**Transcript:**
Means by which we can enter your presence. But we don't need any other means. We don't need to beg. We don't need to cower. We don't buy our way in. We believe our way in.
With His last breath, the earth shook. The curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, forever revealing that the Holy of Holies is no longer in a building. It's going to be in bodies. That the altar of the living God is now in the hearts and souls of His living people, cleansed once and forever, once and for all, by the blood. The blood! Oh, the marvelous blood! Thank you for loving us so much that you decided eternity without us was not your plan.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. And all of God's people said, "Amen." You may be seated.
Well, good morning and welcome to Crossland! We're so glad you're here. Guests and visitors, we're especially thankful that you've chosen to be here with us on Easter Sunday, which is, as you'll see today, by far the most significant date on the Christian calendar. But I think we'll be able to see today that it's the most significant date in all of human history.
We would love to celebrate with God that He trusted us with your experience here today. So if you would let us know you're here, and it's so simple to do that. You can do it with a guest card. Okay, that is underneath in the card holder just beneath your knee. You can pop out one of them, skinny and tall. It says, "I am here." Flip it over, and you'll see name, address, phone number, email. You can put any prayer requests you'd like on there, baptism requests, anything at all you want to ask us about Jesus, about the Bible, about church. It's a great way to communicate with us.
If you fill that out, then what you'll do is you'll take that out with you. Alright? As you leave this auditorium, there are mailboxes. There are four of them affixed at every door. Two in the center, and right and left have them. If you forget and get into the lobby, there's another one at the sky bridge. There are three or four downstairs. Just drop it in there.
Okay, you can also let us know you're here digitally. Okay? And everybody knows how to do this by now. To use a QR code on the floor down here, there's one at everybody's feet. Just point your camera at it. The little yellow link appears. Click it. Up there, what you need to do is either catch it on this screen, the back of your program, or the back of that guest card. It's the same form; it's just digital. You'll be filling that out while I'm talking and hit send.
Okay? What we'll do is send you a letter this week thanking God for your presence. I'll pray over every name that I love the moment that I get them. And I get to see your name, and I don't see your last name; I just see your first name, and I get to pray for you. And each week, it's kind of fun. I try and keep a tally of did we have more male guests or female guests? Generally, the ladies are winning about 48 out of 52 weeks, but generally speaking, some weeks it's more dudes than girls, and you gotta love that.
And so I'll pray for you and your family and everybody that you come in contact with. We will not bang on your door. We will not email you, call you, or text you. Just a letter saying thank you and inviting you to come back.
Now, if you choose to do that today, we would love to honor the fact that you were here today. And if you do it digitally or with the card, what you can do is go right out these main doors, make a slight right, and there's a guest services table there. There you'll meet some of our staff and some of our volunteers. We have a gift bag with your name on it. Today in the gift bag, I know for sure it's a beautiful coffee cup that says CrossFit. It doesn't say CrossFit; it says something on it. And then inside there is a wonderful, I've already tried one, cake pop. So, I mean, it will change your life. It will really change your life. So, go on out. Receive that as our way of saying thank you so much for being here.
Every Sunday before we pray over the offering, when people bring their gifts and tithes into the house of God, we don't want to just rush through that because that is as important as the worship, if you will, and the teaching because it is a part of worship and teaching to give back to the Lord because He's so wonderfully given to us.
Today is the easiest one to ever do. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever will believe will not perish but have everlasting life. There is truly no greater reason to give than because God gave that you and I might have life.
Let's give like that today. Father, we love you. We bless you with our worship. We bless you with our giving. We bless you when we listen to your word and apply it to our life. And so, we thank you for the opportunity to give back to your mighty work on this planet that's a little more than 2,000 years old now. And we're so thankful that it moved through our day and our time and into our hearts because of the love that Jesus Christ has for each one of us. It's in His name that we pray. Amen.
A couple of announcements. Next Sunday, if you're interested, we have our next new members gathering. We do it, I don't know, every five or six weeks, give or take, based upon how it fits in the calendar. It's on this campus next Sunday. It's in Building 2, just to the right. And it's after the 11 o'clock service. And we serve you lunch. It's always a great lunch. And then you'll meet all of our staff who will be there. And then I'll get up and talk with you about what we believe to be true about God, His Son, and His Word. We'll talk about where we've been, where we're going, and how we got here.
But the best part of it is an opportunity for anybody to come and ask questions. Now, you do not have to join the church if you attend. You might just be curious about kind of what's behind the scenes, what do we believe. Love to explain that to you. But if you do want to join, you have to attend because we want you to know what you're joining, okay? You can sign up on the QR code. You can use one of the guest cards. Just drop it in.
May the 17th, that weekend, is this year's Bold Conference. We do it every spring. It's for our middle school and high school. It is literally one of the most powerful experiences we provide every calendar year. Do not fail to sign your kids up, okay? Middle school, high school, sign them up now because we need to know how many kids are coming so we can prepare properly.
And the same thing is true for Vacation Bible School. I know it's only April 20th, and VBS is not till June 9th through the 12th. But we're expecting over 500 kids, okay? So we've got to be prepared with resources and volunteers. And the sooner we can get ahead of that, the better off we shall be. If you know your kids are coming, just tell us now. If you sign up now and it turns out, you know, June 7th, you can't come, all you gotta do is call us. It's not a big deal if you don't even call us. Just let us know that you think your kids are coming, okay?
Today, we're actually going to finish a series of messages we started eight Sundays ago, a series entitled, "Something Greater Is Here." Let's prepare our heart and mind as we get ready to dive into God's Word. Good to be upon him. Good to be upon you.
Well, the name of the series really does say it all. And you'll see where this passage comes from today. But Christ was being approached and challenged and questioned by Pharisees. And He finally says to them, "You have to understand something greater is here." We do know, and I hope you believe, someone greater did come. That He was certainly the greatest human being who's ever lived. And there are other non-Christian faiths that would tell you that's true.
Now, whether or not they believe He is the Messiah, that He was God in the flesh or not, obviously they wouldn't if they're not a Christian faith. But to look at His life and how He lived and the proclamation of His sinlessness and all, I mean, no doubt, greatest man who's ever lived. But that's not what He said. What He said is something greater is here.
And when we began this journey, we began looking at the three offices of the Old Testament: prophet, priest, and king. And it wasn't just that He was the greatest or a greater prophet that had been here before. He is the greatest prophet that has ever been. And in fact, fulfilled and closed that office because no one could possibly exist in that office after Him. He was, in fact, a greater priest. Not just the greatest, far greater. He was a greater king and on and on.
Then we began to look at the healings that Christ did that were greater than anything that had ever happened before. The peace that He provides is greater. And last week we saw the sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ is far greater than all the other sacrifices that had ever happened before. And it wasn't that they were insufficient. It wasn't that they were unacceptable. God received all those sacrifices.
It's just that one day a year, one man would walk into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle blood on the altar. And that would re-institute the relationship of God and Israel. And then the next year they'd have to do it. And they were doing it for 1,500 years when Jesus got here. Every year on the Day of Atonement, the priest would walk in, sprinkle blood on the altar for the sins of the last year, and God would accept it. So it was very, it was God's principles and God's practice.
But when Jesus came, we saw last week, once and for all, that process is done with. There's no need for any more sacrifices. There's no need for any more blood. Once you are cleansed by a drop of the blood of Christ, you are clean for now and forever, just like His sacrifice.
Okay? Today, we're going to look at what I hopefully, you should expect this, is a greater resurrection. Now, like we said last week, you know, Christ was not the only sacrifice. He was the greatest sacrifice. When you think about the resurrection, I think it's important to understand He's not the only human being that's ever been raised from the dead.
The fact that He was raised from the dead does not set Him apart from humanity. Okay? Elijah, in the book of Kings, we see, he raised the widow's son from the dead in Zarephath. Okay? We know that Jesus raised people from the dead. Okay? He raised Jairus' daughter from the dead. He raised a widow's son, just like Elijah. As Christ was walking the streets through a town, the pallbearers came out of a home of a widow, and her only son was dead on the stretcher. And she was crying out with deep groans of mourning. And Christ stopped, touched the body, and he was alive.
You just saw from John chapter 11, the resurrection of Lazarus. And that was shortly before the crucifixion of Christ. So it's impossible to say that it's the only resurrection. In fact, I'll tell you, it wasn't even the last resurrection from the dead. We see Paul and Peter in the book of Acts raise people from the dead. So there were resurrections before Him and after Him.
In fact, there's a very rarely looked at passage in Matthew chapter 27, and it says this: When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit. This is the final moment of His life. He just cries out to the Lord with a loud voice, and in that moment, breathed His last. That was it. This is the last breath of Christ on the face of this earth.
At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. That goes back to last week. Why? Because we no longer need a Holy of Holies. There's no longer going to be a one day, one man, once a year sacrifice. And everybody can boldly enter that space with confidence and assurance to find grace and mercy in your hour of need. You don't have to beg, and you don't have to wait. If you got to go in there 11 times a day because you're just having a bad day, then just go in there. You don't have to wait until the holy day of atonement.
Christ ripped that thing open; go in at any time. Then it says, the earth shook, the rocks split, and the tombs broke open. This is powerful. This is not even His resurrection yet. This is the power that Christ released. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. Did you know that? That when He expired on this earth, it was such a powerful moment that many people, holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of their tombs. It's crazy, isn't it? After Jesus' resurrection, and then they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. It's incredible, isn't it?
And so, like, here's the question I have. How do you top that? I mean, how can you say that His resurrection is a greater resurrection when that's pretty great? That's pretty powerful and impressive. You would think that would be enough evidence to convince people that Jesus Christ is truly who He says He is. You would think that's enough to change the world. You would think that this was enough to say that was the most important moment in human history, and you'd be wrong. You'd be wrong.
So, what is it about His resurrection that is so distinctively different? What is it about His resurrection that started a movement on the face of the earth? That's a great question, and that's what we want to answer today. We need to understand why is the resurrection of Jesus Christ greater, the greatest, because that is where so many things come from that empower your living, that give you purpose for living, comes from the truth of His resurrection.
Today's big idea, and it makes me giggle when I see it. I don't know why, but the resurrection of Jesus is greater because it can have a greater impact on us than it did on Him. Let that sink in. How deeply affected have you been by Lazarus's resurrection? Like, not at all? You didn't even know Matthew 27. I just read it to you. Like, wow, I never saw that before. I know, nobody talks about it. It's crazy, isn't it?
But the resurrection of Christ had more impact on me than it had on Him, and that's where it becomes the distinctive moment in world history, and I hope that it becomes the most distinctive moment in your history. So, we're going to look at four different things, and there's more than that, but just four distinctive things because they're the most logical things that we can apply to our daily living, and conclude with one last thing for you to see.
So, four different things that make it greater. Here we go. This is from the Gospel of Mark. What you're seeing here is a text that's repeated three different times. It's three different moments, and the story's recorded three different times by Mark, Matthew, and Luke. And this is Christ talking to His disciples, okay? He's got them, He's leading them, He's training them, but He also wants to prepare them. Because He knows that if they don't know in advance what they're about to see, it's going to ruin them. And He knew it. He's trying to prepare them to see something that their eyes were not capable of seeing.
This is from Mark chapter 10. The first time you see it is Mark chapter 8. And that's the time when Peter is told it, and it so freaks him out, he gets in Jesus' face and says, "That ain't happening." Okay? What was it so moving that got Peter so upset? He took the 12 aside and told them what was going to happen to Him. "We're going up to Jerusalem," He said, "and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law," which we know He predicted, and it happened that way.
And here's what He said is going to happen to them. "They will condemn Him to death. They will hand Him over to the Gentiles who will mock Him, spit on Him, flog Him, and kill Him." He perfectly predicted and painted a picture three times, and more times than that, to be honest, in other different places, what was literally going to happen to Him, who was going to do it to Him, how they were going to do it to Him, and where it was going to happen. He was perfectly capable of predicting how His life was going to end. That's pretty substantial when you think about it.
And while that doesn't necessarily set Him aside from any other loss of life necessarily, it will set something up that it's pretty phenomenal that He knew this and willingly went into Jerusalem anyway. So you might ask yourself, "Oh, this was a death wish. He was just sucked into a situation that got so totally out of hand." Until you see the next thing He said. Because that's not where it ends. That's not the only thing He predicted. He also predicted three days later He will rise.
Like, Lazarus' sisters were so mad at Jesus when He arrived on day four. Because the message got to Him before Lazarus was dead. The message was, "He's sick. Please come." And Jesus looked at the messengers and said, and the disciples, "Let's hang around." They're like, "What do you mean hang around? The one you love is sick." He's like, "Yeah, no, don't worry about it. This sickness won't result in death." Guess what happened to Lazarus? He died. Like, what do you mean it won't result in death? He's like, "Calm down."
Day four, He walks the short distance into Bethany. Martha meets Him on the dirt road. And another, I love how people treated Jesus when they were with Him flesh to flesh. She gets in His face and says, "If you had been here, he would not have died." In other words, "Where have you been? What have you been doing? Because whatever it is you've been doing, it ain't helping us at all, big boy." And Jesus, you know what she said? It's the truth. Had He been there, he wouldn't have died. That is absolutely the truth.
Now, Martha and Mary obviously did not have any predictive possibilities to think that Lazarus was going to be raised from the dead. Do you think Jairus knew that his daughter was going to be raised from the dead? What about the widow? She had no idea. Nobody predicted that. How about the one, the passage in Matthew? Can you imagine? I mean, come on, think about it. These holy people that have been in tombs for who knows how long. What, were they talking to each other? "Oh boy, I can't wait till the day he dies." "Yeah, me either. Yeah, I heard we're going to be raised from the dead. I can't wait." No, that doesn't happen.
The ability to predict your death is one thing, but to perfectly predict your resurrection is another. Now, it gets even crazier than that because I'll show you in a second, but it's imperative. You hear me say repeatedly that Christ Jesus raised Himself from the dead. Now, we know God the Father and God the Spirit also were involved, but there's so many verses in the New Testament. And this is called a verb that's in the active tense, okay? Which means the subject is performing the action on the object, okay?
So, if I told you in three minutes I'm going to jump, and in three minutes I jump, that is an action active verb. I did the jumping. Jesus said, "I'll do the rising." That's not the first time nor the last time He said it. Look what it says in John 2, very early in His ministry. Jesus answered them, "If you destroy this temple, I will raise it. I, I." It's not hard to understand that one. Who's going to do the raising? "I'll raise it again in three days." They replied, "You kidding me? It's taken 46 years to build this temple. And you're going to raise it again in three days?" They knew exactly what He was saying. The very next verse says, "But they did not realize He was talking about His body."
No one, period, has ever raised Himself from the dead except Jesus, and that literally is the greatest thing of all. The greater reality is that, and the next couple will look at flow from that, but at the end of the day, this dude raised Himself from the dead. If you know of anybody else in human history that has any evidence whatsoever, it's never happened before, it will never happen again. He was able, because of who He is and because of who He is and what He did, it unleashes so much power for living.
Okay? So He both predicted it and performed it. If you want to know why I believe everything in that book, this is it. I'm sticking with the dude that raised Himself from the dead, and until you do, I'm sorry, I can't follow you.
Alright, so what is the result of this raising Himself from the dead? And this next one's a great result for you as well. Romans 6:9: "Now if we died with Christ," that's the big word. If you've got to answer that question, have you died with Christ? You do that through faith baptism. Romans 6:1 really through 9. When we baptize people, it's from 6:2 and 3. We are buried together with Christ through baptism, raised to walk in the newness of life. When you claim His death, you embrace the penalty for your spiritual death. We die with Him.
Okay? If we die with Him, then we believe we will also live with Him. The guy that raised Himself from the dead is going to raise you from the dead, and it's not going to be in the eternity away; it's in this very moment. When did Jesus start living in His resurrection state? Immediately. Immediately your spirit will come back to life because it's dead right now if you haven't died with Christ, and then it will be resurrected, and you'll come back to being body, soul, and spirit back in the full image of God. And then you get to live a very distinctive and powerfully different way because the Spirit can then join you.
For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over Him. Here's what I can tell you about every other resurrection recorded in the Bible: anybody who physically died and was physically raised physically died again. Lazarus died again. Jairus's daughter passed away a second time; had to be heartbreaking. The widow's son, he would die again. And I think part of what made Jesus cry was that reality for Lazarus when He wept at the tomb, knowing he's already in paradise. I got to bring him back to this polluted place, and he's going to have to go through death again.
But Christ is the only person when He raised Himself from the dead, He overcame death and the power of death, and He's never going to die again. And boy, do I have good news for you because if you died with Him and you live with Him, you will never die. You're like, "Pharaoh, you're pulling my leg." No, I'm really not because very truly I tell you, these are the words of the Lord: "Whoever obeys my word will never see death." Because death has been swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your sting? Christ conquered death. Death no longer has a hold on you.
The book of Hebrews says that that death was the weapon that the devil kept all of us in fear until the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, will our container cease to have the capacity to carry us? Yes, yes, everyone will if you will die. But dying and death are two completely different things. See, in Christ, when you're absent from the body, you are what? Immediately present with the Lord. Like when Christ expired His last breath, so too will every one of us. And when you do that, your next breath instantaneously is in His presence.
Death is that which Adam and Eve unleashed. Death is a dark separation from God Almighty. That is never going to happen to you. If you're in Christ and Christ is in you, and this obedience He's talking about is the word about salvation, the word about His identity, the word about who He is and what He's come to do. When you obey that through faith, you're never going to know death. You're never going to see death.
And look, the Pharisees so understood what He said, they said, "And now we know you're demon-possessed. You've lost your ever-loving mind. Abraham died, and so did the prophets. Yet, you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death." I'm not making this up. There's no reason for you to fear death because death has been conquered. If you're not in Christ, you should fear death because when you die, you will experience death.
And right now what that is, is your soul and spirit are separated into a place called Hades. It was called Sheol in the Old Testament. They're the same place, and that is the realm of the unrighteous dead. And there is no getting out of that. Then at the end of all things, after the coming of the Lord and Savior who raised Himself from the dead, He then dispatches you to hell forever. That is death. You will never, ever experience that. It's impossible because you're not going to die again. You've already died once.
That's what makes this so distinctively powerful. So, my question would be is, why are you not living? What's holding you back from experiencing life? Like, I'm not saying go, you know, jump off a mountain. That's foolishness, but why are you so afraid? You know, often when I'm contemplating decisions, I just contemplate the worst-case scenario. If I could deal with that, I'm in. You know, what's the worst thing that'll happen if you blank?
Now, no sin if you, I don't know, decided to change jobs or buy a house or sell your house or get a car. We turn all of these decisions into these what? Life and what decisions? Life and death. There is no such thing as a life and death decision for a follower of Jesus Christ. It's life and life, right? If the decision affects your life, you've got a bad patch of life. It has nothing to do with death. Do you get that?
Like, that's why Psalm 23 is so powerful, that even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Did you hear the psalmist say, "I walked through it"? Did you hear the psalmist say, "I'm never alone in it"? That Christ meets me on one side of the valley and He leads me to the other side with absolute evidence that we're walking into eternal life because there's a shadow. But shadows don't stop. Shadows don't scare. It's just a momentary passing, and you're not even alone in it.
So why ain't you living? Remember Jesus said the only risk in life to take is not to take any risk at all? Taking all that talent that God's given you, and you're so afraid that you're burying it under your tent. Stop that. Why? Because you're never going to see death or taste death. Ever.
So what do we have to do? Think about it. No sin. I'm not saying that. Risk-free living. So try, if you fail, it's okay. Try another thing. It's not life or death. That's already been settled. Fear in Christ. Death is not. I mean, I could preach about this for the next six weeks. It's so unbelievably powerful in this reality.
So you have been raised, as was He, to an indestructible life. That's what it says in 1 Timothy about Him. It's true about you. And that life gets to be lived right here, right now. No delay. Last year we did, right after Easter, a series called Raised to Life. And week one, some of you remembered, I started cracking eggs. Got them all over me. But you, the whole point of that was, there's some things that just can't be undone.
And once you crack an egg, you ain't getting that sucker back in the shell. You're just not getting it back in there. It's over. And that's what happens when you are born in Christ. It cannot be undone. And when did Jesus start living out the power of His resurrection? The moment He raised Himself from the dead, what are we waiting for? It literally is the thing that unleashes us to live.
This will prove it to you. For Christ's love compels us because we're convinced that one died for all. He didn't die for a few. He died for them all. Okay? And I do believe that on that cross, every sin that had ever been or will be committed was paid for. But here's the problem. And therefore, all died. And He died for all that those who live.
Now, just because He died doesn't mean you're going to live. Those who live are the ones who place their faith in Christ. If you haven't placed your faith in Christ yet, you're not a part of the all who died. And if you live, and what were we just talking about? Live. You got to live. If you know you're not going to ever face death, why are you not living? And part of the reason is you don't know what you're supposed to live for.
They should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again. Now, all of a sudden, you talk about a movement and a moment that unleashed so much power. Just think about the, let's talk about the 11. Okay? Who on one dark and lonely Thursday night abandoned Him and denied Him. And then three days later, they're worshiping Him. And then 50 days later, they're planting the church of the world for Him.
Peter is teaching the very first sermon ever. 50 days after having used the same mouth to curse Christ, he's now proclaiming Christ, and 3,000 people are saved. There's no probationary period. Once you have new life, it's go time. You're now a part of not only a moment in history but a movement in history. And this movement is compelling and powerful.
Okay? And you could just see what it did for the 12 and then the 120 on Pentecost. And on and on. It's an unbelievable motivator. It literally has changed the entire world. It was the church of Jesus Christ, if you want to know, who was the most influential thing in the removal of the mighty Roman Empire. It was the love of Christians that finally began to cause inward, inside insurrection amongst the Roman citizens because there were two massive plagues. The first one took one third of the people. The next one took another third of the Roman Empire. We're talking millions of people dying from.
The first one is believed to be smallpox. And when smallpox broke out, they employed a strategy that you're going to be quite familiar with. They decided what we're going to do is anybody who gets it, we're going to shut them in and shut them down. We're not going to let them be near anybody. And this is the way we're going to contain it. And guess what they learned? That doesn't contain it whatsoever. It only gives it the energy it needs to expand.
And so when you got it, one of two things would happen. First, your family would throw you in the street and lock the door because you'd get away from us. But then Rome, when it began to spread into towns, what they would do is shut the entire town down. And they would put a garrison of soldiers around it. Nobody in, nobody out. You would think that worked, but it never worked. I'm going to tell you in a minute what did.
Well, the church was moved by the plight of these people, these non-believing, Caesar-worshiping pagans is what history calls them. And they would go to these towns and say, "Let us in, we want to, nothing. Going, no water, no food, just let us go in and minister to these people." And Rome finally acquiesced and said, "Okay, you can go in under one condition. You understand you're never coming out. You go in, you don't come out."
And thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Christians took them up on that offer, many of whom would die from both those plagues, going in there for one reason and one reason only, to demonstrate the compassionate love of Jesus Christ. In Christian communities, they didn't shut each other down. They ministered from home to home to home to home. They're in the same areas, facing the same disease.
And yet their compassionate care of one another mitigated the expansion and the spread of the disease. Does this sound familiar to you? You ever hear COVID? It's crazy, isn't it? Well, you know, the citizens of Rome were so, I don't, they weren't necessarily immediately moved by these Christians as much as they finally had a comparison now to use with their Caesar.
And finally, there was this uprising. And they went to Caesar and said, "How is it these mongrels, these people who drink blood and eat flesh, love our people more than you? Why is it these Christians who you say are barbarians are willing to go into these towns and die with these people when you're Caesar and you're, in fact, Caesar left and went like 250 miles away from Rome to protect himself?"
And all of a sudden, the people began to question, "Is Caesar really God?" God. And by 350, even Rome admitted, "Nope, Jesus Christ is." They defeated Rome without a single bullet, well, not bullet, sword, no murder, no bullets, no blood, no beatings, nothing, love.
Can you explain that to me? How one of the mightiest, if not the mightiest empire that ever existed on the face of the earth finally began to fall apart? The movement. Don't you want to be a part of that? Don't you want to, come on, man, let's go out love the world. Like, "No, they're filthy, they have things. I don't, they go cooties, I don't want to be around them." Knock it off. That's how we win them.
Go out there and rub elbows with a few sinners. Have a great time. Sinners are much more fun than Christians, by the way. You're going to have a great time. Okay, don't go hanging around with me. I'm boring. I don't drink, I don't smoke, and I don't hang around with women that do either. So, I'm boring.
Think about it. What's driving you? Did you realize that God wanted more for you than just experiencing a moment? That He's now recruited you into a movement? A movement that has literally changed the world. Do your research on hospitals in India and see how they all got started. Find out why Mother Teresa went down there and what they were doing to children who were maimed, who had illnesses and sicknesses. You will find that it was all changed because of the church of Jesus Christ.
Look at the major universities in America today of which have lost their ever-loving minds and see how Harvard started. See how Princeton Theological Seminary started. The greatest quality educations in America formerly were in Christian institutions like the Harvards and the Princetons. That's how He changed the world.
Don't you want to be a part of that? What reason are you living for? Do you have a purpose? Do you want to be a part of a movement? Well, as soon as you're in Christ, you are. It's insane, isn't it?
Here's the last thing we got to look at. How do we know this is all true, right? Like, how do you know this is true? How do you know this is truth? How do you trust what's in there? Some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus and said to Him, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from you." He answered, "It is a wicked and adulterous generation that asks for a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah."
First, He says you're not getting one. Then the one He gives them is probably the second most ridiculous story in the entire Old Testament. It made a great VeggieTale movie, did it not? The best one ever, okay? But if I asked you to validate your authority, your education, you give me a diploma, right? You don't give me a coloring book.
If I were to ask you to validate the veracity of Scripture, you wouldn't tell me Mickey Mouse. If someone who has lost a loved one and desperately in need of hope to somehow mitigate the pain, telling somebody a trip to Disney World, I'm sure it'll make them feel better for a moment. But Disney World doesn't produce hope. Mickey and Minnie and Goofy, as fun as they are, there's no hope in that. This isn't a cartoon. It's a real-life reality.
And Jesus is going to use Jonah to validate something, not to give the sign, but watch what He says. "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Was He using Jonah to validate His resurrection, or was He using His resurrection to validate Jonah? Right.
The Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, took the most, like, the most ridiculous story. Come on, dude, did he really, somebody swallowed fish and spit them up on dry land? That is such a great fable. It's got a wonderful moral, but it's not literal, Greg. You really think a fish? Oh man, and there's some people, they'll do, they're so paranoid that it's not true. They do research, and they'll send you the email. "See, I found it. One time it happened recently. A whale swallowed a man and spit him back up." Stop. You don't need that. You got Him.
And when you think about Jesus validating His resurrection and His resurrection validating the Scripture, we now have an anchor for our soul. Why do you think I believe the flood was literal, global? Because Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be in the second coming of the Son of Man."
He took the two most difficult stories for humans to believe and said, "I'm validating their reality with the two most important moments in my ministry, my resurrection and second coming." I don't have any problem with, did the Red Sea get parted? Absolutely. See, if He validates Jonah, what, do I really think that David had a rock and slung it and hit Goliath in the head, and then he went and cut his head off? Absolutely.
Do I believe that Israel got manna every morning? Absolutely. Water from a rock? You bet it. 40 years of wandering, and their clothes and shoes never wore out? Praise God Almighty. I believe it like I believe my own name. Was Saul really the first king of Israel? Yes. Did Solomon build that temple? You bet he did. Did they spend 70 years in the Babylonian captivity? Absolutely.
I believe everything that's in there because the dude that raised Himself from the dead validated it all. I've got my compass. I've got my anchor. The question would then be, so where are you getting your information from? Mainstream media? Now, I could spend five minutes criticizing Fox News and five minutes criticizing MSNBC. Let me tell you what's true about both of them. They know no truth. They got opinions. Truth is right here.
And when you and I accept the reality that there's always more to every situation that meets the eye, and only God knows that, you'll stop making, you know, off-the-cuff decisions like they do constantly. Like they know more than you and I do. They're able to predict what's going to happen to the stock market because, you know, whatever that dude's name is, maybe those funny-looking cars is cutting some, stop it. They know nothing. They're prognosticators.
When they predict their death and pull it off, I will start staking my peace on their opinion. Until then, I know that if I'm anxious for anything, that if I will rejoice in all things and offer my petitions to God with gratitude and thankfulness, the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus.
Why do I believe that? The dude raised Himself from the dead. There ain't anything in here I don't believe. And I don't got to prove it. I got to proclaim it. The only thing I've got to believe to the core of who I am is did He raise Himself from the dead or didn't He? Did He or didn't He? You're going to have a real hard time with the loads and loads of evidence that proclaim the fact that He has got to be alive.
But this is the final passage. I want to just show it to you really quick because this is where the rubber really hits the road. Paul writes in the book of Ephesians, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him, in Christ, before the creation of the world."
Before He ever sent His Son to the cross to crush Him for our iniquities, He chose you. And the reason the apex of human history had to be the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ is because God loved you so much, He wanted you so bad. God, this is about you.
And you know, there really is still going to be one greater resurrection than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yours. Because, look, Jesus was God. He was going to raise Himself from the dead. He said He was. There should be no surprise. The surprise is His willingness to raise you and me from the dead. That's the greatest reality.
That you too, like, you will please God more than Jesus pleased God. Because this was an eternal plan. Was God pleased? Absolutely. But He's going to be more pleased because you were the purpose of this whole thing. God wasn't trying to prove anything about who He is and who He isn't and what He can do and what He can't do. What He was revealing is how much He cares about you.
And eternity without you is not something God is willing to allow to have happen unless you're willing yourself to let it happen. He's given you free will to decide for yourself. Do you want to know that death has no hold on you? Do you want to know that you'll never see death or taste death?
I don't mean to be dramatic, but I've watched a lot of people go through the process of dying. And dying is cruel at times, you know. It just takes a lot of our love on my mom with Alzheimer's, and you just watch them fade, and I don't know, just all of a sudden you know they're in there, but what you're seeing and hearing ain't them. You've watched people whose the frailty of the human container is just being beaten to death by illnesses.
But what I've learned watching followers of Jesus Christ die is they die very differently. Because they know death has no hold on them. Have you never heard it was just a woman this week, a faithful follower of Christ who has been ill for some time, and her request was, "Lord, bring me home." Was she saying, "I want to die?" No. She said she wants to live. Right? That's the power of it. I ain't afraid of dying; I just want to get on with living forever.
I promise you, like with everything I have and everything I am, I stake everything I preach, believe about that, everything you hear out of my mouth in this pulpit comes is driven by one truth and one truth only. He raised Himself from the dead. I don't need anything else, but praise God Almighty we got a lot.
And you know what He wants to do today? Raise you. He wants to raise you from the dead through faith so that you can today in this room, in this space, experience spiritual resurrection from the dead. When Adam and Eve sinned, God said you will die. Did they die? No. Physically? No. They lived for hundreds of years. Spiritually? Instantaneously their spirit died because we're body, soul, and spirit. It's the spirit that connects with God.
That's why they had to leave the garden. You got to get out now; you don't have a spirit to connect. You're going to have to get out of here. And God actually did that to protect them. And through confession, you experienced resurrection. You're now once again, you're in the image of God. You're body, soul, and spirit. The Spirit of God loves that so much He comes and lives in you.
But you got to decide. At the end of the day, can you believe that He came to die for your sins, to raise Himself from the dead, to give you everlasting life? And all you got to do is rest in that truth just like you're resting in those seats. You don't know everything about those chairs. You don't know where they came from. You don't know what they're made of. You didn't know what they cost. But you knew enough about a seat to come in this room and sit in it without asking anybody any questions about it.
You now know more than enough about Jesus Christ to sit and rest in Him. More will come. If you want to know more, ask me about the chairs. I'll tell you where they came from, how much they got. Just email me. I'll tell you everything you want to know that I know about those chairs. Same thing about Jesus. I'll tell you everything I know. Not a lot because you got the book.
Come on. What a day. What a day to be born again. Let's pray. Father, we love you and thank you. You're powerful. Almighty. Let there be no doubt about that. But you use the greatest demonstration of your power for us, not against us. You could have crushed us instead of crushing Your Son, but you didn't. You crushed Him so that sin could be paid for. He raised Himself so that we could experience everlasting life.
Wow. Come on. Don't you want to commit yourself to that? Can you do that today wherever you're at in this room? Glasgow, Morgantown, may God richly bless you. Just raise your hand wherever you're seated. Nobody's looking. Keep your eyes closed. Let somebody have a moment with the Lord. We did everything we did today because the Lord knew you'd be in this room.
And it's the Spirit of God that draws people to Him, not the words of Greg. If you're uncomfortable raising your hand just then, quietly raise your head and look. Nobody will know. Nobody will see you. You just look up, and you're not looking at me. You're looking at the Lord. He'll see that movement, and He'll start moving in your direction because you finally acknowledged His existence.
Let's pray. Pray quietly to the Lord. Those of you who have made that decision today, and there are several in this room, you pray with me. The rest of you in this room, if you're saved, you pray for them. Father, we love you and thank you for moving in this room and in their hearts that they now have an opportunity to step into Your presence powerfully.
And if you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, just whisper that to God right now. If you believe that Jesus Christ was buried and then raised Himself from the dead, confess that to God. And if you now believe that you will live with Jesus Christ as your leader, your Lord, confess that now.
And I can promise you, based upon the authority of the Bible, that if you should believe in your heart that God raised His Son from the dead and confess with your mouth that He is Lord, you will be saved. So welcome to the family of God. And all of God's people said, "Amen?" Let's give God a hand clap of praise in His house today.
Alright, you fabulous people. Go enjoy a beautiful Easter Sunday. May the God of heaven richly bless each and every one of you. You are dismissed. May the God of heaven richly bless each and every one of you. May the God of heaven richly bless each and every one of you. May the God of heaven richly bless each and every one of you.
on Apr 20, 2025
