tomb and ever since that day is that Jesus actually rose from the dead.

Right?

The evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of that.

It's the best way to explain how these disciples went from defeated, right?

And they were they were so discouraged and they were demoralized individuals to what?

To on fire, right?

To to sold out to conviction to the death, where they fiercely proclaimed Jesus Christ and that he was alive.

Right?

If the resurrection didn't happen, understand this, there is no sufficient explanation for the rise of the church as recorded in the New Testament and outside of it.

Listen, you stack these three truths up.

Okay, that even again, I've said it so many times already, skeptics agree with this, that it's accurate.

Listen, you add these up, you're left with convincing evidence for the validity of the resurrection.

Even if you reject one or let's say two of these three, guess what?

The onus is now on you to come up with a better, an alternative theory or explanation.

Okay, as Matt Perman writes, the theory that best explains the evidence is most like more likely to be true.

The resurrection is the only hypothesis that explains all of the evidence.

If we deny the resurrection, we must come up with three independent natural explanations, not just one.

Okay, and if I could be so forceful with you, okay, the resurrection, listen, understand this.

It's it's not just something that a bunch of we good?

All right, we're good.

All right, let's get locked back into this.

Just a stack of chairs.

The enemy loves to disrupt, all right?

All right, again, with force here.

Okay, the resurrection, it is not something.

Listen, it is not something that a bunch of brainwashed, weak-minded, logically impaired bunch of con artists came up with.

That's not what it is.

They didn't just do this for fun.

You know, they didn't fall victim to this because they were too dumb to think it through for themselves.

No.

When you carefully consider the facts from multiple angles, the evidence compels us to believe this.

Allow me to challenge you with that today.

Okay, do some digging if you're still unconvinced.

Okay, I believe that the claims of Scripture can hold up to the scrutiny.

Do you believe that no one has for sure 100% ever shut down the claims of the Bible in 2,000 years?

No one's done it.

No one.

Look into it, do some digging.

Okay, we're not advocating for blind faith here, as Peter and John, as they observed the evidence in the tomb and they believed that Christ had risen.

Listen, we must do the same.

Now here's the thing.

If it simply came down to stacking up all of the evidence for versus all of the evidence against, and we've got all the evidence under the sun in favor of the resurrection, okay?

If it's just about having conversations with people and explaining to them and showing them again all of this, we know here, we understand that people will still refuse.

They will still refuse to believe.

And you might be like, well, why?

Why why?

But it's it's it's clear.

Well, it's because of what Romans 1 verse 18 says.

Romans 1:18

Okay, and this is this is what tells us, this tells us what's really going on in the hearts of people who have heard the evidence and reject it anyways.

It says this for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

Here it is, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

They suppress the truth.

At the end of the day, the the Bible even just straight up tells us, okay, that even when people hear the truth, even when people hear the evidence presented, because of sin, because of the because of pride in their hearts, they'll suppress that truth.

Regardless of the evidence presented.

Listen, can I plead with you, please, here today?

Do not do this.

If you are here today and you're hearing what we're talking about, don't be like, nope, I don't care.

I will not believe.

Listen, at some point you get to the place where you're you're just suppressing the truth.

Study the evidence, look at it, realize that, listen, it really is the best explanation that Jesus is alive.

Okay, here's the here's the second thing, going much more quickly now.

Okay, the king is risen, and all my sorrow turns to joy.

All my sorrow turns to joy.

Verse 11.

It says, but Mary, okay, so she returns, she comes back to the tomb after Peter and John had left.

She stood, you know, weeping outside the tomb there, and you know, so at this point, Mary is still overcome with grief and despair and sorrow over the death of Christ.

Okay, it says there, verse 11, but Mary, you know, and and as she and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb, and and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Christ had lain.

One at the head and one at the feet.

And they said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?

Now understand, this is a very, very gentle and mild rebuke of sorts.

Okay, after all, as she's about to learn, there's no need for sorrow anymore.

And she said to them, They've taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they've laid him.

Having said this, she turned around and she saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

So she didn't recognize him, and maybe she's not expecting to see him.

Right?

Or maybe she wasn't looking at him very carefully, not too sure, it doesn't tell us.

But then look at this.

Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?

Whom are you seeking?

Supposing him to be the gardener.

Okay, she said to him, Sir, if you had carried him away, tell me where if you were where you have laid him, and I will take him away.

She just wants to bring dignity to his body, she just wants to take care of it.

Right?

He's been through enough.

And Jesus said to her, Mary.

She turned and said to him in Aramaic, Raboni, which means father, or which means teacher, rather.

Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and to your God.

Now, when you hear Jesus' response to Mary there, maybe at first it kind of strikes you a little bit sideways, like that sounds a little bit cold.

Like, you know, stop clinging to me.

You know, like what's he saying there?

Well, again, Jesus knows the intentions of her heart.

Right?

And she's like, she's kind of like the mother who's you know lost sight of her children in the grocery store for a while, right?

And finally, you you know, you you see your child and you run and you embrace them, and and and what does the mother do?

Right?

I'm never letting go of you again.

Right?

That's the heart, that's where she's coming from.

And and Jesus, of course, knows the you know the rest of his mission here, and then he would be only staying with them for another 40 days before ascending to be with his father.

Matthew chapter 28, the Great Commission, it tells us that.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Of course, after that, he he sends his Holy Spirit to the believers and he oversees the launch of the church.

We read about that in the book of Acts.

Amazing, amazing.

Then verse 18, the final verse we're looking at, take a look.

It says, Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord.

Can you imagine that?

Wow.

And then he had said these things to her.

Hey, understand that just as just as Mary's sorrow was turned to joy at the sight of the risen king, listen, understand that the resurrection turns all of our sorrow to joy.

Okay, as you're maybe, I don't know, gathering, you know, the evidence of the resurrection, you're still, you know, kind of putting that together.

You know, recognize, listen, recognize the implications of it.

Recognize the implications of the resurrection.

The central implication being that Jesus really is God, as he claims.

And if he really is God, then what he says is of utmost importance, isn't it?

And listen, what he says about his creation is that you and I are lost.

Right?

We are heavily damaged and broken.

We are headed to uh towards judgment over our sin.

We're headed towards hell for eternity because of uh because of our sin, because of the sin that you and I have committed.

All of which, guess what?

They're ultimately against him.

They're all against this holy God.

Look, Jesus went to the to the cross on Friday and and he rose again from the grave on Sunday to deliver us from all of our sorrow.

All the sorrow that that you and I, listen, we deserve it.

All the sorrow that we deserve and and have coming to us.

The sorrow of leaving this life someday eternally separated from the God who made you and loves you.

That's what that's what sin does.

It tore apart the relationship that God intended to have with us.

It all started with Adam and Eve in the garden, and ever since then, mankind has been corrupted and unable to get into a relationship with God by any of our own doing, by any of our works, by any of our good behavior and and right actions and and all of that.

Listen, we cannot fix it.

It is the cross, it is the resurrection that fixes it.

That's why we celebrate.

That's why we continually talk about this every single week, about what happened at Easter.

It's what brings joy where hopelessness once reigned in your heart.

It it brings joy when it comes to your purpose in life now.

I don't just have to live for you know for making money or or or finding worldly happiness.

I I can have purpose to live for Jesus Christ.

I can have purpose to spend my life for him.

It brings joy regarding your eternal future because heaven is where you're headed ultimately.

There is massive, incomparable joy for all of this.

If okay, huge if here, if you embrace him as your king.

Listen, these are not truths to merely be mentally agreed with.

You must willingly, from the heart, humbly, desperately throw yourself at the mercy of the God of heaven and accept that all of this was done for you to reconcile you.

With him.

That's what Easter is about.

It's to make all things new, it's to restore us his sinful, rebellious creation, the very ones who are guilty of putting him on the cross, the very ones who made it necessary that the King of Kings would lay down his life and sacrifice himself for you and I.

Wilson, I'm going to pray right now.

And I'm going to pray a prayer of salvation.

And let me encourage you, if you are sitting here today and you have not put your faith in Jesus Christ as your king, as the risen king over your life, the king over all, can I encourage you and challenge you to do that right now?

I'm going to pray a very simple prayer of salvation.

And if you've never done this, all you need to do is just where you're seated.

Just agree with me in your spirit while I pray these things.

Cry out to the Lord, even just where you're sitting, even silently.

For the Lord to be your Savior, to have mercy on you, to forgive you and be your Lord.

Let's pray.

Father, I know that I am a sinful person.

Everybody is.

God, and I now recognize that ultimately my sin is against you.

Even if other people have been affected, even if it seems like it's been primarily against somebody else, Lord, at the end of the day, it's ultimately against my creator.

It's against a holy God.

And Lord, because of that, I deserve wrath.

I deserve punishment.

Father, would you forgive me?

Lord, I trust that what Jesus Christ did on the cross, what he did through his resurrection, was enough to forgive me and secure my salvation.

Lord, would you be my King?

Would you be my Lord?

Would you be my Savior?