Did Jesus really rise from the dead? - The Big Questions

The resurrection of Jesus was a historical event that changed the world forever. Listen as Pastor Andrew Strand talks about the resurrection of Jesus and why it matters as we begin our new series, “The Big Questions!”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Happy Easter, everyone. Happy Resurrection Sunday. It is a privilege to be here with you today. I hope that you will get some time with some loved ones today, with some family. Today, we celebrate the greatest event to ever happen in the course of history, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And today, as you walked in, you got a card that looked like this. I want you to go ahead and grab that. We're going to come back to that at the end of our time today. Our text for today is from 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And so you can go ahead and grab your Bible or your device. That's where we're going to be here in just a few minutes. This week I was thinking about our time together and I heard the story of Niall Bolan, who uh was the designer of something that has become ordinary and commonplace to our everyday lives. You see, it didn't take long back in the 40s and the 50s, uh, when automobiles started to become a part of our everyday life, uh, that people began to realize that these two-ton hunks of metal that we go cruising down the highway at 80 or 90 miles an hour, people began to realize that these things are actually quite dangerous, especially in West Texas, right? And uh and people realized that it was actually not so much the vehicles that were dangerous, but it was actually the people inside of them that were the ones who were dangerous. And yet, it was also the people who were inside and operating those vehicles who were the ones that were the precious cargo inside. And so it was Niall Boland who realized that something must be done. Something must be done to fix this problem. And so Bolan, who had been hired a year before by the Volvo Corporation, was the one who patented what we now know as the modern three-point seatbelt. And this device has gone on to save literally millions of lives. Some of you can think of a time in your own life when you were in an accident and it actually saved your life. But should it be surprising to us that with the invention of the seatbelt, that there was a remarkably intense debate, right? What seems obvious to us today that seat belts actually save lives, people had doubts and people had questions, and people had fears about these new life-saving devices. Is it surprising to us that people would have objections to things? Of course not. People asked the question uh, why would a good driver need a seatbelt? Right, there was a strong cultural emphasis on personal driving skill, and they thought only careless drivers would need a seatbelt. There were other questions like, what if I get trapped in the car? What if the car sets on fire? Or if I drive into a lake because somebody was coming at me, what if I get stuck in the car? There was the third question: won't seatbelts actually cause more serious injuries, right? There were concerns about the widely circulated but often believed myth that you could actually be cut in half by a seatbelt. There was pushback. People said they're uncomfortable and they are inconvenient, they wrinkle my clothes, especially on Easter Sunday. There was the fear that people had. They said, Don't tell me what to do. It was a violation of personal freedom. And if I want to take the risk, that is my choice. And yet, for us, some 70 years later, we can look back on this debate and we can see really that it was it was actually pretty silly that seat belts, along with the invention of the airbag, has gone on to save hundreds of thousands, if not millions and millions of lives. And this week, as I was thinking about our time together, and I was thinking about this series that we're kicking off, I just had this general wondering if some of these same type questions that people had about these life-saving devices are the same type questions that people still have today about the faith that we have. It's the same type of questions that people have about what happened on the very first Easter Sunday morning. And so, with that in mind, today we're kicking off a new series called The Big Questions. And in the next few weeks, we're gonna talk about the questions that people have about faith, the questions that people have around the Bible, the questions that people have about the afterlife, the questions that people have about the problem of evil in the world, and the questions that people have about Jesus claiming to be the only way. I hope you'll come back in these next few weeks. But the question that we're gonna answer today is the question that we are interact with on Easter Sunday morning. It's did Jesus really rise from the grave? And if he did rise from the grave, how does that influence my life and your life? So would you please stand with me today for the reading of God's word? We're gonna be in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, starting in verse 1. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. And the apostle Paul is writing to a group of people in the town of Corinth, in the Corinthian church, and these people, let me tell you, they are less than holy people, right? These people are full of uh all kinds of moral issues, and Paul is writing to them, and he addresses many issues in his letter. And I would just tell you today, some of you think, man, my family is messed up. And it they might be, but I will tell you that Paul is writing to a group of people that your family doesn't even compare to them. Your family doesn't have the same type sex scandals that these people had in the Corinthian church. These your family doesn't have the same kind of backbiting and uh and disunity that are going on in the Corinthian church. And so Paul writes to them to deal with these issues. But as he comes to the end of his first letter to the church in Corinth, he tells us and them that there are three truths that we see about resurrection Sunday. The three truths are this: that the resurrection of Jesus really did happen. The second thing that he tells us is that the resurrection of Jesus is good news for imperfect people. Somebody say amen today. And the resurrection of Jesus demands a response. And I have to just imagine that the people that Paul was writing to, they're not so different than you and I today. Maybe some of us in here grew up going to church every so often. Maybe our parents took us to church on Christmas and Easter. And we found ourselves maybe having a bit of a faith, but we also found ourselves having lots and lots of questions. There's probably some of us in here, also like those who Paul was writing to, who may even say, I go way beyond just questions. I would even just consider myself a straight-up skeptic of all of this Jesus talk. And then there's others of us, certainly like those who were a part of those who received this letter, who have been a part of 20 or 30 or 40 Easters, and we would say the kingdom of God is at hand. And I will tell you today, whatever category you fit in, I'm so glad that you're here today. Because I believe that God can handle our questions. And I believe that when we have an interaction, when we have uh really, when we run into the kingdom of God, I believe that our questions actually begin to change. And I think that history proves that these things that we are talking about today are indeed true, and they have the power to change a life. There's power in these truths that I'm going to tell you today. And the first thing that Paul tells us is that the resurrection did indeed happen, and through this historical event, we conclude that Jesus is king over all. You see, the gospel writers, uh, Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, they tell us the good news, the account of the good news of Jesus Christ. And you heard it earlier in song, you heard it in video, but I want to give you another quick summary of the good news of the gospel that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This is what we celebrate at Christmas, and he lived a perfect life. And though he was innocent, he was hung on a Roman cross and he was buried in the grave. And scholars say it was around 39 hours that he spent in that grave, but on the very first Easter Sunday morning, he resurrected from that grave, and that is why we are here to celebrate today. This is the good news of the gospel that he took your sin and he took my sin to that grave. This event really did happen, and it proves that Jesus is the Son of the Living God. He is the Son of the Living God. And what happened 2,000 years ago when he walked out of the grave proves that not only is he the king over the living, but he has power over death. And if he has power over death, he is the king over everything. And this is what happened in this event of the resurrection, it changed everything. And why can we believe that this is true? Well, I believe Paul tells us that there is evidence for the resurrection. He tells us that there are actually 500 witnesses who saw the resurrection, the resurrected Jesus. Many of those were the disciples. There were a group of women who culturally they would not have taken their word for that. There were 500 witnesses, including the apostle Paul, including the Lord's brother James, and many of those disciples, many of those eyewitnesses went on to be martyred for their faith. There is evidence in the scriptures, right? We believe that the claims of the Bible are textually reliable. And it's not lost on me that some in here today might even have questions about the Bible. I hope that you'll come back next week because we're going to talk a little bit about the reliability of the Bible, but I believe that the Bible should be taken seriously as a historical document, that it is inspired by the Spirit of God, that it was written by humans under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and it should not just be dismissed as a myth. And because this is true, and because the resurrection really did happen, and because it has the power to change your life forever, I think we must ask the question, what must I do with this information? In the same way that when Peter preached uh this amazing sermon, people said, What must I do? I think we must ask that same question. What must I do with this information? And I think it's a great question because if the resurrection did happen and the claims of the scriptures are true, I will tell you that the resurrection is good news for imperfect people. The resurrection is good news for imperfect people, and you know this to be true that the world that we live in is a broken place. I don't have to explain this to you. Your own life experience tells you that this is true. You can look around on your own social media feeds, you can watch the news if any of us still do that, and you know that the world is full of brokenness. Our own experience has told us that. Some of us in this room today have had unspeakable things done to us, but all of us can think back on a time in our life where we wished we could take that whole season back. And in short, this tells us that there's brokenness in the world. And the story of the Bible is the story of humanity's desire for independence from God and God's ways and God's wisdom, and that first humans' unwillingness to obey God's commands resulted in what the Bible calls sin. And as the infection of sin began to spread around humanity, there was all sorts of brokenness that came into the world, violence came into the world, and brokenness in families, and distortion of God's plan for sexuality, and a whole litany of other forms of sin and brokenness. And God knew that something must be done, that these humans cannot do it on their own because the Bible calls all of these moral failures sin. And sin it plays out in lots of different ways in our lives. When I was five years old, uh I fell out of a moving vehicle. And some of you right now go, well, that explains so many things about Andrew, right? Uh my family, uh, at that time we were living in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Uh, that's right, where the atom bomb was created, where the national laboratory is. And some of you are also thinking, well, that also explains some things about Andrew. Right? I was exposed to a lot of uh radiation at a very young age. But my my parents, uh on this particular day, we were headed to a friend's house. And as we were headed to our friend's house, me being the third of three children, I was always banished to the backseat in the middle between my brother and my sister. And uh on this particular day, we were running late as strands often do, and we were headed on uh meadow lane. You can see it on the map right up here. We were headed on meadow lane to our friend's house, and because we were running late, uh I got into the car last. And I sat down uh where my sister would normally sit, right behind my dad, in the passenger or in the driver's side rear seat. And because I was a five-year-old, I didn't put my seatbelt on. And so we began to drive around the corner on Meadow Lane, and uh my dad, he I was asking him about it this week. We were probably driving about 20 or 25 miles an hour around this corn this corner, and I had my head on uh the door of this you know giant station wagon that we had, and sure enough, as we ran around the corner of uh went around the corner of that road, five-year-old Andrew went tumbling out of the car. Think about this, parents. My parents kept driving, my dad didn't realize, you know, until chaos ensued. My brother and my sister are screaming, and uh, so they go about another 100 to 150 yards down the road, and five-year-old Andrew rolls across a lane of traffic. But don't worry, I was wearing my incredible Hulk shirt, I was just fine. I stood up, I began to chase after the car, and really by the grace of God, by the grace of God, there was not a car coming towards us. And I very easily could have died that day, maybe even should have. And I and I think about that moment, it was not outright rebellion that caused that moment that could have easily taken my life, it was actually childishness, it was foolishness, and it was ignorance. And when I think about this idea of sin, there is a lot of sin in our lives that is sort of like my move that day. It's childishness, it's foolishness, it's it's ignorance. But as I think about sin and and how it infects our lives, I also know that much of sin is sort of like those initial arguments against seatbelts. It's actually an outright rebellion. It's a don't tell me what to do, it's a I've lived a good life, I'm a good person, I don't need anybody to help me. But Romans 3 actually should correct our thinking. Romans 3 says that nobody is righteous, not even one. Roman one, Romans 1 tells us that that we are all without excuse, and that sinful rebellion has brought us to where we are today. Something must be done. We need to be saved. And as I was writing this sermon this week, I just could sense in my spirit that some of us have been so infected with sin for so long, we are at the depths of darkness, and some of us have believed this for so long that we actually believe that we are beyond saving, and we are some of us have even contemplated taking our own life, and I want to tell you today that that is a lie from the pit of hell. Because when you were at your very lowest point, at the deepest point of your need, in the depths of your sin, Isaiah 53 tells us what Christ did for us that he was pierced for our transgressions, that he was crushed for our iniquities, that upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by his wounds we are healed. This is what we celebrate on Good Friday. This is what we remember, what Christ had done, but on Easter Sunday morning we remember the greatest historical event to ever happen. That 39 hours later, that he rose from the grave, proving that he is the Son of God. What is it that fueled Christ going to the cross? What is it that fueled the resurrection? I believe it's what we find in the most well-known verse, probably in the whole entire Bible. It's that God so loved the world, that he loves you far more than you could ever know. And today, even in the midst of your questions, in the midst of your fears, in the midst of your doubts, that he would say, I love you. That when he went to the grave, that your sins actually went to the grave with him. And the Psalms tells us tells us that if we are in Christ, that our sins are as far as the East is from the West. And this is what we celebrate on Easter Sunday morning. Paul tells us that Christ died for our sins. Somebody say amen today. In accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And since the resurrection really did happen, and since it is good news for imperfect people, we see that the resurrection of Jesus demands a response. That we can't just hear this information and walk out the door and live the same life that we're living. Paul tells us that he preached the gospel to them in the same way that I am preaching it to you today, and then he says that they received the gospel. You see, there's a response that we have to have. We actually respond to the good news of the gospel. And then he says that they actually stand in it. I sense today that there's some of us maybe who have even received the gospel, but today God is saying, no, no, you need to stand in that truth. Maybe you've been away from Christ for a while. Maybe you've been away from spiritual family today, but today is the day that you renew that standing. And then he closes this thought with this beautiful phrasing where he says, where you are being saved. In the original language, it's this idea, this tense of you were saved, you are saved, and you will be saved. That one day Christ will come back again, and that he will give you eternal life. And unlike a seatbelt, which simply can save a life, the gospel actually offers you abundant life. John 10, 10, Christ says that I came that you may have abundant life. Some of us have been walking in fear and addiction. Some of us have been walking in so much anxiety. And today Christ wants to set you free from some of those things. But it begins by receiving the gospel, by standing in it. So today, to end our time, I want you to go ahead and grab this card for me. Because there's a response that the resurrection demands. And here in just a moment, I'm going to give you an opportunity to respond to the good news of the gospel. And so on this card, you'll notice there's a place for you to put your name and your contact information. Some of you, as I've been preaching the good news of the gospel today, you've sensed today's my day. April 4th, 2026 is the day that you receive the freedom that Christ wants to give you. So here in just a moment, I'm going to have everybody stand and I'm going to give you that opportunity to respond to that first one. And if that's you today, I want you to just check that first box, and Leah will tell you what to do with this card here in just a moment. But there's also a few other ways that you can respond to the good news today. Maybe some of you have already received the good news of the gospel, but you've never walked in obedience in baptism. And so you can just check that second box and turn that in, and we'll follow up with you this week. Maybe some of you say, uh, this third option, I want to grow as a follower of Jesus. I'm not quite sure how to do that. Maybe you want to learn how to share your faith. You can check that box, the third one. And then finally, there's some of us in here who say, I'm just not quite ready yet, but I still have questions. I'd love to visit with somebody. And if that's you today, I'd encourage you to check that box and turn this card in. But to conclude our time today, I want to give you that opportunity to receive the gift that God wants to give you the forgiveness of your sins, eternal life. And so at this time, I'm going to ask you to simply stand with me. And if that's you today, you say, I believe in my heart. This is what scripture tells us. It's as simple and yet profound as believing in our heart and turning from our sin and asking Jesus to be the Lord of our life. So I just ask you to simply bow your head at this time. If that's you today, and you say, I'm ready to receive the good news of the gospel. I'm ready to respond to the good news of the gospel just as a sign of surrender. I want you to just hold your two hands, both hands up as high as you can. Just hold them up as a sign to remember to God. I want you to just simply pray this prayer with me. God, right now, I repent of my sin. I turn from the ways that I've been walking in. And I receive the forgiveness of my sins. I receive the free gift of salvation. I receive eternal life. And right now I make you Lord of my life. Would you fill me with your Holy Spirit? And would you help me to walk out all that you have for me? Would you give me abundant life? God, I thank you for this today, and I receive it in the name of Jesus. Amen.