A Resurrection Worldview

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Good morning, everyone want to first say thanks again for For having me today and a little different, you know, I preach at a church every Sunday of a hundred people that I know It's a small church, but I do preach to a group of people that I see every week and so every week I get an opportunity to talk to people who I Know and who I kind of know what they know.
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I've been their pastor for 12 years.
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So I kind of know what they've been taught I'm coming in to you guys fresh.
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I Understand you're in a Christian school.
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I imagine you come from Christian homes So you probably have a lot of background a lot of knowledge so I may be telling you some things today That you already know but the important thing that we have to remember that the Bible says is That it's good to be reminded of things that we already know it's good to be built up and the things that we know and reminded and encouraged about the things that we already know so that we are Firmly planted in our faith.
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And again, my name is Keith.
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I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church It's a small church on the north side of Jacksonville, and I'm glad to be here today I want to ask a question as I begin If someone were to ask you what is the most significant event? And by the way, I have a little bit of OCD and this microphone is going to kill me today I'm afraid as it's dragging me down If someone were to ask you what is the most significant event in all of human history? What is the most significant event that has ever taken place in human history, what would you say? You don't have to answer out loud, but in your mind, I want you to just sort of formulate an answer What's the most significant thing that has ever happened in the history of mankind? If you were to ask that in a college classroom, you might get a series of different answers You might have someone say well the most significant thing that has happened in the course of human history was actually the dawn of man If you were to ask it in a biology class I would probably say when man climbed out of the primordial soup and became what we are today through the process of evolution Others might argue that it was the introduction of the modern age When man broke the bonds of gravity and took flight and and went out beyond the stars and landed on the moon Someone might often say in this generation if you said what's the most significant thing that's ever happened in the history of the world they might say well the most significant thing that's ever happened in the history of the world is is the Modern technology that we all have the the Internet you realize right now the the cumulative amount of human knowledge is all Collected on something we call the Internet and it's it's available in our pockets If you have any question in the world when I was a kid You had to actually try to figure out answers now if you have a question, you don't have to think anymore You just have to pull out and Google.
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Well, what you know What's the answer and the answer is there for you and someone say that's the most significant event in human history is this accumulation of all of human knowledge into one bank and reservoir of information called the Internet and It's true that these things would all be significant and I'm sure that some of you came up with some things in your mind Maybe even better than the ones that I mentioned But I came to you today because I want to argue that none of those and none of what we've come up with Are more significant than the subject that we're going to talk about today.
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I Believe the most significant event in human history is the resurrection of Jesus Christ We are celebrating this weekend Resurrection Sunday a lot of people call it Easter Sunday and So I was asked to come and speak today and I knew this being Easter week resurrection week I wanted to talk on this subject and so I've entitled this lesson a resurrection worldview a Resurrection worldview, you know what a worldview is You probably in class have heard your teachers talk about a worldview or maybe in sociology You've gotten a chance to talk about that.
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A worldview is a philosophy or a Conception of the world around us.
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It's a framework for how we see everything around us.
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It's how we interpret life It's how we interpret everything that we see that's going on around us it's how we interpret our own purpose and our own meaning the worldview is how we see the world and Belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ will determine how we understand the world and how we interpret our own experience It's a framework.
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It's literally a lens through which we see everything else Josh McDowell wrote a book called evidence that demands a verdict some of you may have seen it some of you may have read it and Josh says this he says few people seem to realize that the resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone to a worldview that provides the perspective to all of life in Essence what McDowell is saying is that if it is true? That Jesus Christ rose from the dead 2,000 years ago that has impact on everything and If it's not true That he didn't rise from the dead 2,000 years ago Well that has an impact as well so how we see the resurrection how we understand the resurrection has impact on every single area of our lives I don't know how many of you brought your Bibles today, but if you have your Bibles I want you to turn turn to 1st Corinthians chapter 15 because this is our passage for today And Paul says basically the same thing that McDowell said but in a little different way The Apostle Paul is talking to the Corinthian Church And if you're not familiar with the Corinthian Church, the Corinthian Church was a church that was really misbehaving in a lot of ways They were prideful and they were arrogant They thought a lot more of the world than they did of what God said and in and in the book of 1st Corinthians Paul is challenging their spiritual pride He's challenging their sinful behavior and he is going to them and he's addressing the issues that are in the church and One of the issues that had arisen in the Corinthian Church was that there were people in the church who were saying there's no resurrection from the dead Let's read it real quick.
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It's 1st Corinthians 15 verse 12 Paul says this now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead then not even Christ has been raised and if Christ has not been raised and our Preaching is in vain and our faith is in vain We were even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ Whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised for if the dead Are not raised not even Christ has been raised and if Christ has not been raised then your faith is futile and you are still in your sins Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished if in Christ we have hope in this life Only we are of all people most to be pitied but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep for as by a man came death and By a man also has come the resurrection from the dead for as an Adam all die and in Christ shall all be made alive and that ends our reading of the text So here the Apostle Paul is addressing an issue There are people in the church in the Corinthian Church who are saying there's no resurrection from the dead That is to say that they were saying there's no life after death This life is all there is when you die.
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It's game over How many never heard that Have you ever had anyone tell you this life is all there is have you ever had anyone tell you when you die? It's it's it's like the end of the movie.
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It just everything goes black life's over This is all you have Yolo, right? You only live once you get one shot one time through and when this life ends the computer shuts down Well, that's the attitude that some of the Corinthians had and honestly, it's the attitude that a lot of people have today In fact more and more people in our society are becoming What they identify as non-religious or the nuns that's not in you in like a like a Catholic sister, but a but a nun no any their religious affiliation is they have none They don't believe in God.
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They don't believe in anything they just believe that this life is all that there is and they're gonna try to find all of their happiness and all of their joy and all their contentment and all of the all of the best that they can in this life and And after this life is over well, you go back to the same state you were in before you were born a state of nothingness But Paul challenges them Paul challenges this idea that there's no resurrection when he says That if you say there's no resurrection, he's talking to the Corinthians.
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He said if you say there's no resurrection then then what what happened to Jesus? Remember Paul is talking to a church and and the assumption is that the church is based on Jesus, right? The the Corinthian Church was a Christian Church And so he asked he said there's people in your church who were arguing as to whether or not there is life after death There are people who are arguing as to whether or not there's a resurrection If there's no resurrection what happened to Jesus? That's the question if there's no resurrection from the dead Then how do we explain what happened to Christ? Because if there's no resurrection from the dead then Jesus didn't rise and if Jesus didn't rise guess what? We are fools So Paul says he says we are of all men the most to be pitied He said if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, what are we doing? If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, why are we even here? But in fact, he did rise from there.
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And that's what Paul says.
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He says but in fact he did He said if he didn't rise from the dead It's all useless.
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In fact, I want to challenge you today young people.
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I don't know if you're Christians or not I wouldn't assume that anyone here is a believer But I will say this if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, but you don't believe he rose from the dead You're not a believer in Jesus Christ Because the Christian faith is predicated on one simple belief that Jesus Christ died was buried and rose again And if we don't believe that we can call ourselves Christians But the very identification with Christianity is identification in the death burial and resurrection of Christ And I want you to consider this statement Because this is an important statement Our entire faith if you're a Christian today our entire faith is based on a fact from history It's not based on the philosophical promises of some wise man sitting on a mountain somewhere with his legs crossed going.
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Oh It's not based on some prophetic seer who's telling us about some future event Our faith is based on an event in history which actually happened the Christian faith is based on the fact of the resurrection Now, why would I say the resurrection is a fact? Well, because it is the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a fact of history How can you claim the status of the fact? How can you for something so amazing for something so incredible for something so outrageous as a claim that a man? Rose from the dead.
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How can we claim that that's a fact? Well, how do you know anything? How do you know anything from history? Let me ask you this.
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How do you know that Columbus sailed the world in 1492? How do you know that? Were you there? Now you say well, there's documented history of Columbus sailing Well, let me ask you this were there were there photographs? Were there videos what you've heard the phrase pics or it didn't happen.
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All right And that's so dumb when people say that pics or it didn't happen you realize that the photograph wasn't invented till the mid 1800s, right? Photography didn't become really popular until the mid 1900s And it's only been in your generation that people walk around pretty regularly with cameras in their pockets The idea of pics or it didn't happen is pretty foolish prior to the 1900s and even after that until today so How do we know that the Eastern Orthodox Church split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1056? how do we know that in 325 all of the known leaders of the church gathered in a place called Nicaea under the leadership of a man named Constantine who formulated the legality of the Christian faith because before that it had been Religio Alicita meaning it was an illegal religion until Constantine made it legal How do we know that that happened? How was history documented before we had these things called cameras or before we had video? Well prior to cameras being invented facts were established based on corroborating eyewitness testimony and Recording that testimony in written documents.
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That is the only way it could happen.
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And is that that is the way it did happen It was based on Corroborating eyewitness testimony which was recorded in written documents and one of the things that we often fail to realize Especially as Christians is that the Bible is a reliable historical document In fact, there is no document from antiquity that has as much attestation as the New Testament There is no other work of antiquity that even comes close to the amount of handwritten copies that we have from the first century Well, the earliest copies we have are the early part of the second century all the way up into the 14th century What happened in the 14th century 15th century that made the change from handwritten copies anyone know? a man by the name of Gutenberg invented something Printing press, right? So we go from handwritten copies to printed copies, right? but even then we have over 5,700 handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament alone going from the 2nd century all the way to the 14th century handwritten copies of this document because it was so believed and so trusted that people wanted to maintain the integrity of it and So even to today we can open up a Bible and be confident that what we have in the book of Romans is actually what? Paul wrote in the book of Romans what we have in the book of Ephesians is what Paul wrote in the book of Ephesians The Bible is a reliable historical document it can be trusted and The writers of the New Testament did not claim to have had visions They did not claim to have heard tales.
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They claim to have seen the resurrected Jesus in fact, it says that over 500 people saw him alive when he raised from the dead and he lived on the earth after being raised from the dead for 40 days and was seen by Over 500 people during that time many of those people went to their deaths Now here's the thing If somebody's willing to die for what they believe it doesn't mean what they believe is true, right? If you're willing to die for what you believe that doesn't make it true I mean the guys who flew the planes into the buildings on 9-11 died for something.
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They believe doesn't make it true But here's the thing The people who died in the first century because of the resurrection Didn't die for something they believed They died for something they saw They died for something that they had actually seen with their own eyes It wasn't as if they simply believed Jesus rose from the dead.
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They saw him alive And when the authorities came and said no you must deny this they said we cannot deny this and The church began to grow Based not on some story or myth that had spread among the people but people who had seen it With their own eyes.
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This is what I call why I call Christianity a fact-based Faith let me ask you a question.
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There's three parts to our faith facts faith and emotion.
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Which one's most important a Lot of people would say faith is most important, you know, Sola Fide justification by faith alone faith is most important, right? Some people say emotions most important and if emotion is the most important part of your faith I want to tell you that's really dangerous because if you're being carried along by your emotions Your fates gonna rock up and down your whole life, right? Don't let emotions drive your faith They'll say faith facts faith and emotion which one's most important Facts let me tell you why because if you got faith in something that ain't true your faith is in vain Paul says that right? He said if you believe something that isn't true.
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You are pitiable if you believe something then that's not true That's a pity on you.
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That's not good.
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It's a shame.
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I Feel bad when I see people who believe things that aren't true.
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I See bad.
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I feel bad when I see people who give their lives to things that don't matter.
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I Feel bad when I see people who believe things that are false and they've given their whole lives to things that don't matter Beloved if Jesus didn't rise from the dead.
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We are just as pitiable as them We're worse Because we've testified that God did this That's why I say facts are most important facts drive our faith we have to believe in what's true the Bible says the truth will set us Free, right? So we have to believe in what is true Faith the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a subjective thing.
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It's not something that's true for me and not true for you I heard somebody say that one time.
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They said well Christianity can be true for you and not true for me.
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That's a lie It's either true or it's not right It's like gravity if somebody says I don't believe in gravity and they step off the edge of a building Gravity's not going to care whether they believe in it Gravity's gonna kick their tail all the way down, right? Facts don't care about your opinion.
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I hear scientists say that all the time.
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Well that goes back to them.
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Because the resurrection of Jesus Christ doesn't care about our opinion.
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It's a fact of history and it doesn't need you to believe in it to make it true.
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It's true whether we believe it or not.
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It's an objective fact of history and Paul tells us it either happened or it didn't and because it did happen, we have every reason in the world to trust in Jesus Christ.
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I want to ask you a question.
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I want to be real with you for a second.
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Do you ever fight a battle with faith? And you don't have to answer.
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You don't have to shake your head.
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In your heart, in your mind, answer that question.
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Do you ever fight a battle with faith? I know that every time I turn on the television and I'm watching secular TV or if I'm watching, you know, Science Channel or something, something will come on that will inevitably try to discourage faith, especially faith in the God of the Bible.
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And I know that there are times when people hear these things and they begin to wonder if they're true and maybe the Bible's not.
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And I want to tell you about something that happened to me.
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I want to give you a little bit of my testimony.
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When I was 19 years old, so probably not a lot older than some of you today.
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Some of you may be 19.
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When I was 19 years old, I had a crisis of faith.
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I remember I began to have what a lot of people call an existential crisis.
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I began to realize, hey, I'm gonna die one day.
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Oftentimes when you're a teenager, you don't think about that.
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You figure death is something that happens to old people and you're not an old people so you don't have to worry about it.
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So I began to have sort of this existential crisis.
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I started realizing, hey, I'm gonna die one day.
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That's pretty scary.
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And I'd grown up in church, but I wasn't a Christian.
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I probably would have said I was.
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I was baptized two or three times, you know.
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Every time the pastor had a, you know, big emotional altar call, we'd all go forward, we all get baptized again.
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But I wasn't a Christian.
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I was playing the role, but I wasn't a believer.
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And when I was 19 years old, I had this real fear, this overwhelming sense of dread that came over my heart.
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And you know what? I said, you know, I got to go to the Bible because that's what everybody says, right? I got to read the Bible.
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And I started at the beginning.
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And I read in Genesis where God created the world in seven days.
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I said, that doesn't sound right, right? Because science tells me that the earth is 4.5 billion years old.
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Seven days is a really short amount of time.
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Then I read a little further and there was this whole global flood thing.
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It didn't really make a lot of sense.
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I didn't like that.
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The one part that really got me though was the part where Moses talked to God and God was a burning tree or a burning bush, right? And I want to tell you, I tell you how childish and immature I was.
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I wasn't even reading a Bible.
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I was reading the comic book Bible.
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You ever seen that? Where everything's illustrated? And I'm not saying that you're immature if you read a comic book Bible, but I was.
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And I just loved, I grew up loving comic books.
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And I was reading a comic book Bible.
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And I remember turning the page to the burning bush.
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And I literally took the comic book Bible and I threw it across the room.
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I said, I can't believe I would ever believe this.
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I can't believe anybody believes this.
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The next two weeks of my life were amazingly bad.
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Because I fell into a sense of absolute dread that I never felt before.
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I really felt scared for the first time in my life that maybe everything I grew up believing wasn't true.
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But I remembered there was a guy I had met.
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So I grew up in a church that was very liberal.
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They didn't really, they didn't really teach Jesus.
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They kind of taught feel good, you know, be good sermons.
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But I met a man who I knew believed in Jesus.
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I knew it.
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He stood up for his faith in the midst of people that didn't believe.
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And I, and I had seen him stand up for his faith.
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And I said, that's the guy.
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If there's anybody in the world who can help me right now, because I am absolutely lost.
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I went through two weeks where I didn't eat.
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Big deal for me.
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I didn't, I didn't do anything.
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I laid, I'd come home from work and I lay, I was married at 19.
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I was married very early, still married today.
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My wife's back there.
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But at 19 years old, I came home every night from work and I would lay on the couch and I would just weep.
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Because I said this life is meaningless.
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But then I remember there's a guy who, there's a guy who believes in Jesus.
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There's a guy out there who I know who believes in Jesus.
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And I went to him and I said, young, that's his name, his name is young.
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I said, young, I, I don't know what to do.
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I'm absolutely lost.
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I don't know if Jesus is real.
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I don't know if the Bible's real.
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I don't know anything.
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All I know is, is I'm scared.
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And he said, Keith, he said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you some things to think about.
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He said, number one, he said, ultimately you're gonna have to make a decision to believe or not to believe.
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And that decision will affect the rest of your life.
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But here's the thing that you really need to understand.
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There is more evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ than there is for Washington crossing the Delaware.
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There is more evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the grave than any other major event of antiquity.
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We have a church which was built on the foundation of the resurrection of Jesus and you have every reason to believe it.
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That was almost 20 years ago.
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Let me tell you, I have spent every day since then reminding myself that that is true.
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And I got to tell you, he wasn't wrong.
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I have looked at the evidence.
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I have looked at the history.
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I have read the books.
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I have studied the scriptures.
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I have studied secular history.
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And I can tell you, something amazing happened to the 2,000 years ago.
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And it wasn't a group of people stealing a body.
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That's foolishness.
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It wasn't that Jesus swooned on the cross.
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He passed out and then later woke up and convinced people that this beaten, bloodied, half dead man was a resurrected king.
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Now, Jesus Christ went into the tomb dead and he came out alive.
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And the church and the martyrs and down to today, this place here is testimony to the miracle that happened 2,000 years ago.
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Let me tell you, if you came here today, not a believer, you have every reason in the world to trust in a resurrected Jesus.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for this opportunity to speak to these young people.
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And I know that ultimately, Lord, if there is to be any impact at all from what I've said, it must be the work of your Holy Spirit.
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So I pray right now that your Holy Spirit would fill this place and that he would speak to hearts.
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And Lord, for those who are believers, I pray that I've given them something to encourage them today, to remind them that their faith is not in vain.
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And Father, for the young people here, maybe even the adults who don't know you, who don't know Jesus, Father, may this ring in their hearts.
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Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.
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Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.
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And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
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Father, let that permeate our hearts today.
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Let our confidence be in a resurrected Savior.
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I pray this, Father, in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Thank you, Mr.
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Wonderful news.