Slide 1
“I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.” – Sir Lionel Luckhoo

Slide 2
“I and the Father are one.” John 10:30

Slide 3
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” 1 Cor. 15:17

Slide 4
1. EXECUTION

Slide 5
“Clearly the weight of the historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead [even] before the wound to his side was inflicted.”
– Journal of the American Medical Association

Slide 6
“Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.”
– atheist scholar Gerd Lüdemann

Slide 7
2. EARLY ACCOUNTS

Slide 8
“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also….” 1 Corinthians 15:3-8

Slide 9
“This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death.”
– Historian James D.G. Dunn

Slide 10
3. EMPTY TOMB

Slide 11
4. EYEWITNESSES

Slide 12
• 1 Corinthians 15 creed
• Paul’s testimony about disciples
• Sermon summaries in Acts
• Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
• Clement
• Polycarp

Slide 13
“It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.” – atheist scholar Gerd Lüdemann

That’s very kind. Thanks so much. Thank. Aren’t those kids cute? I wasn’t crying. You were crying. Oh, they were adorable. And yeah, what a great reminder. This is Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday as Jesus enters into Jerusalem and fulfillment of ancient prophecy and, and has the, the most impactful week in history where he at tones for the sins of humankind on the cross. And then he is resurrected from the dead. I mean, amazing stuff. Now, I used to be a skeptic about all that. I thought, no, no, no, I don’t believe in the resurrection. I was an atheist for much of my life. I thought wait a minute. You’re telling him this guy was beaten to a pulp and then you know, tortured to death and all of a sudden he comes back and he’s fine a couple of days later.

Come on. I mean, that’s just not possible. And so I I was a, I wasn’t alone. There are a lot of people who are skeptical about the resurrection. In fact, when I was a student at Yale Law School, my hero was a guy by the name of Sir Lionel Ku. Sir Lionel, the reason I admired this guy, he’s the most successful attorney on the planet. In fact, he was actually listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having won more trials in a row than any human being. In fact, if you’re a lawyer, I’m gonna blow your mind right now. Sir. Lionel Ku won 245 murder trials in a row, either before a jury or on appeal as a defense attorney. Unbelievable. Nobody’s ever done that. And so I admired this guy as a law student. ’cause I thought, oh my goodness, this guy understands law.

This guy understands what constitutes reliable and persuasive evidence. This is a guy who can take what looks like an airtight case against his client and find all the loopholes in it. And all that was true of Sir Lionel Lako was knighted twice by Queen Elizabeth and became a member of the Supreme Court of his lamb. And like me at the time, he was a skeptic about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He didn’t believe it until one day somebody came up to us, said, sir Lionel <laugh>, you’re the greatest lawyer in the world. Have you ever taken your monumental legal skill and applied it to the historical record of the resurrection of Jesus and come to an informed verdict on whether he returned from the dead or not? And Sir Lionel said, you know, I’ve never really done that. I’m gonna do it. And so, sir Lionel spent the next several years of his life investigating the minutiae of the historical record concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And I’ll recite to you one sentence he wrote that summarize his conclusion. He said, I say unequivocally, that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus crisis so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof, which leaves absolutely no room for doubt. This from the greatest attorney who ever lived, he ended up, as a matter of fact, leaving the entire legal profession so he could travel the world just to tell people the good news about Jesus Christ. In fact, there’s a funny sidelight. In the year 2000, I moved with my wife to California to be a teaching pastor at a church. And I got up and I told the story of Sir Lionel at that church. And afterward a woman came up to me and said, Hey you’re moving into my neighborhood. We haven’t met yet, but I’m one of your neighbors. I live down the block.

I said, oh, great to meet you. And and she said, yeah, I said one other thing. I said, what? She said, I’m Sir Lionel’s, sister <laugh>. What are the odds of that? And not only did she confirm the story, but she gave me access to his private records where I was able to look at a lot of his notes as he investigated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, after I left law school and beca, I became legal editor of the Chicago Tribune newspaper. And my wife became a Christian, which I thought, oh no, this is gonna be a disaster. And I thought maybe I could rescue her from this cult that she’s gotten involved in. And I thought, how would I do that? All I gotta do is disprove the resurrection. ’cause Even as an atheist, I understood that’s the linchpin, that’s a foundation of the Christian faith.

And so I ended up doing what Sir Lionel ended up doing. I spent a couple years of my life investigating the historical minutia concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ until November the eighth of 1981, when I realized that in light of the avalanche of evidence that points so powerfully toward the truth of the resurrection of Jesus, it would take more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian. And I became a Christian on that day. And my life like Sir Lionel’s was transformed. But why does it really matter? Why, why does it really matter whether Jesus returned from the dead or not? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but I think the biggest reason is the resurrection of Jesus Christ validates his claim that he is the unique son of God. In other words, Jesus in a variety of different ways, directly and indirectly through his words and through his actions, he made transcendent and messianic and divine claims about himself.

He claimed to be the son of God. At one point in John 10, verse 30, he, he gets up before a group of people like this and he says, I and the Father are one. And the Greek word for one there is not masculine. It’s neuter, which means Jesus was not saying, I and the Father are the same person. He was saying, I and the Father are the same thing. We’re one in nature, we’re one in essence. And the audience understood what he was saying. They picked up so and so killed. ’cause They said, you, you’re just a man and you’re claiming to be God. So Jesus claimed to be God. But so what I could claim to be God, Kurt could claim to be God. Anybody could claim to be God. But if Jesus claimed to be God died and then three days later we turned from the dead, that’s pretty good evidence.

He’s telling the truth, right? That’s why the resurrection is so foundational to the faith. That’s why the Apostle Paul said in one Corinthians 15, verse 17, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You’re still in your sins. What was he saying? He was saying, look, he was saying this to you today. He was saying, look, if the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not an actual event of history, then you are fully justified in walking away from the faith. That’s how central it is. So what is the record? What is the evidence that convinced Sir Lionel luck, who convinced me, convinced millions and millions of people that Jesus not only claimed to be God, but backed it up by the resurrection? Well, I wanna summarize the evidence for you using four words that begin with the letter E. That way it’s easy to remember.

And if somebody asks you someday, well, why do you believe the resurrection? Well, lemme tell you about the four E’s. It’s an easy way to kind of, kind of keep it in your head. So the first e for the evidence of the resurrection stands for the word execution. You have to have a death first, right before you can have a resurrection. And I used to think like a skeptic. Wait a minute, maybe Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Maybe he fainted and the they took him to the tomb and the cool damp air of the tomb resuscitated him. And so we don’t have a divine resurrection, we just have a fortuitous resuscitation. That’s what I thought. But then I investigated the evidence. What did I find? There is not one record anywhere of anyone ever surviving a full Roman crucifixion. It was a very efficient way of killing someone.

And so what did Jesus endure? What, what was his cause of death? How, why did he die? How do we know? Well, before Jesus was even crucified, he was flogged by Roman soldiers. Now, this was a horrific beating that he endured. He was stripped, he was tied to a post. He was beaten with whips that had jagged bits of sheep, bone and, and balls of lead embedded in them. In fact, let me read to you an eyewitness account to an actual Roman flogging quote. The sufferers veins were laid bare, and the very muscles and tendons and bowels of the victim were laid open to exposure. Medical doctors who’ve read the accounts of Jesus’ death recognize the medical clues. And they say that Jesus was in hypovolemic shock after that beating that means shock from a great loss of blood. And we see that in the fact he couldn’t even carry the cross beam of the cross through his place of execution.

And then he’s crucified. What did, what’s the cause of death? How did he actually die? Crucifixion, they would drive spikes through your wrists and through your feet and, and you’re, you’re on the cross in this kind of position hanging there. And what happens medically is this locks your lungs into the inhale position because of the stress that’s put on your chest muscles. So you’re, you’re on that like this, that that puts stress on your chest muscles. You can’t breathe until you somehow relieve the tension, the stress on your chest muscles. How do you do that? Well, the only way to do that is to push up or you’ve got a spike through your feet. Your bloody back is now scraping against the coarse wood or the cross. You have to push up so you can relieve the tension on your chest. So you can exhale, inhale, and then you sag again until you have to breathe again.

Then you push up again and you just keep going through that motion until you can no longer do it anymore. And in fact, if the Romans wanted to hasten your death, they would talk, they would take a a rod and and shatter your shin bones and then you couldn’t push up anymore and you would sag and you die of asphyxiation. You can’t breathe, you die of as. But that isn’t what happened to Jesus necessarily because, well yeah, probably a heart attack caused by the asphyxiation. But he, he wasn’t someone who had his legs broken. For him they took a spear and drove it betwe best we can determine. It went between his ribs, punctured his lungs and his heart, and he was declared dead friends. Jesus was dead when he came off that cross. He was dead. And by the way, this is not controversial among scholars in the field, including atheist scholars.

They will concede that Jesus was killed by crucifixion. Why? Because when we study ancient history, we’re we find out we’re lucky if we have one source to confirm a fact or maybe two sources to confirm a fact from ancient history. So you’re studying the life of Alexander the Great and you read about his life and they believe certain things about his life. But then you drill down, you say, how do they know that? And it’s one source, maybe if we’re lucky, two sources of information to confirm a fact from ancient history. And yet for the death of Jesus on the cross, we not only have multiple accounts in the documents of the New Testament, there are five ancient sources outside the Bible confirming the execution of Jesus. I mean this is so well established in historical fact, you would get laughed out of a major academic institution if you came in and said, no, no, no.

I think Jesus somehow survived the crucifixion. In fact, no less of a source than the Journal of the American Medical Association, which is a secular scientific, peer reviewed medical journal carried an investigation into the death of Jesus. And this was their conclusion. Quote. Clearly the weight of the historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead even before the wound to his side was inflicted. I mean you can go to an atheist, new Testament scholar like Gair Ludeman, formerly of Vanderbilt University, and he’ll tell you this quote, Jesus’, death is a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable. That’s the atheist historian speaking indus. Now, I don’t know how much you studied ancient history, but there are very few facts of ancient history that a skeptical, critical atheist historian, like a Gar Luterman will say is indisputable. One of those facts is the death of Jesus on the cross.

The first he is for execution. Jesus was dead. The second EI think is the most fascinating stands for the word. Early we have early accounts or early reports that Jesus rose from the dead. In other words, reports that go virtually back to the scene itself. Why is that important? ’cause I used to think like a lot of skeptics, okay, I gotta give you the fact that Jesus was truly dead after being crucified. I get that now. But surely the idea of the resurrection is a legend. And I knew it took time for legend to develop in the ancient world. A a n, Sherwin White, the great classical historian from Oxford and Cambridge said the passage of two generations of time is not even enough for legend to grow up and wipe out a solid core of historical truth. So I figured, okay, maybe a hundred, 150 years after the death of Jesus legends began to arise.

Mythologies were spun, stories were invented. And that’s where this idea of the resurrection came from. But what I learned decimate the claim that the resurrection is a legend. Follow me on this. I think this is fascinating. We have preserved for us a creed of the first Christians right there in the first century, the earliest Christians had a statement of conviction in the form of a creed based on eyewitness accounts that they knew to be true. And they would rally around this creedle statement in the worship services they would do in the earliest church right there in the first century. Now we have this preserved because the apostle Paul gave it to the church in Corinth. He wrote it down and we call it first Corinthians 15, starting at verse three. So let me read you what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth as he’s giving them this creed from the earliest Christians.

He said, for what I received, I passed on to you as a first importance. Let’s stop there. This is technical rabbinic language. A rabbi, if he was taking sacred tradition, he would say, here’s this sacred tradition. I ain’t gonna mess with it. I’m not gonna change it. I’m not gonna alter it. I’m just gonna turn and I’m gonna give it to you. That’s what Paul is saying there. And notice he says it in the past tense. I already gave this to you. So in other words, yes, I’m writing this to you, but do y’all remember on an earlier visit I gave you this creed? Okay, what is the creed? What does this say? That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And then he appeared to CFUs, that’s Peter.

And then to the 12, that’s 12 disciples. After that he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living those, some have fallen asleep. In other words, these guys are still alive and you don’t believe me. Go talk to ’em. They’ll tell you it’s true. You don’t say that unless you’re darn sure that you’re telling the truth. Then it says he appeared to James. James interestingly was a skeptic about Jesus during Jesus’ lifetime. And yet the resurrected Jesus appears to him according to this creed. And guess what happened to James? He ended up becoming a leader of the church and willingly died, was a martyr for his faith. Why? He knew that Jesus had returned from the dead. And then it says he appeared to all the apostles. And then Paul adds lastly, he appeared to me also.

Now what is important about this creed is the timeline. How early we can date it because we can date this creed. Remember we said it takes time for legend to develop in the ancient world. We, we know when this creed was developed, how? Because we know that Paul wrote First Corinthians, this where he sent them the letter with the creed about 21 to 23 years after the death of Jesus. And he indicated he already given it to them, right? On an earlier visit. So let’s date it within 20 years of the death of Jesus. Now historically speaking, that’s incredibly fast. I mean when you consider the first two biographies of Alexander the grape by Arian and plu tar written 400 years after his life and they’re generally considered reliable. So within 20 years it’s pretty good. We can go back a lot earlier how? Because historically we know that Paul used to be Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor, a killer, a hater of Christians, one to three years after the death of Jesus, he’s on the road to Damascus.

Boom, he has an encounter with the risen Christ. He becomes the Apostle Paul. First thing he does, he goes into Damascus to meet with some apostles. Many scholars believe this is when he was given the creed that he later gives the church in Corinth. Some historians are a little more skeptical. They say, you know what? It may have been three years later. We know that three years later Paul goes to Jerusalem and he meets for 15 days with two eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus who are named in the creed. Peter and James and Paul in describing these meetings in the book of Galatians uses a Greek word that indicates that these meetings were not just casual conversation about March madness or something. You know it. They were, this was an investigative inquiry. He what did you know? What did you see? What do you know for sure they’re checking each other out.

Some scholars believe this is when he was given the creed by two eyewitnesses named in the creed. But either way, either way, this means within one to six years after the death of Jesus, this creed is already in existence. And therefore the beliefs that make up that creed go back even earlier virtually to the cross itself. Friends, there is no huge time gap between the death of Jesus and the development of a legend that he rose from the dead. This is a news flash from ancient history. So much so that one of the most prominent historians in the world, James DG Dunn of England, investigated this creed. And this was his conclusion, quote, this tradition by that he means this creed, this tradition we can be entirely confident was formulated as a creed, as tradition within months of Jesus life within months, historians droo over this stuff.

I mean that is fresh. That is a news flash right from the beginning. And it’s not the only early report we’ve got. We’ve got others in Matthew, mark, Luke, John, the book of Acts, all of which, which date back so early that they were circulating during the lifetimes of Jesus contemporaries who would’ve been all too happy to point out the heirs if they were making this stuff up. Friends, we got an execution. Jesus was dead. We have reports so early, so immediate that he rose from the dead. I don’t think you can write it off as being a legend, but that’s not all we’ve got. We’ve got a third word that begins with the letter E and that is the word empty. We have an empty tomb. The historical record tells us that Jesus’ body was placed in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Metha.

Remember the Jewish counsel, its seal, Matthew adds the detail that it was guarded and yet it’s discovered empty that first Easter morning. Now we could literally talk the rest of the day about all of the evidence that the tomb of Jesus was empty. But I’m just gonna give you one fact. ’cause To me this is conclusive and that’s this. Even the enemies of Jesus admitted that the tomb was empty. How do we know? Because we know from sources inside the New Testament and outside the New Testament that when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus had risen, what the enemies of Jesus said was, oh well the disciples stole the body. Now think about that. They’re admitting the tomb is empty. They didn’t come back and say, what are you talking about risen? His body’s right in the no, they didn’t say body’s in the tomb.

They said the disciples stole the body. They’re trying to explain how the tomb got empty. Disciples didn’t have the motive to steal the body, the means or the opportunity. Nobody believed it then. Nobody believes it now. But the point is they’re admitting the tomb is empty. It’s like if you’re a teacher and a student comes up to you and says, the dog ate my homework. That student’s admitting, look, I don’t have my homework, but I can explain what happened to it. The dog ate it. It’s the same thing. So everybody in the first century, whether they’re followers of Jesus or enemies of Jesus, everybody’s admitting that the tomb is empty. That’s not the question of history. The question of history is how did it get empty? And you go through the usual list of suspects. The moments weren’t about to steal the body. They wanted Jesus dead.

The religious leaders of the day weren’t about to steal the body. They wanted Jesus to stay dead. The disciples weren’t about to steal the body. They didn’t have the motive, the means or the opportunity. In fact, there are seven ancient sources, six of them outside the Bible, confirming that the disciples live lives of deprivation and suffering as a result of their proclamation that Jesus had risen. Why were they willing to do that? Why were they even willing to give their life for this proclamation that Jesus had risen because they had faith that had happened? No ’cause they saw it on CNN. No, because they learned it in Sunday School. No, because they were there. Of all human beings who’ve ever lived throughout history, the disciples were in a unique position. They encountered the resurrected Jesus. They ate with him. They touched him, they talked with him.

They of all people have ever lived, knew the truth and knowing the truth, they were even willing to die for friends. Nobody knowingly and willingly dies for a lie. These folks knew the truth and knowing the truth, willing to suffer for the proclamation that Jesus had risen. And that leads us to the fourth and final reason or a word that begins with the letter E to summarize the evidence for the resurrection. And that E stands for the word eyewitnesses. Not only was Jesus tomb discovered empty, but over a period of time, Jesus appears alive in a dozen different instances to more than 515 people, to skeptics and doubters as well as to believers, to men, to women, to groups, to individuals, daytime, nighttime, indoors, outdoors. Remember I said earlier, when we study ancient history, we’re lucky if we have one good source to confirm a fact.

Maybe if we’re super lucky, two good sources to confirm a fact. Well get this for the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus. We have no fewer than nine ancient sources inside and outside the New Testament confirming and corroborating the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the risen Jesus. And that is an avalanche of historical data. Lemme just go through these sources real quick just so you’ll know what they are. Source number one, the creed that I mentioned earlier in one Corinthians 15. An eyewitness based creed with named eyewitnesses and groups of eyewitnesses that dates back as early as months before or months after the death of Jesus. The historical credentials of this creed are so strong that one of the few Jewish New Testament scholars, Pius Lapid said it may be taken as a statement of eyewitnesses. Second source is Paul himself.

And what he said about the disciples, Paul encountered the risen Christ and became, as I say, the Apostle Paul. He became friends with many of the disciples including Peter, James and John. And so he knew them well and he knew what they had gone through. And so Paul says in one Corinthians 15, verse 11, regarding the resurrection, whether it is I or they, this is what we preach. In other words, I encounter the risen Christ, so did my buddies. I’m confirming that they told me that they gave me the testimony about experiencing the risen Christ. So he’s confirming that they saw and encountered Jesus. The third source is the Book of Acts in the Bible. Even skeptical scholars will admit that the book of Acts is the account of the spread of early Christianity. And what was the engine that spread Christianity? It was Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

In fact we, we go to the second chapter of the Book of Acts and we see Peter himself an eye witness to the resurrected Jesus who gets up before a group like this. And he says, men of Israel listen to these words. This Jesus, a man attested to you by miracles and wonders and signs, which he did in your midst. You know that he did. He’s appealing to their common knowledge. And then he says this, Jesus God raised from the dead to which we’re all witnesses. And how did they respond? Did it say, Peter, you’re drunk. Peter, you’re outta your mind. No 3000 people that day said, Peter, we know you’re telling us the truth. What do we do? They repented and the church was born. So those are the first three sources. The next four sources sources are Matthew, mark, Luke, and John, the ancient biographies of Jesus that are contained in the New Testament.

There are nine appearances of the risen Christ in those four gospels. Can we trust it? Well, I investigated that for a number of years and I went to a scholar Dr. Craig Evans, who’s written like 40 books on ancient history who’s lectured in major universities around the planet who’s a one of the leading experts on this area. Here’s what he told me. He said, Lee, there’s every reason to conclude that the gospels have fairly and accurately reported the essential elements of teachings, life, death, and resurrection. They’re early enough, they’re rooted into the right streams that go back to Jesus and the original people. There’s continuity, there’s proximity, there’s verification of certain distinct points through archeology and other documents. And then he said there’s the inner logic. So there we have seven ancient sources confirming and corroborating the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the risen Christ.

But then we have two sources outside the Bible. Let me ask you a question. If you made this your church home and you came to Sunday services here at Cherry Hills every week for two years, do you think he’d have a pretty good idea of what Kurt Taylor believes? Yeah, I think he’d have a good idea after two years of him listening to the priest, yeah, you’d know. Well guess what? We have writings by people who sat under the teachings of the eyewitnesses themselves. The apostles themselves and these people who sat under their teaching wrote down what they learned from these apostles about the resurrection, confirming that they were eyewitnesses. So for instance, we have Clement. Clement was ordained by Peter himself and he wrote a letter to the church in Corinth right there in the first century. And he said the apostles had complete certainty.

Now how did they get complete certainty? Complete certainty caused, he said, by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the root he said of their certainty, they encountered the risen Jesus. And then Polycarp Polycarp was appointed by John to be the bishop at Smyrna. And he wrote a letter to the church in Philippi, Phil. We call in the Bible Philippians. And he mentions the resurrection, no fewer than five times in that letter. And referring to Paul and the other apostles, he said, for they did not love the present age, but him who died for our benefit and for our sake was raised by God. Friends, that’s nine very early credible sources corroborating the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the risen Jesus. That truly is an avalanche of historical data. Friends. The resurrection of Jesus is not a legend. It’s not make believe, it’s not mythology, it’s not wishful thinking.

It is based on solid historical truth. And so what are the implications for us sitting here in the 21st century? What possibly, you know, does that, does that matter to our everyday lives? Well, lemme just give you a few reasons why this is relevant to you today in the 21st century. First, if Jesus rose from the dead, this validates his claim to being the unique son of God. And we can trust him when he says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Second, if Jesus really did rise from the dead, he’s alive today and he is available for us to encounter in a personal way so we can have a deep and a rich and a real relationship with Jesus Christ. Third, if Jesus did conquer death through the resurrection, that means he can open the door of eternal life for you too. In fact, I remember reading or or interviewing probably the most prominent historian on the topic of the resurrection. And at the end of that interview, you know what he said to me? He said, you know, there’s a personal reason why this is important to me. I said, why? He said, because every shred of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is evidence for my eventual resurrection in there’s because Jesus rose in the dead. I’m gonna rise someday too and spend eternity with him in heaven.

Fourth, if Jesus really is the son of God who proved it by returning from the dead, then his teachings are more than just suggestions from a wise rabbi. They are divine insights on which we can confidently build our lives. Fifth, if Jesus sets the standard for morality, then we can have an unwavering foundation for our choices and decisions rather than basing them on the ever-shifting sands of expediency and self-centeredness. Six. If Jesus has divine power, then he has the supernatural ability to guide us, to help us to transform us as we follow him. Seventh, if Jesus personally knows the pain of suffering and he through his suffering on the cross, probably suffered more pain than any of us ever will, if he knows the pain of suffering, then that means he can comfort and encourage us in the midst of the kind of turbulence that he himself warned that we will go through because we live in a world that’s stained by sin.

Eighth, if Jesus loves us as he demonstrated by going to the cross to pay the penalty we deserve for the sins we’ve created or committed so that we can be forgiven and spend eternity with him, if he demonstrated through his willingness to suffer that way, that he has our best interests at heart. And that means we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by committing our lives to him and his purposes. Number nine, if Jesus is who he claimed to be, then as our creator, he rightfully deserves our allegiance, our obedience, and our worship. And then finally, 10th, if Jesus was resurrected from the dead, then this is the most important and life changing news on the planet. And the question becomes, who are you gonna tell about it? Who are you gonna tell about it? Who are you gonna mention these four ees to? Who are you gonna invite to come next weekend to Easter services here, to take a social risk, to extend an invitation to say, I hope you’ll come with me. ’cause This is really important stuff. It matters to us today in the 21st century. So let me end with this.

If you believe maybe for the first time, maybe today was the turning point, if you believe that Jesus did rise from the dead, then my question to you is, have you met him personally? Is Jesus the forgiver of your sins? Is Jesus the leader of your life? I mean, are you confident that someday when you leave this world, you’ll spend eternity with him in heaven forever? Are you sure? Do you have confidence in that? Well, I wanna help you be sure and I’m gonna offer a prayer. It’s the prayer that I prayed on November the eighth of 1981, right after I realized this is true. Jesus did re turf the death. He is the unique son of God. Oh my goodness, what do I do? And I pray this prayer and I’m gonna give you the opportunity to pray that same prayer right now. I’m not gonna ask you to do anything weird, but as if as best you can, you believe Jesus did return from the dead and prove he’s the son of God. Just pray this in your heart. So let’s just close our eyes and bow our heads. And in your heart, just say these words, Lord Jesus,

Right now, as best I can, I do believe that you are the son of God. You proved it by returning from the dead. And right now, I confess to the obvious,

Which

Is I am a sinner. I know that I’ve not lived a perfect life by a long shot. And right now I confess that and I turn from that. And in an attitude of repentance and faith right now, I receive your free gift of forgiveness, your free gift of eternal life. Thank you Jesus for loving me so much that you endured the torture of the cross so we could be reconciled for help me Jesus, to live the kind of life that you want me to live. Because from this moment on, I am yours. And now, father, we know by the authority of your word that anyone who prays a prayer like that and repentance of faith, that even in this very moment you are adopting them as your son, your daughter forever. We celebrate that. We thank you for that and we pray that we’ll have the courage to invite someone to come back for Easter services to hear about this good news that changes lives and changes eternities. Give us courage, give us opportunities to do that. We thank you for this church, which is like a city on a hill that shines your message of hope and grace and love and redemption, eternal life far and wide. We thank you for this place and pray for your blessing on everyone here in the name of Jesus Christ, who is our forgiver and who is our leader,

And who is our very, very best friend. And all God’s people said, amen.