-
00:03:17
- Well, hey, happy Easter
and welcome to Crossroads.
-
00:03:21
Wherever you're watching from,
-
00:03:22
your kitchen table,
the living room,
-
00:03:24
maybe on your phone hiding
the bathroom from your kids,
-
00:03:26
we're so glad that you're here.
-
00:03:27
Hey, my name is Andy
Reider and I get to be
-
00:03:29
the community
pastor for what we call
-
00:03:31
our Crossroads
Anywhere community.
-
00:03:32
That's the part of our
community all over the globe
-
00:03:34
that meets in homes,
dorms, bars, cafes, all over.
-
00:03:38
And this is the biggest
weekend of the year for us.
-
00:03:41
Why? Because it all
hinges on one moment
-
00:03:45
that Jesus died
and then came back.
-
00:03:48
And I get it,
that might sound crazy.
-
00:03:50
If you're not sure what
you believe about God
-
00:03:52
or Jesus or the resurrection,
hey, you're not alone.
-
00:03:55
But maybe, just maybe,
-
00:03:58
there's something in this story
-
00:04:00
that your heart needs to hear.
-
00:04:02
So before we get
into our time together,
-
00:04:04
I want to invite
you into a moment.
-
00:04:06
Not the clean, stained glass,
-
00:04:08
pastel shirt version of Easter,
but the real one.
-
00:04:12
Try to imagine this.
-
00:04:14
You just watched your friend,
-
00:04:15
the one that you thought
might actually change everything
-
00:04:18
be betrayed, beaten,
and executed.
-
00:04:22
Where the light goes
out and you just think
-
00:04:24
that's it, it's over.
-
00:04:27
Maybe you're even in one
of those moments right now.
-
00:04:30
But that's not the
end of the story.
-
00:04:32
Three days later, He's back,
-
00:04:34
alive, walking, talking, eating,
-
00:04:37
the same hands,
the same scars, the same Jesus.
-
00:04:41
What was dead
wasn't dead anymore.
-
00:04:44
And suddenly the thing
that looked like the end
-
00:04:46
became a beginning.
-
00:04:48
That's why Easter matters.
-
00:04:50
Not because of religion,
-
00:04:51
not because of tradition,
-
00:04:52
but because the
resurrection is real.
-
00:04:56
So let me ask you,
-
00:04:58
where's the dead space
in your life right now?
-
00:05:00
The place that
you've written off?
-
00:05:02
It might be a relationship,
a dream,
-
00:05:04
your faith, your health.
-
00:05:06
Could it be that Jesus
didn't just rise then,
-
00:05:09
but that He still raises
things right now?
-
00:05:12
That's what today is all about.
-
00:05:14
If you're new here,
our hope is simple
-
00:05:16
that you catch a glimpse of how
-
00:05:18
this ancient,
wild and true story
-
00:05:20
could actually
change your life today.
-
00:05:23
We've all got something that
-
00:05:24
needs to be
brought back to life,
-
00:05:26
and the best thing
about the Bible
-
00:05:28
is that it isn't
just the stories
-
00:05:29
of what God has
done in the past,
-
00:05:31
it's the stories of
what He's still doing
-
00:05:34
in you and in me back
then and right now.
-
00:05:52
- Mary Magdalene was
walking in darkness,
-
00:05:54
until she met Jesus and
His life-changing light..
-
00:05:57
Now here she was,
in the dark again,
-
00:05:59
before sunrise at His tomb.
-
00:06:01
Her jaw dropped:
-
00:06:02
Somehow, the stone holding Him
had been shoved aside.
-
00:06:06
Tears poured down her
cheeks as she ran to tell
-
00:06:08
Peter and John that
someone had taken His body.
-
00:06:12
♪ I will overcome ♪
-
00:06:16
♪ Even when you say
the hurt isn't done ♪
-
00:06:22
♪ I will overcome ♪
-
00:06:27
♪ Even when you say
the hurt isn't done ♪
-
00:06:33
♪ And if these eyes
can't see another day ♪
-
00:06:37
♪ I'll take all the love
that they can never take away ♪
-
00:06:43
♪ And I will meet you
in the light ♪
-
00:06:48
♪ From the rise in the morning
'til the death of the night ♪
-
00:06:55
Mary barely got the words out
before Peter and John raced off
-
00:06:58
to the tomb to
see for themselves.
-
00:07:00
John pulled up short
-
00:07:01
and couldn’t
bring himself to look inside,
-
00:07:03
but Peter barged right in.
-
00:07:05
What?! No body,
just grave clothes folded neatly
-
00:07:10
so Death would get
the message clearly:
-
00:07:12
it’s got NO hold on Him.
-
00:07:15
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:07:19
♪ When you lose your faith
in everyone ♪
-
00:07:25
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:07:30
♪ Out of darkness
when you see the sun ♪
-
00:07:36
♪ I will overcome ♪
-
00:07:41
♪ Even when I know
the hurt isn't done ♪
-
00:07:46
♪ And I will meet you
in the light ♪
-
00:07:51
♪ From the rise in the morning
to the death of the night ♪
-
00:07:56
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:08:01
♪ When the world
feels like it's against us ♪
-
00:08:07
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:08:12
♪ out of darkness
when we see the sun ♪
-
00:08:19
Mary stood outside
the tomb in the garden,
-
00:08:22
tears pouring down her cheeks.
-
00:08:24
The Gardener
walked up and asked,
-
00:08:26
“Hey, why are you crying?
Who are you looking for?”
-
00:08:29
Mary broke and said, “Sir,
-
00:08:31
just tell me where you’ve
taken His body—please!”
-
00:08:35
The Gardener looked
at her with a wide smile
-
00:08:38
and called her by name: “MARY!”
-
00:08:41
Wait, it was Him!
“Teacher!” she yelled
-
00:08:44
as she wrapped Jesus
in a tight bear hug.
-
00:08:46
He said, “Go! Tell my brothers,
-
00:08:49
‘I’m heading to MY Father
and YOUR Father,
-
00:08:52
to MY God and YOUR God.”
-
00:08:54
Mary ran back to the disciples
-
00:08:57
and shouted,
“I HAVE SEEN THE LORD!”
-
00:09:02
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:09:07
♪ When the world
feels like it's against us ♪
-
00:09:13
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:09:17
♪ When we don't see
hope around us ♪
-
00:09:23
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:09:28
♪ When the one you love
is on the run ♪
-
00:09:34
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:09:39
♪ Out of darkness
when we see the sun ♪
-
00:09:46
That same Sunday night,
-
00:09:48
the disciples had locked
themselves in the Upper Room
-
00:09:50
because they
were still frightened.
-
00:09:52
Jesus suddenly stood among them,
-
00:09:55
showed them His hands
and His side,
-
00:09:57
spoke a blessing on them,
-
00:09:59
and breathed on them to believe
and receive the Holy Spirit.
-
00:10:02
They finally got it: Jesus was
RAISED FROM THE DEAD!
-
00:10:06
And NOW—exactly
as scripture promises—
-
00:10:09
He’s seated at
the right hand of the Father
-
00:10:11
in the heavenly places,
-
00:10:12
FAR ABOVE all rule and authority
and power and dominion,
-
00:10:15
and above EVERY
NAME THAT IS NAMED,
-
00:10:17
not only in THIS AGE,
BUT ALSO IN THE ONE TO COME.
-
00:10:21
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:10:24
Because of the resurrection,
The Light beat the Darkness!
-
00:10:29
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:10:34
We celebrate right now
-
00:10:36
because death has been stripped
and left powerless.!
-
00:10:40
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:10:45
And now Jesus
is holding the keys
-
00:10:48
—shaking them loud
for everyone to hear:
-
00:10:50
“I own Death! And I own Life!”
-
00:10:52
Give me yours and
you'll never touch the grave.
-
00:10:54
One Day ALL THINGS
will be made new through Me!
-
00:10:57
So Grab Joy and hold up Hope,
for I have OVERCOME THE WORLD!
-
00:11:02
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:11:06
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:11:11
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:11:17
♪ There's lightness
out of darkness ♪
-
00:18:13
- You got it. Sing it again.
-
00:23:34
- That's the way to start
Easter off, right? Come on.
-
00:23:39
If we've never met,
my name is Justin.
-
00:23:41
I just want to pray for
you to come in together.
-
00:23:45
Jesus, I want us --
I want for every person
-
00:23:49
who can hear my voice,
I want them to meet You today.
-
00:23:57
Because You changed my life
-
00:23:58
and I want the same for them,
-
00:24:01
for every single person in here
-
00:24:04
to know Your resurrection,
life, and power,
-
00:24:07
joy and peace,
all that You bring.
-
00:24:09
I pray all this because of You,
Jesus. Amen. Amen.
-
00:24:16
Hey, why don't you turn
to somebody next to you
-
00:24:18
and say, hey, Happy Easter,
then you can have a seat.
-
00:24:27
- In my view,
my life was fairly charmed.
-
00:24:29
I mean, I didn't feel like
I was missing anything.
-
00:24:31
I had great family,
great friends,
-
00:24:34
successful in anything
I kind of put my mind to.
-
00:24:37
And so when I
looked at Christianity,
-
00:24:39
I just saw it as a crutch.
-
00:24:40
And I said, look,
I don't need God.
-
00:24:42
I don't need Christianity.
My life is great.
-
00:24:45
It's not that I didn't think
that God could be real,
-
00:24:48
it's that I would
never ascribe myself
-
00:24:50
to a religion like that.
-
00:24:52
In terms of issues
that I had with the Bible,
-
00:24:54
first was the numerous
amounts of genocide
-
00:24:58
that occurred in
the Old Testament.
-
00:24:59
I just didn't think it was fair.
-
00:25:01
This doesn't make sense.
-
00:25:02
Again, the inconsistencies
I saw in light of evolution,
-
00:25:05
for example,
all these arguments I've had,
-
00:25:08
and I would go after
anybody who thought,
-
00:25:10
who professed to be Christian,
-
00:25:12
whether they be friends,
acquaintances, pastors.
-
00:25:15
And I would always get them to,
-
00:25:17
"Well,
it just comes down to faith."
-
00:25:19
And the minute they
said those words,
-
00:25:21
that's when I thought
that I'd won the argument.
-
00:25:23
One of my best
friends from high school
-
00:25:25
and one of my best
friends in college,
-
00:25:27
they were devout Christians;
I talked them out of it.
-
00:25:29
And it is one of my
greatest shames today.
-
00:25:33
My wife, she led a life so
much different than mine.
-
00:25:37
Her father committed suicide
when she was 3 years old.
-
00:25:41
The man that her
mother remarried
-
00:25:44
was an alcoholic,
physically abusive,
-
00:25:47
he was also a
deacon of the church.
-
00:25:49
Her boyfriend in college
was a worship leader
-
00:25:52
who was also a philanderer
and just cheated on her
-
00:25:55
repeatedly with multiple people.
-
00:25:58
Yet despite all of these things,
-
00:26:00
she never wavered in her faith.
-
00:26:03
If half of the things that
happened to my wife
-
00:26:05
happened to me,
I would be a wreck.
-
00:26:08
I began to understand
the weakness
-
00:26:10
that I thought Christians had
-
00:26:13
was actually God given strength.
-
00:26:15
All the things that I
was reading the Bible
-
00:26:17
started to make more sense
through my marriage to my wife.
-
00:26:21
The birth of my sons, that alone
-
00:26:24
was some type of epiphany
where I began to see
-
00:26:27
the glimmer of God.
-
00:26:29
To me, the most
prevalent theme in the Bible
-
00:26:32
is the relationship
between father and son,
-
00:26:35
father and child.
-
00:26:36
- What did a
relationship with God
-
00:26:38
actually look like in your life?
-
00:26:41
- As a lawyer,
since I'm a lawyer,
-
00:26:42
we work a lot with analogy,
-
00:26:44
so I'm going to
give you an analogy.
-
00:26:45
It's like when you were
watching a 19 inch TV
-
00:26:49
and a VHS cassette tape.
-
00:26:51
You thought, this is great.
-
00:26:53
I can't imagine a movie
that would look better.
-
00:26:55
But then you get an
80 inch flat screen,
-
00:26:58
high definition 4K,
and you can never go back.
-
00:27:02
You can never go back
to that VHS cassette.
-
00:27:05
I promised my wife I won't cry,
but it's really hard.
-
00:27:09
I know that there is a God
-
00:27:11
and that he sent
my wife to save me,
-
00:27:14
and I'm going to do what I can
-
00:27:17
so that other people can
come to that same realization.
-
00:27:26
- Ed is in the band at
our new Dayton facility,
-
00:27:29
which is opened this weekend.
-
00:27:31
Let's welcome all of Dayton
to the Crossroads community.
-
00:27:33
[applause] Man.
-
00:27:37
So good to be with
everybody in Dayton
-
00:27:38
and all of our sites
all over the place.
-
00:27:41
I'm pretty geeked about today
-
00:27:43
because today is
a pretty big holiday.
-
00:27:45
You know, it's called Easter.
-
00:27:46
And if you don't know
what Easter is about,
-
00:27:48
I'm going to try
to explain it to you.
-
00:27:50
Let's pray before
I go any further.
-
00:27:51
God, I appreciate
things that are beyond
-
00:27:55
the understandable and
today is one of those things.
-
00:27:57
This holiday is not
fully understandable.
-
00:28:00
There's mystery involved.
-
00:28:02
There's transcendency,
there's love, t
-
00:28:06
here's power,
all of these things.
-
00:28:07
And I just don't
feel fully equipped
-
00:28:10
to be able to explain
all these things fully.
-
00:28:12
And so we rest on You,
and we know
-
00:28:14
that You've brought
us here for a reason.
-
00:28:15
And so we ask you build into
us in some way, shape or form.
-
00:28:18
I pray these things according to
-
00:28:19
the character and
identity of Jesus. Amen.
-
00:28:24
Well, my understanding
of and awareness of Easter
-
00:28:28
has morphed a lot over,
over the many, many years
-
00:28:32
that I've been alive.
-
00:28:33
I grew up with my mom
who played the organ.
-
00:28:37
My dad in church, my dad
sang in the choir in church.
-
00:28:41
So I was always
dragged to church.
-
00:28:42
It wasn't a good
experience to me.
-
00:28:45
And Easter was the worst
experience of all, actually,
-
00:28:48
because there was more
stress to behave the right way
-
00:28:51
and be the right thing.
-
00:28:52
And back way,
way back when that was
-
00:28:54
it was a cultural expectation,
-
00:28:56
you would not only
wear your Sunday best,
-
00:28:59
you would wear something new.
-
00:29:01
You would like take your
dress to the next level,
-
00:29:04
which looking in here,
-
00:29:06
that tradition does
not exist anymore.
-
00:29:10
Maybe you, maybe you, maybe you.
-
00:29:12
That tradition is long gone.
-
00:29:16
I would get this brand new
suit and it would be scratchy
-
00:29:19
and the collar would be
too tight, and it would --
-
00:29:21
And it bothered me.
-
00:29:22
And I would go and
and I would hear stories,
-
00:29:25
as I remember it,
stories of daffodils
-
00:29:29
and tulips and springtime.
-
00:29:31
And I just didn't
understand what Easter was.
-
00:29:34
And I would hear, like,
Jesus is on the Cross
-
00:29:36
or Jesus is risen
from the grave.
-
00:29:40
And I equated it and I
think it was talked about
-
00:29:42
in the church I grew
up in is it's just like
-
00:29:45
flowers coming to life and
beautiful things happen.
-
00:29:48
And all that may be true
to one degree or another,
-
00:29:51
but it just didn't appeal to me.
-
00:29:53
Like the Easter Bunny,
-
00:29:54
I never was really big
on the Easter Bunny.
-
00:29:57
I just think it's just
too uninspiring.
-
00:29:59
I mean, what's wrong with,
-
00:30:00
why don't we have
the Easter grizzly?
-
00:30:02
If we had the Easter grizzly,
you know,
-
00:30:04
a little kid might
get excited then
-
00:30:06
about the Easter grizzly,
-
00:30:08
instead of the Easter Bunny.
-
00:30:11
And it was really crazy,
as time went on,
-
00:30:15
I came to understand
what Easter was.
-
00:30:17
It was about, and I didn't
know this growing up
-
00:30:20
in the church I grew up in,
it was about
-
00:30:22
the literal, physical,
and historical,
-
00:30:25
not metaphorical, resurrection
of Jesus of Nazareth.
-
00:30:30
That He came back from the dead.
-
00:30:33
This isn't a metaphor.
This isn't an analogy.
-
00:30:34
This isn't a feel good story.
-
00:30:36
It's a literal historical truth.
-
00:30:39
And that's what I'm gonna spend
-
00:30:40
the rest of my time today doing,
-
00:30:42
helping convince
you that this is
-
00:30:45
a literal historical truth
that should impact your life.
-
00:30:48
Some of have never
believed that before.
-
00:30:50
My hope is come to the
end of the day, you might go,
-
00:30:52
"Huh? Wow.
Never considered that before.
-
00:30:56
Uh, okay, I think I'm in."
-
00:30:59
And others of us who
walked in here today,
-
00:31:02
will be bolstered,
perhaps in the faith we have,
-
00:31:04
and be able to articulate
it to somebody else.
-
00:31:06
But this is the biggest thing,
the biggest deal
-
00:31:08
that ever happened
in all of human history,
-
00:31:11
in my opinion.
-
00:31:13
A person who walked the
earth came back from the dead.
-
00:31:17
In the book of 1
Corinthians 15:14,
-
00:31:20
it says this in talking
about this belief.
-
00:31:33
If Christ is not raised,
-
00:31:35
then anybody who's a
Christian is wasting their time.
-
00:31:39
This is according to Bible.
-
00:31:40
If He's not come back
literally from the dead,
-
00:31:42
you're wasting your time in
a faith that is meaningless.
-
00:31:46
In fact, it also tells me
-
00:31:47
I've made the
wrong career choice.
-
00:31:49
Our preaching is in vain.
I made the wrong --
-
00:31:52
I could be doing something
else to making a lot more money.
-
00:31:55
I make good money,
thank you very much.
-
00:31:56
You're very generous,
Crossroads.
-
00:31:58
But I can put all my stuff
-
00:31:59
into something else
somewhere else.
-
00:32:00
I've wasted my life.
I've wasted my occupation.
-
00:32:04
That's what this is.
-
00:32:16
So he's saying,
all of us have the hope
-
00:32:19
that we will be raised,
all of us.
-
00:32:21
But Jesus is the first.
-
00:32:34
All of us have to
figure out some way
-
00:32:36
to deal with our sins,
deal with our bad choices,
-
00:32:39
if you like that phrase,
it's a little less offensive,
-
00:32:42
deal with our pain points.
-
00:32:44
We all deal with them somehow.
-
00:32:45
Some of us deal with them
by explaining them away.
-
00:32:47
"Well, you know,
anybody would have done it
-
00:32:49
if they were me.
It's no big deal."
-
00:32:51
Others of us deal
with it by saying,
-
00:32:52
"Well,
if God grades on the curve,
-
00:32:54
I'm sort of in the upper 50%,
so I think I'm fine."
-
00:32:57
Others deal with it by
just explaining it away,
-
00:32:59
"No, it wasn't me.
It wasn't me."
-
00:33:01
Others of us deal
with it by saying,
-
00:33:02
"Well, I'm going to
come back reincarnated
-
00:33:04
this next life and I'm going
to have another life form,
-
00:33:07
and I'm going to
keep evolving myself
-
00:33:09
until I get to that
place where I can get
-
00:33:11
the brass ring and I
become authenticated."
-
00:33:13
Others of us -- they
go on and on and on.
-
00:33:15
All of us have some
system will work,
-
00:33:17
and even if the system
is just deny, deny, deny.
-
00:33:21
There is no afterlife,
deny, deny, deny.
-
00:33:23
There is no ramifications
for my sin, deny, deny.
-
00:33:26
All of us have to have
something because
-
00:33:28
there is an
understanding of divine
-
00:33:31
planted inside of all this,
all of us.
-
00:33:34
And the Bible says, Jesus
says that He goes to a Cross
-
00:33:40
and He takes the
hit for what I deserve.
-
00:33:44
So that therefore
when I go before God,
-
00:33:46
I'm never concerned that
He's going to spank me.
-
00:33:49
I'm not afraid of dying
at all because I'm ready.
-
00:33:53
I'm ready because
Jesus has made me ready,
-
00:33:54
because all of my stuff was
transferred onto His back,
-
00:33:57
all of my sin, all of my
problems, all of my hangups.
-
00:34:02
And not only this,
here's what's really wild,
-
00:34:04
His potency from when He
came back from the dead,
-
00:34:09
the Bible says the
same Spirit that gave life
-
00:34:12
to His mortal body will
also give life to yours.
-
00:34:15
That that same power that
brought Him back from the dead
-
00:34:19
actually is for me and is in me
-
00:34:23
and in you if you receive Him.
-
00:34:26
I know I meet a lot of people
who just don't believe this,
-
00:34:29
just don't believe it.
-
00:34:30
Like,
a lot of us just believe that
-
00:34:33
the way you live life
is the default mode
-
00:34:36
of anxiety, fear,
and depression.
-
00:34:38
Especially I find this
in younger generations.
-
00:34:40
It's like if you're younger
-
00:34:42
and you're not anxiety prone,
fearful, or depressed,
-
00:34:45
you're looked at as weird.
-
00:34:47
There's a cultural expectation
-
00:34:50
that all of us
should be this way.
-
00:34:52
And I'll just say there's
a biblical expectation
-
00:34:55
that, no,
you don't have to be that way.
-
00:34:57
That there is a power
that comes to you,
-
00:35:00
a power that comes
to you that transcends
-
00:35:02
what everybody else
says you have to be
-
00:35:04
and what you have to do.
-
00:35:05
There's power to Him.
-
00:35:07
This isn't just a
theological exercise,
-
00:35:09
though it is a
theological exercise.
-
00:35:11
It's not only a
theological exercise,
-
00:35:14
it's a practical exercise
-
00:35:16
for what is the potent
force in your life.
-
00:35:20
So let me give you six
reasons why I came to believe
-
00:35:24
that this is actual,
real and literal.
-
00:35:29
Uh, the first is this.
First is this.
-
00:35:31
The faith of Jesus's brothers.
Faith of Jesus's brothers.
-
00:35:37
A lot of things have
changed in our world
-
00:35:39
a lot, a lot, a lot,
a lot of things.
-
00:35:41
Like, I would have
never thought that I would
-
00:35:42
be doing ChatGPT
more than Google.
-
00:35:46
I never, never thought.
-
00:35:48
I would have never
thought that I'd be living
-
00:35:50
in a time in America
where I don't know
-
00:35:52
anybody who works
in a factory factory.
-
00:35:54
Like, growing up where
I grew up in Pittsburgh.
-
00:35:56
Like, factories go away,
like they're gone.
-
00:35:58
Like, maybe a couple people,
a few people
-
00:36:00
at Crossroads
who are in factory.
-
00:36:02
Like, manufacturing is for
the most part gone in America.
-
00:36:06
I would have never thought.
-
00:36:07
I would have never
thought of the change,
-
00:36:09
never thought of the
change that's come to us
-
00:36:12
politically over the
last several years.
-
00:36:14
I'm talking just the
last several months.
-
00:36:16
I mean, the last several years.
-
00:36:17
It's just crazy things have
been happening all around.
-
00:36:21
And the one thing,
one thing that I can say
-
00:36:25
never changes is that
brothers annoy sisters
-
00:36:28
and sisters annoy brothers.
You know?
-
00:36:32
That's just the way it is.
-
00:36:35
Jesus's brothers were
annoyed by Jesus.
-
00:36:38
Now, some of us might
come from a faith tradition
-
00:36:40
that says that Mary was a
virgin and never had sex,
-
00:36:43
and never had any other
kids other than Jesus.
-
00:36:46
I'm sorry, that's not true.
-
00:36:48
She was a virgin
before she had Jesus.
-
00:36:51
Virgin birth.
-
00:36:53
I don't want to get into
Christmas here right now.
-
00:36:55
But there's nothing
in the Bible that says
-
00:36:57
that she never had sex
and never had kids later on.
-
00:37:00
She very clearly did
in the Bible have kids.
-
00:37:04
And this is what their
response to Jesus was.
-
00:37:07
Jesus's younger brothers,
what their response was.
-
00:37:10
John 7:3-5.
-
00:37:20
Your disciples, like,
we're not your disciples.
-
00:37:22
You're -- we're not. We don't
believe in You, but they do.
-
00:37:26
So they're kind of needling
Him in a sarcastic way.
-
00:37:33
"If you do these things,
if you --
-
00:37:35
If you do these things,
show yourself to the world.
-
00:37:37
Are you really?
Huh? Really, really?"
-
00:37:39
Show yourself to the world.
-
00:37:44
They didn't believe in Him.
-
00:37:47
I have a younger brother,
younger sister.
-
00:37:49
True confession,
I was a horrible big brother.
-
00:37:51
You would have hated
me as a big brother,
-
00:37:55
unless you like being teased,
i.e. bullied,
-
00:37:57
unless you like that
you would have hated it.
-
00:37:59
My brother and sister are
five years younger than me.
-
00:38:02
I was horrible.
I picked on them.
-
00:38:04
I, you know, I just,
I was just annoying. Right?
-
00:38:06
And then I got old
enough for my parents
-
00:38:09
would hire me to babysit them.
-
00:38:11
Oh, that's so -- it was so good.
-
00:38:12
It was so wonderful
making them do
-
00:38:14
whatever I said they had
to do as their babysitter.
-
00:38:16
And of course, they annoyed me,
and I would, uh,
-
00:38:19
first thing I would do,
my parents leave the house.
-
00:38:21
I would go to all the
clocks in the house
-
00:38:25
because they were --
This was back in the days
-
00:38:27
when you had an hour hand,
which is the little one,
-
00:38:29
in case you don't know,
and a minute hand,
-
00:38:31
which is the bigger one.
-
00:38:32
And I went to all in the houses,
-
00:38:34
I set all the clocks
two hours forward,
-
00:38:37
so they would have to go to bed
-
00:38:38
two hours earlier than normal.
Right?
-
00:38:42
So I put them into bed.
-
00:38:43
They'd be like, "Hey, wait.
The sun's still shining."
-
00:38:46
"I know, I know,
it happens sometimes.
-
00:38:48
Just go to bed. I'm the
babysitter, I said go to bed."
-
00:38:53
I don't think that Jesus
did any of that stuff
-
00:38:56
with His brothers,
but here's what we know.
-
00:39:03
After He dies, these guys
who were not believers,
-
00:39:09
they become believers
after He dies. Why?
-
00:39:15
Because they saw Him alive,
that's why.
-
00:39:18
Because something
blew their mind.
-
00:39:20
The book of Acts 1:14,
which was written
-
00:39:23
after Jesus came back to life.
It says:
-
00:39:34
His brothers came to see Him,
His brothers James and Judas.
-
00:39:38
Different Judas that
betrayed Him with a kiss.
-
00:39:39
James, known as James the Just.
-
00:39:43
In fact, in early work of
history from around 300,
-
00:39:45
Eusebius, he details what
happened with James the Just.
-
00:39:51
Here's what he says.
-
00:40:09
He must have heard
His brother say that
-
00:40:11
at the crucifixion,
as Jesus said, "Forgive them.
-
00:40:14
They know not what they do,"
as He was being abused.
-
00:40:17
And His brother
says the same thing,
-
00:40:19
and He dies for His brother,
-
00:40:23
who He had just
previously read before,
-
00:40:25
as we previously read before,
said,
-
00:40:27
"Oh yeah, go show Yourself."
-
00:40:29
What would take him from being
a nonbeliever to a believer?
-
00:40:32
Seeing your brother
back from the dead,
-
00:40:34
that would do it, right?
-
00:40:36
That would make you
realize He was a bit different.
-
00:40:40
Second reason why I believe,
-
00:40:43
and these are well categorized,
cataloged by others,
-
00:40:47
is what about and why were
the women eyewitnesses?
-
00:40:53
The women,
as the initial eyewitnesses.
-
00:40:55
Earlier on in the
service we had people
-
00:40:59
who were quoting from a
different part of the Bible
-
00:41:03
the narrative of the
resurrection story.
-
00:41:05
There's different accounts
that are highlighting
-
00:41:08
different important
elements to it.
-
00:41:10
In the book of Mark 16,
here's what it says.
-
00:41:13
Pay attention to
who sees Jesus first.
-
00:41:17
Here's what it says:
-
00:41:28
So this is in the morning
after Jesus has died.
-
00:41:31
They want to take
care of the body.
-
00:41:32
They want to kind
of do good stuff here.
-
00:41:46
They're going as women,
and where are all the men?
-
00:41:50
They're hidden and scaredy
weenie boys is where they are.
-
00:41:54
They are freaked out.
-
00:41:58
They are not happy.
-
00:41:59
They don't know what to do.
-
00:42:00
They've left their businesses.
-
00:42:01
They've started a new thing.
-
00:42:03
And all of a sudden, boom!
-
00:42:04
Their life is in freefall,
turmoil.
-
00:42:05
They don't know what to do.
-
00:42:07
And these women decide to
go and see how Jesus is doing.
-
00:42:11
As they're going there,
these are women
-
00:42:13
who are not CrossFit women,
apparently.
-
00:42:15
So they're not hyper
hyper strong physically.
-
00:42:17
They're trying to figure
out how to get rid of
-
00:42:19
the stone that's going
to be rolled over the cave,
-
00:42:21
which is his tomb.
-
00:42:33
Yeah, I would be alarmed, too.
-
00:42:35
If you saw an actual angel,
you'd be alarmed.
-
00:42:56
See, Jesus had predicted
this would happen,
-
00:42:59
but the disciples,
they were too thick,
-
00:43:02
they didn't understand.
-
00:43:03
Jesus said to them, He said,
-
00:43:05
"Just as Jonah goes
into the belly of the whale
-
00:43:08
and comes out three days later."
-
00:43:10
That was an Old
Testament prophet.
-
00:43:12
"So also the Son of Man,"
-
00:43:14
how He referred to
Himself most oftenly.
-
00:43:16
"The Son of Man will be
put into the belly of the earth
-
00:43:19
and will come back
three days later."
-
00:43:21
He predicted this,
and the angel is telling them,
-
00:43:24
"You didn't understand.
You didn't believe.
-
00:43:26
It's actually happened.
Go over here, this next place,
-
00:43:28
and He's going
to meet you there."
-
00:43:30
And they went out
and fled from the tomb,
-
00:43:33
for trembling and
astonishment had seized them.
-
00:43:37
And they said nothing to anyone,
for they were afraid.
-
00:43:40
Let me tell you what,
let me tell you what.
-
00:43:42
When there's a person
who comes back to life
-
00:43:45
and you have a spiritual
experience, you don't go,
-
00:43:47
"Oh, this is a nice spiritual
experience. I loved it."
-
00:43:50
Terrified. Freaking terrified.
-
00:43:53
"What have we just -- We
just experienced angels?
-
00:43:56
This person came back to life?"
-
00:43:57
They are beside themselves.
-
00:43:59
Now they go and
they tell the disciples,
-
00:44:02
the male disciples.
-
00:44:03
And what do you think
the male disciples do?
-
00:44:06
They don't believe them,
of course.
-
00:44:07
You know,
why would you believe a woman?
-
00:44:09
No, never believe the woman.
Never believe her.
-
00:44:11
Like whenever, we all
know this as men, you know,
-
00:44:13
if you're driving
and you're not sure
-
00:44:14
exactly where you're going.
-
00:44:17
And your special
someone says turn here.
-
00:44:19
What do you do?
"No, I'm not turning there.
-
00:44:20
No, no,
I have this figured out."
-
00:44:22
Men historically
don't listen to women.
-
00:44:23
It's not a good thing.
-
00:44:24
It's just in our DNA.
For many of us.
-
00:44:28
And this is what happens here.
-
00:44:31
The women go back and tell
the men and they say, nope.
-
00:44:34
Luke 24:11.
-
00:44:40
Now you're sitting here right
now, you're probably going,
-
00:44:42
you're putting two and
two together, going,
-
00:44:44
"Brian,
what is the what diatribe
-
00:44:48
on male female relationships
in the Easter story?
-
00:44:50
This has nothing
to do with anything."
-
00:44:52
Oh yes, it does.
Here's what has to do with it.
-
00:44:54
As you're going
to see in a little bit,
-
00:44:58
you're going to come
to understand, I hope,
-
00:45:00
that if you do not believe
in the literal, physical,
-
00:45:03
historical, non-metaphorical
resurrection of Jesus,
-
00:45:07
the burden of proof
is on you to prove it.
-
00:45:10
Because something happened.
-
00:45:12
2000 -- some of us go, "I don't
even know if Jesus exists."
-
00:45:14
"Oh my gosh,
-
00:45:15
do you pull your head out
of whatever hole it's in?"
-
00:45:18
"We're still having,
we're debating
-
00:45:21
like Jesus actually existed?"
-
00:45:23
"Like, everybody all over the
world dates time after Him."
-
00:45:26
"No, it doesn't."
-
00:45:27
Thousands and thousands
and thousands of documents
-
00:45:30
that speak to
Him actually alive.
-
00:45:32
Like, people who don't
even believe in Him,
-
00:45:34
who are Jewish
in the Middle East.
-
00:45:37
And we're still debating,
like, "Doesn't exist."
-
00:45:40
Some of us, we get to a place
-
00:45:42
we're just not going to
believe no matter what.
-
00:45:45
For the rest of us who
are open and seekers
-
00:45:47
and are trying to bolster
reality, let me ask you this.
-
00:45:51
Maybe here, maybe,
just, just maybe, maybe
-
00:45:56
the Bible here is
communicating what happened
-
00:46:00
instead of making it
easy for you to believe.
-
00:46:04
If the Bible is
trying to make itself
-
00:46:07
easy to be believed
and concocting a fantasy
-
00:46:10
that everyone will believe,
-
00:46:11
especially in the first century,
-
00:46:13
they would have never had
women be the first eyewitnesses.
-
00:46:16
In the first century,
women weren't permitted
-
00:46:18
to give testimony
in a court of law.
-
00:46:20
No one believed women.
-
00:46:22
They were second class citizens.
-
00:46:23
And we've come a long way.
Thank you.
-
00:46:25
Can I have an amen from that?
Right? Right?
-
00:46:29
If you wanted to create a fable,
a spiritual lie,
-
00:46:35
you would make it believable.
-
00:46:36
You would have
Joseph of Arimathea
-
00:46:38
as the first person at the tomb.
-
00:46:40
He's the rich guy
who had an extra tomb
-
00:46:43
and he donated
his tomb to Jesus.
-
00:46:45
You'd have had some of
the people in the High Court
-
00:46:48
who were respectful of Jesus,
-
00:46:49
you would have had
someone like a Nicodemus,
-
00:46:51
who was a high,
holy Jewish religious person
-
00:46:53
who seems to be adhering to Him,
-
00:46:55
and him falling, falling,
and finding an empty tomb.
-
00:47:00
No, no. It's women. Why?
-
00:47:01
Because the Bible isn't
trying to give an ironclad case.
-
00:47:06
It's not giving that.
-
00:47:07
It's just saying,
"Here's what happened.
-
00:47:09
Women were the first ones.
-
00:47:10
They were the
first faithful ones.
-
00:47:12
They were the first
ones who cared.
-
00:47:13
They were the first bold ones.
-
00:47:15
All the men were scaredy cats."
-
00:47:16
They were the first ones
-
00:47:17
and they were the first
person to proclaim the truth.
-
00:47:19
That's just what it is.
-
00:47:21
In fact, even today, even today,
-
00:47:23
in parts of the world,
this is a sticking point.
-
00:47:27
If you go to other religions,
Islam,
-
00:47:29
you can't have
women giving truth.
-
00:47:30
You can't have women
who are evangelists.
-
00:47:32
You can't have women
who are preaching.
-
00:47:33
They're preaching here,
they're preaching.
-
00:47:36
It's just what happened.
-
00:47:38
The third thing, third thing is
-
00:47:41
how do we account for the large,
large crowds
-
00:47:46
of witnesses that have seen Him.
-
00:47:48
I understand that much
of what I'm going to be --
-
00:47:50
I am sharing
today is in the Bible
-
00:47:53
and could be looked at
as circular reasoning, right?
-
00:47:55
You're using the
Bible to prove the Bible.
-
00:47:57
I'm not using the
Bible to prove the Bible.
-
00:47:59
I am referring to the
Bible to shed light
-
00:48:04
on the most powerful
thing that's ever
-
00:48:07
taken place in human history,
-
00:48:09
a person coming
back from the dead.
-
00:48:12
The Bible is an ancient book,
-
00:48:14
and in the first century there
isn't documentation of anybody.
-
00:48:19
You can have documentation
of the Roman emperor Tacitus,
-
00:48:23
and you can have
documentation of Jesus.
-
00:48:25
Like, that's it.
-
00:48:27
You don't get documentation
of the false messiahs.
-
00:48:29
There's a bunch
of false messiahs.
-
00:48:32
You don't know who
they are because
-
00:48:33
people didn't write about
them because they died.
-
00:48:35
They said, "Ah,
you're just a loser.
-
00:48:37
No need, no need to
follow that person anymore."
-
00:48:40
There just wasn't
documentary evidence.
-
00:48:41
Like today there will be
digital evidence for you
-
00:48:44
for thousands and thousands
and thousands of years.
-
00:48:46
That's kind of depressing,
right?
-
00:48:48
Thousands and
thousands of years,
-
00:48:49
every single one of us
will have a digital footprint
-
00:48:51
and someone will be
able to refer back to you.
-
00:48:53
But that wasn't the way it
was in the ancient world.
-
00:48:55
You were either
a lord or a king,
-
00:48:57
and therefore you had scribes,
people to write about you,
-
00:48:59
or you were nobody
and no one had anything.
-
00:49:01
So the fact that we have
hundreds and hundreds
-
00:49:04
and hundreds, thousands,
-
00:49:06
actually 4500
portions of manuscripts
-
00:49:09
in the New Testament that
are corroborating each other
-
00:49:13
and are consistent and say
these things is quite stunning.
-
00:49:16
There's nothing like
it in the ancient world.
-
00:49:17
In the book of 1
Corinthians 15:6, it says that
-
00:49:20
He appeared to more than
500 brothers all at once,
-
00:49:24
all at the same time,
most of whom are still alive,
-
00:49:27
though some have fallen asleep.
-
00:49:29
Paul says 500 people, brothers,
-
00:49:31
because that was their
census counting system, men.
-
00:49:34
So there was women
there and children there too.
-
00:49:36
But they would just
highlight the men.
-
00:49:38
They said you could talk
to these people right now,
-
00:49:40
they're still around.
-
00:49:41
Some of them died,
some of them fallen asleep.
-
00:49:43
They're still around.
-
00:49:45
We just got done last week,
this week,
-
00:49:48
whatever, with a Digital Fast.
-
00:49:51
And it was really,
really meaningful for me.
-
00:49:54
The hardest part,
the hardest part for me
-
00:49:57
was giving up YouTube,
that was really, really hard.
-
00:50:00
I just wasn't sure that
my rectum would still work
-
00:50:02
if I didn't have -- if I
wasn't watching YouTube.
-
00:50:05
Like, that's all I've
done for ten years, right?
-
00:50:07
Go number two and
you got YouTube.
-
00:50:11
Like I'm the only one.
-
00:50:12
You guys are like, "Oh,
you're so disgusting.
-
00:50:15
You're so disgusting."
-
00:50:17
Come on, true confessions.
Who else? Who else?
-
00:50:19
Come on. All right. Anyway.
-
00:50:21
That actually wasn't
the hardest part.
-
00:50:23
The hardest part was the news.
-
00:50:25
Actually,
that was the hardest part.
-
00:50:26
Excuse me. That was the
hardest part, the YouTube.
-
00:50:28
I was shocked and I
thought the hardest thing
-
00:50:30
was going to be the news.
I gave up all news.
-
00:50:32
Didn't read any news.
That was easy.
-
00:50:34
That was actually glorious,
wonderful. Amen.
-
00:50:36
Hallelujah!
I need to do it all --
-
00:50:37
In fact,
I've still not gone back to it.
-
00:50:39
But was fascinating to
me is I would ask people,
-
00:50:42
"What's going on in the news,
what's going on on the news?"
-
00:50:44
And people would give different
takes of the same thing.
-
00:50:48
But I found out
pretty quick there was
-
00:50:50
this thing called
tariffs that happened.
-
00:50:52
You know, they happened.
-
00:50:54
And people could disagree
over the interpretation
-
00:50:58
of whether or not the
tariff was right or wrong,
-
00:51:01
what it was going to mean.
-
00:51:02
But everybody was
in alignment that,
-
00:51:05
no, tariffs have happened.
-
00:51:07
This is what's like with Jesus
coming back from the dead.
-
00:51:10
People are like, "Well,
could have meant this.
-
00:51:12
It could have meant that."
-
00:51:15
Everybody that was close to this
story was aligned. It happened.
-
00:51:19
I saw the guy or my
mom saw the guy,
-
00:51:21
and I trust my mom
because of what she said.
-
00:51:23
My brother saw the guy.
-
00:51:25
Like, 30 days after He
was risen from the dead,
-
00:51:27
I saw it,
he walked around for 40 days.
-
00:51:29
I saw this.
And they were stunned.
-
00:51:32
I've had a very strange prayer,
-
00:51:34
hang in with me on this one.
-
00:51:36
It's a very strange
prayer for a while.
-
00:51:37
About every three weeks I
binge and waste three hours
-
00:51:41
and I listen to a
Joe Rogan episode.
-
00:51:43
I don't -- Um, yeah,
he's an impressive guy.
-
00:51:46
If you haven't,
if you haven't ever --
-
00:51:47
I'm sure you're
probably aware of him.
-
00:51:49
Just a little,
little factoid for you.
-
00:51:51
Every day CNN
has 700,000 viewers.
-
00:51:56
Joe Rogan every
day has 11 million.
-
00:52:00
Joe Rogan has more
people listening to him
-
00:52:02
than CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS,
-
00:52:05
Fox News and MSNBC
all combined every day.
-
00:52:09
Pretty, pretty, pretty crazy.
-
00:52:10
And when I've listened to him,
like,
-
00:52:12
I have zero interest in him
-
00:52:13
getting high with his buddies,
-
00:52:15
and I'm really zero interest
-
00:52:16
in hearing about
UFOs and whatever.
-
00:52:18
A lot of it's -- but
when I see a guest,
-
00:52:20
like, "Oh, interesting,
I want to listen to this one."
-
00:52:22
And I've prayed regularly,
God, would you please
-
00:52:24
bring somebody on
this platform who has
-
00:52:28
a faith to articulate and
a winsome personality?
-
00:52:32
Like, there's people on there
-
00:52:33
who have winsome personalities
-
00:52:34
and just can't
articulate their faith.
-
00:52:36
They can't talk about
the documentary record.
-
00:52:38
They can't at all.
-
00:52:39
And then there's people
who have the ability
-
00:52:41
to articulate,
are really good communicators,
-
00:52:43
but all they can say is,
"Well, because I have faith."
-
00:52:46
They can't point to anything.
-
00:52:47
I'm like, God,
would you please bring someone?
-
00:52:49
And what do you know?
God heard somebody's prayer,
-
00:52:51
maybe it was mine, said yes.
-
00:52:52
And there was this guy
who came on in the last year.
-
00:52:55
In my opinion,
the most important conversation
-
00:52:58
that's happened the
last year in America.
-
00:53:00
Three hours of a legitimate
archeologist historian
-
00:53:06
who deals with
ancient documents,
-
00:53:08
like,
holds the ancient documents,
-
00:53:10
the Dead Sea Scrolls
-
00:53:12
went on Joe Rogan
and just was amazing.
-
00:53:14
You can go and find that.
-
00:53:16
I highly recommend it,
because what you find is
-
00:53:19
the people who
study these things,
-
00:53:21
they know what
they're talking about,
-
00:53:26
and there's no answer
to them other than, wow.
-
00:53:29
All we can answer,
all we can answer,
-
00:53:30
this is what normally
happens is, "Well,
-
00:53:33
well, okay, 500 people.
-
00:53:35
But maybe it was a
mass hallucination."
-
00:53:39
Psychologists
say that 500 people
-
00:53:41
having the same
hallucination at the same time
-
00:53:44
is more unrealistic
-
00:53:45
than somebody
coming back from the dead.
-
00:53:48
Or they'll say, "Well, yes,
yes, yes, He came back.
-
00:53:53
He came back from the grave,
but He wasn't dead."
-
00:53:56
It's called the swoon theory.
-
00:53:59
They took Him off the Cross.
-
00:54:00
They put Him into a cave,
rolled the rock over it.
-
00:54:04
He kind of had a nap. He slept.
-
00:54:06
The cold, damp air revived Him.
-
00:54:08
He came back to life and
He was walking around a bit.
-
00:54:11
Oh, my goodness.
-
00:54:12
Have you never researched
the worst form of execution.
-
00:54:16
And they were really,
really good at it,
-
00:54:18
was Roman crucifixion.
-
00:54:22
They didn't screw that up.
-
00:54:23
Nobody, nobody could have
done what was done to Him
-
00:54:27
and Him not live.
-
00:54:28
Because we have to
account for the empty tomb.
-
00:54:31
That's the fourth piece of
evidence, the empty tomb.
-
00:54:33
We have to account
for it somehow.
-
00:54:36
So it was a swoon theory,
-
00:54:38
or maybe the
disciples stole the body.
-
00:54:41
Here's what the scriptures
say about that, Matthew 28:11:
-
00:55:17
Because they were embarrassed
that the body is gone.
-
00:55:21
How do we account
for the empty tomb?
-
00:55:23
And so this is one of the
ways you account for it.
-
00:55:25
There was an empty tomb.
-
00:55:26
To be clear,
all the power brokers
-
00:55:29
in the Middle East at that time
-
00:55:30
all wanted to find Jesus's body.
-
00:55:33
They had a vested
interest in that.
-
00:55:36
The Romans didn't
need some martyr figure,
-
00:55:39
savior figure wandering around.
-
00:55:41
The Jewish elite
who felt threatened
-
00:55:43
in their religiosity and
had Him put to death,
-
00:55:45
they didn't need Him.
-
00:55:47
They wanted to
produce that body.
-
00:55:49
Some theories have been,
-
00:55:50
well,
maybe they went the wrong tomb.
-
00:55:52
If they went the wrong tomb,
all those people
-
00:55:54
just say, "No, no, no.
Here's the right tomb,"
-
00:55:56
because they need
Him to stay dead.
-
00:55:58
It's very embarrassing.
It's intimidating for him.
-
00:56:02
But you have to account
somehow for the empty tomb.
-
00:56:07
These things,
as you start to look at this,
-
00:56:09
this is why amazing,
smart, thoughtful PhDs
-
00:56:14
over the millennia and
over the last few years
-
00:56:16
and decades go, "This is
the most rational conclusion
-
00:56:19
in a court of law,
-
00:56:21
if I were to receive evidence
as a judge, it's just this.
-
00:56:24
And then you add into that,
number five,
-
00:56:26
the courage of the apostles.
-
00:56:30
These guys in the last
week of Jesus's life,
-
00:56:32
they're not painted positively.
-
00:56:34
It's again one of
-
00:56:35
the fascinating
things about Christianity.
-
00:56:37
In any other religion,
the founders are always heroes.
-
00:56:40
They're always heroic.
They're always strong.
-
00:56:42
They're always faithful.
They're always admirable.
-
00:56:44
They're always
doing the right thing.
-
00:56:46
Not the founders
of Christianity,
-
00:56:48
not the founders of Jesus.
-
00:56:50
These are guys who are bickering
the last week of His life.
-
00:56:53
Overbearing Jewish mom comes in
-
00:56:55
and tries to speak to Jesus
about having her sons,
-
00:56:58
James and John have the
premier spots in heaven.
-
00:57:00
The rest of the disciples
are getting ticked off about it.
-
00:57:02
There's petty bickering,
bickering between James and --
-
00:57:05
Or excuse me,
between John and Peter,
-
00:57:07
which one's more liked?
-
00:57:09
Which one has a better future?
-
00:57:11
Then they go to pray with Jesus
-
00:57:14
the night before He's arrested.
-
00:57:15
And Jesus says,
"Can you give Me an hour?
-
00:57:17
Just hang with Me for an
hour and pray for an hour."
-
00:57:19
They can't pray
with Him for an hour.
-
00:57:21
Jesus gets upset. He's like,
"Dudes, you're my friends.
-
00:57:24
One hour. I asked one hour.
-
00:57:26
You can't hang
with Me one hour?"
-
00:57:29
Then Jesus gets
arrested because one guy,
-
00:57:32
Judas, betrays him with a kiss.
-
00:57:33
He later on goes off
and and commits suicide
-
00:57:35
because he has so
much shame over it.
-
00:57:38
And then as Jesus
is being taken away,
-
00:57:40
two guys, John and Peter,
follow after Him.
-
00:57:43
And there's Peter, there's Peter
-
00:57:44
who's been told by Jesus,
-
00:57:46
"You're going to
deny Me three times,
-
00:57:47
and then the cock
is going to crow."
-
00:57:49
And Peter thinks
that's ridiculous.
-
00:57:50
He's all braggadocious,
like, "No way.
-
00:57:52
No way I'll ever deny You,"
-
00:57:53
doing this macho
fisherman thing.
-
00:57:55
Sure enough, sure enough,
within earshot of Jesus,
-
00:57:59
he's asked, "Hey, you, didn't --
-
00:58:00
Weren't you one of His
followers? Didn't you know Him?"
-
00:58:03
"Me? No, no. Never saw the guy."
-
00:58:05
Rooster crows.
Horrible. Embarrassing.
-
00:58:09
And then these people
are hunkered down,
-
00:58:12
hunkered down in hiding
-
00:58:14
while the women are
doing the courageous,
-
00:58:17
loving thing of
going to the tomb.
-
00:58:19
This is not the way you paint
the founders of a religion.
-
00:58:24
And yet, and yet, and yet they
become heroes, utter heroes.
-
00:58:33
How? Why?
-
00:58:35
They become heroes
because they all
-
00:58:38
end up giving
their life to Christ.
-
00:58:42
And I mean dying for Christ,
every last one of them.
-
00:58:46
Other than John,
who dies of natural causes,
-
00:58:48
the apostle John, who wrote
-
00:58:49
the last book of the Bible,
Revelation.
-
00:58:51
He's the only one of
the original disciples
-
00:58:53
that dies of natural
causes of old age.
-
00:58:55
Everybody else, Peter
hung upside down on a cross,
-
00:58:58
others stoned and beaten,
-
00:59:00
others putting in
skins and rolled up,
-
00:59:02
stuck out into the into the sun
-
00:59:04
and shrunk to death
and suffocated death.
-
00:59:06
And all they had to do,
all they had to do
-
00:59:08
at any moment,
any moment, say, oh,
-
00:59:10
all they do is say, 'Hey,
wait, wait, wait, wait.
-
00:59:12
I'm sorry.
You must have misunderstood.
-
00:59:14
Did I say I saw Jesus alive?
-
00:59:16
Oh, no, no, I didn't.
I didn't see that.
-
00:59:19
No, no, it was somebody else.
Hold on.
-
00:59:21
You actually think
that I'm saying
-
00:59:22
that Jesus came
back from the dead?
-
00:59:24
No, no, no, I think I had
a hallucination that day.
-
00:59:27
No, no, He swooned. He was.
He came back. No, no."
-
00:59:31
These guys who
exhibited no courage at all
-
00:59:35
while Jesus was alive,
like none,
-
00:59:37
None.
These guys all of a sudden,
-
00:59:39
all of a sudden go,
"My goodness, it's real."
-
00:59:43
And they lay down their life.
-
00:59:44
What would cause you to
have a sudden surge of courage?
-
00:59:47
You know what it is?
You see God again.
-
00:59:50
You see Jesus again.
-
00:59:52
This is the historical record.
-
00:59:57
American politics has
started to go downhill
-
00:59:59
ever since Watergate happened,
-
01:00:01
that scandal with Richard Nixon.
-
01:00:02
And one of the people
who was the center of it,
-
01:00:04
his name was Charles Colson,
-
01:00:07
was Richard Nixon's hatchet man.
-
01:00:10
He was a former
hard nosed marine
-
01:00:11
and also a very intelligent guy,
a Rhodes Scholar.
-
01:00:14
And he ended up going to prison.
-
01:00:16
And when he went
to prison he ended up
-
01:00:18
understanding who Jesus was,
-
01:00:19
and he gave his life to Jesus
-
01:00:21
and things changed for him.
-
01:00:22
He would have senators
and congressmen
-
01:00:24
went to him and shared
their faith with him.
-
01:00:26
And he started
reading the Bible.
-
01:00:28
And he came to believe that
the resurrection was 100% true
-
01:00:32
and he gave his life to Christ.
-
01:00:34
And here's why he
says he saw it as true.
-
01:00:37
I'll just quote him.
-
01:01:15
We have to deal
with that piece of data.
-
01:01:19
As we look at this, again,
I believe the burden of truth,
-
01:01:24
the burden of proof
is on those of us
-
01:01:28
who say this couldn't
have happened.
-
01:01:29
How else do we explain
the change of the world?
-
01:01:33
How else do we explain
the dating of time?
-
01:01:36
How else do we
explain that Jesus is
-
01:01:38
the most sought after and
co-opted religious figure
-
01:01:41
for all spiritualities and
all over, everyone wants it.
-
01:01:44
Everyone wants a piece of Him.
-
01:01:46
How do we explain this?
-
01:01:47
Well, one way to explain it
-
01:01:49
is to see that this
guy beat death.
-
01:01:54
John Updike had a poem that
I thought he put it so well.
-
01:01:57
I'll just read a section
of it for you. It says this:
-
01:02:23
For all her problems
and her issues,
-
01:02:25
the church has been
growing and advancing,
-
01:02:27
gaining steam ever
since Jesus left.
-
01:02:31
How do we explain
this band of losers
-
01:02:33
overtaking the entire
Roman Empire?
-
01:02:36
And not only that,
last piece of evidence I have
-
01:02:38
to consider is what about you?
What about you?
-
01:02:45
If you happen to be a believer,
-
01:02:46
are there things
you look at in your life
-
01:02:48
you can't explain away?
-
01:02:50
It's because of the same Spirit
-
01:02:52
that brought Him
back from the dead
-
01:02:53
gives life to your mortal body.
-
01:02:56
I've been around
this church a while
-
01:02:58
to see God do miraculous
things in people,
-
01:03:01
and it wasn't because
they were a part of
-
01:03:03
this 501c3 Corporation,
non, you know,
-
01:03:07
religious tax exempt
organization called Crossroads.
-
01:03:10
It wasn't that.
-
01:03:11
It was just that enabled me
to see what people have done
-
01:03:15
who have had true
resurrection power.
-
01:03:17
I'll give you some.
-
01:03:18
People I've seen who
came to Couples Camp,
-
01:03:21
a camp we do,
it's running next weekend,
-
01:03:23
with divorce papers signed.
-
01:03:25
They said, "Well,
we'll just go anyway."
-
01:03:27
Having their marriage restored
-
01:03:29
and still running strong today.
-
01:03:32
Healings, people I know,
legitimate real healings.
-
01:03:37
Dave Stansbury can't swallow.
Has cancer.
-
01:03:40
No saliva for years.
-
01:03:42
Pray for him. Saliva.
-
01:03:44
Saliva comes back and
medical people run up and down
-
01:03:46
and go, "Yeah,
there's saliva here.
-
01:03:48
Well,
if that's what you said happened
-
01:03:49
then that's what happened."
-
01:03:50
Legitimate miracles,
people who've been prayed for
-
01:03:53
and couldn't see a TV
and then could see a TV.
-
01:03:57
People who who said, "Man,
I thought I had infertility.
-
01:04:00
Then I had people pray for me
-
01:04:01
and now I have a
kid nine months after
-
01:04:04
you actually prayed for me."
-
01:04:07
Crusty lawyers,
good friends of mine,
-
01:04:09
like Art Schlemmer,
crusty lawyer, cynic.
-
01:04:11
God gets a hold of his life
and just resurrects the guy.
-
01:04:15
He has a personality makeover
and is a person of power.
-
01:04:19
Suicidal people.
I won't tell you names,
-
01:04:21
but suicidal people who
the resurrection power
-
01:04:24
of Jesus comes in like, "No,
no, I'm not -- What? What?"
-
01:04:27
Who have total emotional
makeovers, entire emotional.
-
01:04:32
People addicted,
addicted to crack.
-
01:04:35
Which anyone will tell you
that addictive substances,
-
01:04:38
crack is the worst.
-
01:04:39
People like Kurt.
Kurt who was addicted to crack.
-
01:04:45
No hope.
Probably you know Kurt, right?
-
01:04:47
You're like no.
-
01:04:48
And now he not
only has not struggled
-
01:04:50
with crack for now decades,
decades.
-
01:04:52
I think about 20
years he's delivered.
-
01:04:54
He's a guru in the
addiction community.
-
01:04:56
God is using him to
bless other people.
-
01:04:59
Professors,
professors at universities.
-
01:05:01
I've sat in, like,
new members classes with,
-
01:05:03
and they just have
all these questions
-
01:05:05
and cynical and
their arms crossed
-
01:05:07
and tapping their toes
come to know Christ
-
01:05:09
and they're transformed.
-
01:05:11
They go on to be like
the the Dean of law
-
01:05:13
at Pepperdine University,
Paul Caron. Amazing story.
-
01:05:17
All this is resurrection power.
-
01:05:19
That's the power of Jesus,
the Spirit of Jesus.
-
01:05:23
That still works today
and can still work to you.
-
01:05:27
You don't have to be depressed.
-
01:05:29
You don't have to have anxiety.
You don't have to.
-
01:05:33
There is a way,
and a way to start is
-
01:05:36
by the same Spirit that
gave life to His body
-
01:05:38
maybe giving life to yours.
-
01:05:41
And this man has a
story that he wants to tell.
-
01:05:46
- Growing up, I was
raised in a Baptist church.
-
01:05:49
I understood God.
-
01:05:50
I understood what He meant,
but I never felt it.
-
01:05:53
I was spoken out about
not believing in God.
-
01:05:56
I had a speech impediment.
-
01:05:57
Most people couldn't
understand me
-
01:05:59
until I was about
7 or 8 years old.
-
01:06:02
I always felt behind.
-
01:06:03
I always felt different.
-
01:06:05
That little boy just
wanted to fit in,
-
01:06:07
wanted to be a part of something
-
01:06:09
that I never felt
I was a part of.
-
01:06:12
You know, I was a big
frat type partier drinker
-
01:06:16
and fell into the wrong crowd.
-
01:06:18
Cocaine was
introduced in my life.
-
01:06:20
Started as fun,
started as a scene,
-
01:06:23
and then as time went on,
it consumed me
-
01:06:26
and took everything
away from me.
-
01:06:28
I've had five roommates,
two of them are dead,
-
01:06:33
one's in jail.
-
01:06:34
You do unimaginable
things that you never thought
-
01:06:38
you were possible
doing in addiction.
-
01:06:40
I was morally defeated.
-
01:06:42
I was broken.
-
01:06:44
I failed as a son.
-
01:06:49
Failed as a father.
-
01:06:50
Failed as a husband.
-
01:06:52
Lost my job.
-
01:06:54
I couldn't decide if
my kids were better off
-
01:06:59
with an addict as a
father or no father at all.
-
01:07:03
I had called my dealer.
-
01:07:05
I'm sure I lied to my wife
to get out of the house.
-
01:07:09
As I was coming up to Crossroads
Oakley to meet my dealer
-
01:07:13
and the sign read:
Thursday Night baptisms,
-
01:07:15
you have a seat there.
-
01:07:18
I walked into Crossroads,
had never been there.
-
01:07:20
You know,
I watched people get baptized,
-
01:07:22
come out of that water and
have grace and forgiveness,
-
01:07:28
but I just didn't have
for myself anymore.
-
01:07:31
I started a recovery program.
-
01:07:33
My sponsor had told me, he said,
-
01:07:35
"When you get in the car,
you turn the car on
-
01:07:37
and you start talking to God.
-
01:07:39
And you don't
stop talking to God
-
01:07:40
until you get to
wherever you need to be.
-
01:07:43
Because you'll never
turn to call your dealer
-
01:07:48
when you're in the middle
of a conversation with God."
-
01:07:50
And it was what I
needed at that time.
-
01:07:53
After I got clean,
I hadn't been myself
-
01:07:56
in so long I didn't
even know who I was.
-
01:07:58
You start filling
voids in your heart
-
01:08:02
with other things
external from you,
-
01:08:04
relationships and working out,
becoming a workaholic,
-
01:08:07
anything to prove that you're
better than what you were.
-
01:08:10
It took time for that
relationship to grow with God.
-
01:08:12
I didn't even get
baptized for a few years.
-
01:08:15
I had gone on a mission
trip to New Orleans.
-
01:08:18
And I remember at the end of it,
-
01:08:19
everybody was getting baptized
-
01:08:20
and didn't think I was
good enough for it yet.
-
01:08:24
It wasn't until a
couple of years later
-
01:08:26
Chuck was speaking, and
by the end of it he had said,
-
01:08:29
"If this doesn't
give you a reason,
-
01:08:31
there is no other reason."
-
01:08:33
And I got baptized
that day without a plan.
-
01:08:35
When I stepped out of the water,
-
01:08:37
I felt like I had hoped
for the first time,
-
01:08:39
like I wasn't
necessarily the person
-
01:08:41
that I had left behind.
-
01:08:43
God's given me everything,
gave my life back,
-
01:08:45
gave my children
their father back.
-
01:08:48
I have respect for myself.
-
01:08:49
I have custody of my
two kids and my stepson.
-
01:08:53
I'm a business
partner with my father.
-
01:08:56
And my son gets to
work with me now, he's 20.
-
01:08:59
I have everything I need.
-
01:09:01
- What does God call you?
-
01:09:02
- God says I'm worthy.
-
01:09:04
God says stand up.
-
01:09:06
He calls me son.
-
01:09:16
- The foundation
of the Christian faith
-
01:09:19
is the resurrection of Christ.
That doesn't change.
-
01:09:21
No matter what's changing
in culture right now,
-
01:09:24
that doesn't change.
-
01:09:25
Foundation is not how
the world is created.
-
01:09:27
That's not the
foundation of my faith.
-
01:09:28
That's not even
central to my faith.
-
01:09:31
Even not only that, the Bible
-
01:09:32
isn't even central to my faith,
-
01:09:34
because the Bible
came around 1500 years
-
01:09:37
after Jesus rose to the dead.
-
01:09:39
Nothing can happen
politically in the country
-
01:09:41
that shakes my faith at all,
-
01:09:42
because my faith
isn't associated
-
01:09:43
with anything at all that
happens in this country.
-
01:09:46
My faith is rooted in one thing,
it's a thing
-
01:09:48
that New Testament writers
talk about again and again,
-
01:09:50
it's the resurrection of Jesus,
-
01:09:52
the literal,
physical, historical,
-
01:09:54
non-metaphorical
resurrection of Jesus.
-
01:09:58
And that same power is
available for you today.
-
01:10:02
I don't understand.
-
01:10:04
I don't understand
how some of us
-
01:10:05
are so enamored
with UFOs or UAPs
-
01:10:09
or whatever experience
with lights in the sky
-
01:10:13
and drug experiences.
-
01:10:15
And what about this?
And what about that?
-
01:10:17
All these, like,
ethereal things.
-
01:10:18
I'm like, man, man,
man, there's a guy
-
01:10:22
who came back from the grave,
really,
-
01:10:24
really came back from the grave.
-
01:10:26
And He still gives power today.
-
01:10:30
That's the starting point.
That's the ending point.
-
01:10:32
That is the everything.
-
01:10:34
In fact, that God may have
-
01:10:35
something for you
in here right now.
-
01:10:38
At all of our sites,
we have people
-
01:10:39
go through and pray over seats.
-
01:10:41
And we have 20
different messages,
-
01:10:43
and we put those
messages under a seat.
-
01:10:47
And I think God had
the exact message
-
01:10:49
right for you under that seat.
-
01:10:51
It's in a pouch.
Don't rip it off.
-
01:10:53
It's in a sleeve.
Do not rip it off.
-
01:10:55
Just reach in very carefully
-
01:10:57
and pull out that message
-
01:10:59
that may actually
be from God to you,
-
01:11:02
it'll be the thing that
God wanted you to have.
-
01:11:05
And go ahead and pull
that out and open it up
-
01:11:08
and see if the Spirit of God
-
01:11:11
is not still working and
moving to this day right now.
-
01:11:17
- This moment is for you,
no matter where you are.
-
01:11:20
Don't miss out on it.
-
01:11:21
God wants to speak to you.
-
01:11:24
Now, the resurrection means that
-
01:11:25
we can have a personal
relationship with God.
-
01:11:28
When we receive Him,
we also get access to Him.
-
01:11:31
And we've been praying that
-
01:11:32
God would speak
to you specifically,
-
01:11:35
and we believe He
wants to do that right now.
-
01:11:37
So here's what I'd
love for you to do.
-
01:11:39
Think of that place in
your life that feels dead
-
01:11:42
or feels dark,
that needs light, hope,
-
01:11:44
and new life breathed into it.
-
01:11:46
Do you feel tired?
Do you feel lost?
-
01:11:48
Do you feel overwhelmed?
-
01:11:50
Jesus wants to
show you who He is
-
01:11:52
and that He
actually died so that
-
01:11:54
He could breathe new
life and light into your life.
-
01:11:58
So, once you've
identified that thing
-
01:11:59
that you want to see
God breathe new life into,
-
01:12:03
just do something simple: text
the word "Easter" to 301301.
-
01:12:07
This is not a chat bot.
-
01:12:08
This is literally me and
my team who are ready
-
01:12:11
to help you receive words
from Jesus right now.
-
01:12:15
We're going to pray
for you specifically
-
01:12:18
and pass on to you
some of the truth
-
01:12:20
through Scripture that
we believe God wants
-
01:12:22
you to specifically
hear right now.
-
01:12:26
We believe that God
wants to personally
-
01:12:27
and faithfully
show up in your life
-
01:12:29
and bring breakthrough.
-
01:12:31
Resurrection power
is available to all of us
-
01:12:34
here and now,
no matter where we are.
-
01:12:36
So text in "Easter" to 301301
-
01:12:39
and hear something
of what God wants
-
01:12:40
to speak into
your life right now.
-
01:12:48
- That's right. Across all
of our sites, one church.
-
01:12:52
We're going to sing this song
of response to our King Jesus.
-
01:14:00
- It's all gratitude
-
01:14:02
for this king
who brings us life still today.
-
01:15:14
Same one who rose from the grave
-
01:15:15
speaks to you today.
-
01:15:18
I wanted to speak
and move you today.
-
01:15:23
So in response,
this is what it looks like.
-
01:15:44
- Come on across all sites.
Lift them up.
-
01:16:29
- Hey, let me just connect
the dots here real quick.
-
01:16:31
You know, sometimes we
can go into church mode.
-
01:16:33
And oh,
the song says lift my hands up.
-
01:16:35
So I lift my hands
up and I sing that.
-
01:16:37
But sometimes we're not
understanding
-
01:16:40
what the song says.
-
01:16:43
It says: I'm coming under
the lordship of Jesus Christ.
-
01:16:47
He's the Lord.
-
01:16:48
Only the Lord can come back
from the dead, and He did it.
-
01:16:52
He did it,
and that means I don't have
-
01:16:55
a nice springy Easter story.
-
01:16:57
That means I lay my life down.
-
01:16:59
It means I stopped
dicking around with saying
-
01:17:01
I'm in for Him
and I'm actually in.
-
01:17:03
I actually lay my life down.
-
01:17:05
I actually live differently.
-
01:17:06
I actually live
under His auspices,
-
01:17:09
and I have the power
that passes through me
-
01:17:11
as a result of it and I
feel the joy that comes,
-
01:17:14
the joy unescapable
and the X factor
-
01:17:17
of what can happen in life,
-
01:17:19
who a real God
actually gets a hold of.
-
01:17:22
Not who we align to
-
01:17:23
and say, check,
I'm part of that religion.
-
01:17:25
But no, the person who has us,
that's what we sing.
-
01:17:29
I lay my life down
just like He did.
-
01:17:33
- Come on all together.
-
01:19:22
- King Jesus, we praise You.
-
01:19:25
We want to completely
orient our lives around You
-
01:19:28
because you bring joy,
courage, strength, peace.
-
01:19:33
You bring life.
-
01:19:35
You brought it then
and You bring it today.
-
01:19:38
So I praise You, we praise
You all because You're worthy.
-
01:19:41
We pray all this in You, Jesus.
Amen.
-
01:19:46
- Hey, once again,
I want to wish you
-
01:19:47
a very, very Happy Easter.
-
01:19:49
And I hope that it came
through loud and clear today
-
01:19:51
that in Jesus there is
lightness out of darkness,
-
01:19:54
and that resurrection power
-
01:19:55
is actually
available to all of us.
-
01:19:58
The resurrection
means that we can
-
01:19:59
leave the dead
parts of our life behind
-
01:20:01
and walk forward in new life.
-
01:20:04
Now, if you haven't yet,
hey, make sure that
-
01:20:06
you text Easter to 301301.
-
01:20:08
It's a chance for you
to receive specific words
-
01:20:10
that we believe God has
and wants to say to you.
-
01:20:13
And if you're joining us
for the first time today,
-
01:20:15
hey, we're just really
glad that you're here.
-
01:20:17
And you're welcome,
no matter what you believe
-
01:20:19
about God or what your
past church experiences is.
-
01:20:21
Crossroads is a movement
of people meeting
-
01:20:24
physically and digitally
all over the globe,
-
01:20:26
and we'd love to
get you connected
-
01:20:27
and into community,
no matter where you are.
-
01:20:29
And you might even
come to find out that
-
01:20:31
there are other people
in your city or hometown
-
01:20:34
who call Crossroads
their church.
-
01:20:35
You can check in with us by
texting "Anywhere" to 301301,
-
01:20:39
and somebody from my
team or myself will reach out
-
01:20:42
and connect with you personally.
-
01:20:43
Hey, and also, we'd love to
see you back here next week
-
01:20:45
as we kick off our
new teaching series
-
01:20:47
all about strengthening
our faith. See you next time.