1 Corinthians 15:12

Now, it's great to be back with you. If you're new or visiting, I'm Pastor Garrett, and I'm one of our youth pastors here. Obviously, I haven't had a whole lot of sleep, and Nick made fun of me in the video, but I love it. I get nothing less in the youth room. So if I say anything off, just feel free to correct me; it's okay.

As some of you know, we just had our third child, baby Henry, who was born on July 2nd. We have had a little less sleep over the last couple of weeks, but I promise we'll be okay. We are going to continue our time through the creed, and it's been a really awesome experience. We are seven weeks into the creed, with 13 weeks total, so we are just over halfway there.

Pastor Miles is in Sweden with his family this morning. He is teaching at a conference there and mentioned that he had to prepare four messages. Please keep him in your prayers this week. If you're new or visiting, please come back when he is teaching in a couple of weeks; you will want to hear him.

With that, if you would like to read with me, we won't read the entire creed this morning, just what we are covering for today's message. It will be up on the screen, and I would like you to read it with me, and then we can be seated. It says, "For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures."

Let's bow our heads and pray. Heavenly Father, I believe that the true miracle that takes place every Sunday is not in the preaching but in the hearing. So, Father, would you open our ears to hear what your Spirit would have to teach us this morning? We pray that you would show us your ways, teach us your path, lead us in your truth, and instruct us. Father, I pray that you would reveal to us true resurrection life and what new life looks like in you. In Jesus' name, we all said, amen.

You can be seated. It is great to be back with you all. My wife and I, over the last two weeks, have been learning to transition from man-to-man to zone defense with the three of them. I would say it's going pretty well, and I thank you all for your prayers. I know you must have been praying for us because baby number three is the chillest, most relaxed baby we've had so far. I don't know what happened, but we'll see how things go.

But right now, it's great. He's just eating, sleeping, doing everything a baby should do, and gaining lots of weight. So praise God for that.

This morning, we have the privilege of discussing what I think is arguably the most important doctrine in the Christian faith. Without it, everything else falls apart. We have to talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This whole summer, the reason we've been going through the Creed is that it's important for us as Christians to know what we believe in and why. The Creed takes what's in the Bible and makes it very clear, outlining the primary doctrines of the Scriptures. All true Christians believe in what the Creed says because it's directly taken from the Bible.

The Bible tells us to always be ready to give a defense for our faith, and I believe that it provides good reasons to believe in Jesus Christ. When we go into the world, we don't just tell people, "I believe in Jesus" because we have faith; we can also reason out our faith. As Christians, we ought to get better at being able to articulate our beliefs.

This summer, I've been working with the youth, and I've had all my youth leaders praying for them because I'm giving them lots of opportunities to teach. We've been doing an apologetic series, and we have a whole list of questions that our kids have been eager to have answered. They are really good questions. When you ask junior high and high school students about God, the world, faith, and their lives, they have so many insightful inquiries and are looking for real answers—not just, "I believe in Jesus Christ." It has to be deeper than that.

One of the questions we received, which is similar to what we're discussing today, is: How can somebody be raised from the dead? How can you really believe that someone 2,000 years ago rose from the dead? That's a really good question when you think about it. We take it for granted a little bit here in the church world because it's the cornerstone of our belief that we serve a risen Savior. We can easily forget what it's like to explain that Jesus actually rose from the dead, what that means for us, and why this is so important.

In the Nicene Creed, it doesn't just specifically say that Jesus died. Pastor Mark talked about why Jesus had to die, paying the penalty and the punishment for our sins upon that cross at Calvary.

And if you didn't get to watch that last week, it's on YouTube. Please go back and rewatch that sermon from Pastor Mark. He did a great job explaining it.

But why does it say precisely, "on the third day, he rose again according to the Scriptures"? Why is it so precise in the Nicene Creed? On the third day, he rose again. Why? Because I’m going to say this this morning: God always keeps His promises. We serve a God who always keeps His promises, down to the very day, down to the very hour.

See, three times He told His disciples, "I'm going away, I'm going to die, and three days later, I'm going to rise again." Three times He said that, and three times they didn't quite get it. So if you don't understand the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you're in good company. Three times they didn't quite understand it.

How did it actually happen? Did it actually happen? How can we be assured and have confidence that Christ is actually raised from the dead? Every single world religion believes that there is some type of life after death, that death is not the end. There are a lot of good reasons for that, particularly because we have experienced life and we’ve experienced death. All of us have people that have died around us, and we experience the pain of our lives. We realize that there has to be something more.

In our lives, you can have desires for wealth. You might say, "I really just want to be rich and wealthy." That would be like your classic college graduate who just wants to make it big. But then what happens when you work really hard and get all of that money? All of a sudden, that becomes not enough. There has to be something more than just having the money.

So then you say, "Well, I just need pleasure." You pursue pleasure and find all the different things that make you feel good. But eventually, the gratification you get from that pleasure wears out. Then what happens? You start looking for something else. You might think, "No, I don't really need pleasure; I need somebody to love me." We do have a real desire and a need for someone to love us, amen? You say, "I just need love."

So then you go looking for love, and you find somebody. You get married, and you're in love. But guess what? Eventually, that love isn't enough to satisfy you either.

The ultimate conclusion is that there has to be something more to this life than what we can see, what we can feel, what we can experience, what we can touch, and what we can buy with our money. There has to be something more. What a lot of scholars have called that is a God-shaped hole in our lives.

Our hearts tell us that the only thing that can truly satisfy us is Jesus. When we look at Him in the New Testament, particularly in the Gospel messages of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, He makes some very distinct and bold claims about who He is. C.S. Lewis famously argued—though he wasn't the first to do so—that these claims, including His power over death, leave us with only three options.

This is the title of the message this morning: the claims that Jesus made about His life, death, and resurrection leave us with the conclusion that He is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. He could be a liar, a fraud, a con artist who came into the world and deceived us all into believing that He was God. Alternatively, He could be a lunatic, completely mad, someone who should be on a mental assignment for believing such things about Himself. Or, He is Lord.

I already know that in the YouTube comment sections, people will be typing that this isn't true and that there must be more than just these three options. While there is one more option, you'll have to stay until the end of the message to hear about it.

There is no comfortable middle ground where we can simply call Him a good moral teacher. When Jesus claims that He will die and then rise again specifically three days later—something He states three different times in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—there is no way to dismiss Him as just a good moral teacher. Doing so would contradict the very claims He made about Himself.

This question is ultimately one of the most important we will ever consider. If we cannot trust Jesus with power over death, then how can we trust Him with power over our lives today? Death is the greatest enemy of mankind. We all live, and we all die; there is a hundred percent chance that we will all die. The odds are against us in that regard, but there has to be something more, amen?

If we cannot trust Jesus with power over death, then we cannot trust Him with power over our lives. The stakes are incredibly high when we consider the resurrection. If the resurrection didn't actually happen, then everything in the Christian faith falls apart.

I want to talk about 1 Corinthians 15. If you are with me, let's open up to 1 Corinthians 15. In this chapter, Paul discusses the resurrection, specifically focusing on Jesus and His rising from the dead. I will pick and choose a few passages because we would be here all day if I went through the entire chapter, which I would love to do, but we only have so much time.

Let's start with verses 12 through 14. We will have it up on the screens, and if you have your Bibles, I encourage you to open up there with me. 1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse 12, says, "Now, if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection from the dead? But if there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty."

Point number one on your outline is this: without the resurrection, preaching is useless, faith is futile, and believers are still in bondage to their sin. If the resurrection didn't happen, then what I am doing up here this morning is pointless. What the church has been doing for 2,000 years is pointless. Our preaching is pointless, and our faith is futile; it is in vain. On top of that, we would still be in bondage to sin. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and we all deserve the righteous judgment of God because of our sin.

But praise be to God through Jesus Christ, who died on that cross. He bore all of our sins upon Himself, the perfect, spotless Lamb of God who was slain for all, so that we might not have to experience the wrath and punishment of God.

Paul's logic here is profound. He is saying that not only is the resurrection important for Christians, but without it, Christianity completely collapses. It is like a house of cards; you blow on it, and it just falls flat. When we break this down, preaching becomes useless. Every sermon ever preached would be powerless without the resurrection. If I could not say that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, that I serve a risen Savior, then everything else I am saying is pointless. Why should you listen to me?

However, I believe that there is something more to us than what we see in the natural world.

I believe that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, that we are not just a body but also have a soul. Preaching is useful. Every Bible study, every time we open up the Bible in our homes and living rooms, and have evangelistic conversations with our friends about God, it all hinges on the fact that Christ raised from the dead. This gives us hope of life after death. Without this, our preaching would become useless, our faith would become futile, and life would be hopeless. There would be no reason for me to say, "Come and follow Jesus Christ," or "Come to our church and believe in Jesus," a failed God who didn't raise from the dead. That would make no sense. There would be no power in my message. Our faith would be empty and in vain. Without the resurrection, the Christian faith is not just weak; it is utterly worthless. A dead Jesus brings nothing but a false hope.

But this morning, we have a real hope in Jesus Christ. Without the resurrection, we would be in bondage to our sins. However, I believe that because of the resurrection, it is God's receipt that the payment for our sins was accepted in full. Does that make sense? When Jesus died on the cross, He went into the grave for three days and then was risen again. Mary Magdalene and the disciples came and saw an empty tomb. There was no Jesus, and an angel showed up and said, "He's not here; He is risen. Why are you looking for the living among the dead?" The risen Christ is God's receipt that the payment for our sins, the punishment for our sins, was accepted by God through Jesus Christ. Praise be to God for that! Christ has been raised on the third day, exactly as He promised, exactly as the creed explains, according to the Scriptures.

Point number two on your outlines is this: The resurrection of Christ is the vindication of everything that came before and the guarantee of everything that follows. When the creed specifically states that on the third day, Christ rose from the dead in accordance with the Scriptures, it emphasizes that all of the Scriptures point to Jesus.

The Old Testament and the New Testament reveal what is at stake without the resurrection. But let's discuss where the resurrection was prophesied in the Old Testament. Where was Jesus mentioned? His life, his death, his resurrection—how does this align with the Scriptures?

Bear with me as we look at Psalm 16, verse 10. David wrote this a thousand years before Christ: "You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay." I can tell you that this prophecy was not about David, because David is dead; he has not been raised. However, Jesus died and was raised. This was a prophecy about the risen Savior: "You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead. You will not let your faithful one see decay."

For a thousand years, skeptics and critics of the faith could have asked, "Where is your Messiah, Jews? Where is the Messiah that has been promised? Where is he? You are always in bondage and facing predicaments. Where is your Savior?" But it all found its completion on the third day when Christ rose from the dead.

Consider Isaiah 53, which was written 700 years before Jesus died on the cross. I want to focus on verse 11: "When he, that's Jesus, sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. Because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all of their sins." The suffering servant would not just die; he would see life again. The resurrection validates every single prophetic word about Jesus. Without the resurrection, all of the prophecies of the Old Testament are void and meaningless. They have not been fulfilled yet.

Moreover, think about how God prepared His people, the Jews, for a resurrected Savior, specifically with the story of Jonah. Jesus said that just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, he would be three days in the ground, but he would not remain there. Just like Jonah, who did not remain in the whale and was spit out, Jesus was raised from the dead.

Honestly, when we get to heaven, Jonah has to be one of the first characters I really want to meet. You have to wonder, what was it really like in the belly of a whale?

Like, how did that really work? I have questions, and I can't wait. Praise be to God! Heaven is going to be so much better than we can ever possibly imagine.

But especially, think about all the people in the Bible, your favorite characters that you're just eager to know more about. For instance, when Jonah was thrown into the water, did he really think it was going to be a fish that ate him? Or did he just think he was going to drown? I would have thought, "I'm just going to die in the water." But no, he got eaten by a fish. Just like Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, so the Son of Man was three days in the ground. But that stone was rolled away on Easter morning, three days later, because God makes promises, and He keeps promises precisely, perfectly, and every time.

See, if God is faithful to raise Jesus from the dead on the third day, exactly as He promised, what does that mean for every single promise that He's made to us in the New Testament? It means that God guarantees them, right? That's really good news for us—that God guarantees every single promise that He's ever made.

For example, when He promised us to never leave or forsake us, He is going to be near to the brokenhearted and those who are crushed in spirit. That is guaranteed. When He promises to work all things together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose, that is guaranteed as well. Though we might not see that right away—most of the time we don't—we have to remember that because we're made in the image of God, we often act like gods ourselves. We need to be humbled to get ourselves out of the way so we can actually communicate with God. Sometimes we have to be brought low; we have to experience points of pain so we can look up and see the author and perfecter of our faith.

When He promises us eternal life to all who believe in Him, that is guaranteed. The resurrection ultimately is God's signature on every promise in the Scriptures. It's Him saying, "I'm signing this promise. It is guaranteed. It's going to happen because I am faithful. I do what I say." That's the God that we serve. That's really good, isn't it? That's really awesome.

But you might still be saying, "Okay, but how do you know the resurrection actually happened?" There are a lot of different ways that I can go about answering that question. The first would be the transformed life of all the disciples. The second would be the transformed life of me, my own life, and the transformed life of you, the church. It's undeniable—the power of the resurrection. Look at the power of the resurrection in the disciples' lives.

You have 11 men because Judas hung himself, so he wasn't part of the group. However, you have 11 men left, and they were all fearful and hiding after Jesus died. How do you go from this place of a defeated disciple to a bold proclaimer of a risen Savior? How do you get there? Because it actually happened, right? It actually happened because there has to be something more to this life.

How can the resurrection be possible? How can man really be raised from the dead? You see, I've been reading a really interesting book, and some of you might find it interesting too. It's by an author named Lee Strobel. Some of you might have heard of him; he's written a lot of books, but he just wrote this one called Seeing the Supernatural: Investigating Angels, Demons, Mystical Dreams, Near-Death Encounters, and the Mysteries of the Unseen World.

Now, if you're like me, you might think that sounds interesting, right? Angels, demons, mysteries of the unseen world, and near-death encounters or experiences. How many of you have heard of near-death experiences? It's incredible, right? Some people, like those on their deathbed or medically proclaimed dead, have this out-of-body experience where they can hear everything going on in the surgery room or operating room. They can see things that they otherwise would not be able to see because they're on an operating table.

When they come back to life, when they're revived, they share about these experiences, and it's a wild testimony. This book goes into detail about what happens with all the different accounts that are even scientifically verifiable—that these people actually were clinically dead and then came back. It talks a lot about angels, demons, and mystical dreams.

The whole point of it, though, is this: I think it's really interesting because Strobel makes a fascinating point that in the last century or so, specifically, but even more than that, we have developed a view of science as the new gold standard of truth. We, as a culture, have developed in the West the idea that science is the ultimate gold standard determining what is true and what is real. However, we know that there's more to life than what just meets the eye, more than the natural.

Are the natural and the supernatural in conflict? Is the Bible in conflict with science? No, I don't believe it is. But because we've developed this scientific method as the gold standard, we often overlook the deeper truths that lie beyond our immediate understanding.

The standard of determining what is truly real, what can be tested, and what can be true has essentially led our culture to write off anything that is supernatural or potentially real because we can't prove its existence by the scientific method. Does that make sense?

He makes another interesting point. He states that if you say the statement, "science is the only begetter of truth," or that "science is the ultimate determiner of truth," that statement itself is not scientific because it cannot be tested by the scientific method. I thought, man, that's hilarious, but it's true. A lot of science, and a lot of scientism, if you will, is rooted in claims that are really assumptions—unverifiable. It's wild.

Now, is science to be thrown out? Absolutely not. My point is that there is more to our life than we can see, feel, taste, or touch. God made us fearfully and wonderfully; we are not just a body, but we also have a soul and a spirit. This means there is more to our existence than just this life. I can't explain to you scientifically, or even necessarily as a pastor, why these people are truly experiencing what they are. However, the testimonies of near-death experiences and the stories I have heard prove to me one thing: we are more than just our body. You have a soul, and your soul is eternal. The desire you have in your heart for eternal life, for life after death, is something that God wrote into our species. He made us with that desire because we are made for eternal life with Him.

You can't scientifically prove a lot of things, but we believe them to be true. A good example of this is morality. It is wrong to torture babies. I can't scientifically prove that it is wrong, but we all know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is wrong. If you don't agree with me, you are a lunatic.

You also can't scientifically prove that your spouse loves you. There is no way to put this in a formula and figure out if your spouse actually loves you, but you know they do, right? You can't put justice or beauty into a test tube and test it with the scientific method. Yet we see beauty, we understand beauty, and we want justice. We have this desire for justice because God built it into us; we want there to be justice.

You can't measure the scientific method itself by using the scientific method. We just trust it. The resurrection, though, operates in what I would consider the realm of history. It's not a repeatable laboratory experiment. If it were, we would have people being raised from the dead all around us. That's not happening. Jesus specifically said that. He said that if you were going to have people being raised from the dead, it would be happening, but that's not the case.

Jesus made a unique claim that no other religious figure has ever made: he said he was going to die and, specifically three days later, he would rise from the dead. No other religious figure in history has ever made a claim like that. My question goes back to how the disciples went from defeated followers to bold proclaimers. I believe that the historical evidence for the resurrection can and should be very compelling to us as believers. If you're a skeptic, it should be compelling to you as well.

Christianity claims that a specific man died and rose at a particular time and place, making it uniquely verifiable in history. No historian will deny the existence of Jesus Christ. He was a man who lived 2,000 years ago in a specific place, and he died. Those are undeniable, verifiable facts. You can actually go back and find a plethora of evidence for this. But the real question comes back to: did he raise from the dead?

On top of all this, we have eyewitness testimony. In a court of law, eyewitness testimony is king; it's really important. If you can get corroborating eyewitness evidence, then your case is set, and you will have a really solid case.

If you go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, just a couple of verses here, starting in verse three through verse eight, we read this: Paul says, "For I delivered to you first that which I also received." What did Paul receive? That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. He was seen by Cephas and then by the twelve, and he was seen by over 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present.

What Paul is saying when he writes this letter to the church in Corinth is that 500 people saw Jesus at the same time.

That's some pretty solid eyewitness testimony. Five hundred people saw Him at once. On top of that, many of them, most of them, are still around today, meaning that you can go find these people—these men and women who saw the risen Christ—and you can talk to them for yourself. You can ask them about their experience, what they actually saw.

This was written very close to the time of the resurrection, which is really important. If it was falsifiable, if people could easily go back and say, "No, nobody ever saw Jesus risen from the dead. It's all made up. It's all lies, a man-made myth," then you could just go talk to those people and decide for yourself whether they had a genuine encounter with Jesus Christ or not. Does it align with what the next person says about their encounter with Jesus?

You will have people who tell you, "Yeah, Jesus was walking with us on the road to Emmaus, and He was telling us about all the Scriptures. Then our eyes were opened, and it was Him. Man, it was cool." Then you would have others saying, "Yeah, I was sitting down on the side of the lake, eating fish, and He came and cooked me up some food. He ate fish with me."

Then there's the story of Thomas, right? Doubting Thomas was told that Jesus was raised from the dead. He was told that the tomb was empty, and he said, "I'm not believing this. I don't believe it." Jesus appears to him and says, "Thomas, look at my hands. Look at the scars in my hands."

See, Jesus was not just raised from the dead in a spiritual sense as a soul. He was raised bodily from the dead, which guarantees us a bodily resurrection hope. The material world, the bodies that we inhabit, are not all that there is. God is planning to redeem and restore all of creation that has fallen due to sin.

Here's the beautiful irony of the resurrection: when Jesus rose bodily, I believe that He is validating the physical world that our modern materialism claims to champion. The modern materialistic or scientistic worldview believes that all there is, is what is material—what can be tested, what can be seen, and what can be touched and felt. The supernatural, they argue, must be left out because we can't verify it.

But Jesus here is actually validating the physical world by rising from the dead in bodily form, being able to be touched, and being able to eat fish with His disciples. He was present in a physical, resurrected body.

So point number three on your outlines is this: the resurrection validates the material world.

And it promises its ultimate redemption. You see, as Christians, this is really good news. How many of you can't wait to receive your new bodies in heaven? I really can't wait for that day. The glorified body that Jesus shows up with is doing all kinds of cool stuff. He's walking through walls, but then he's still physical; he can be touched and he can eat. Oh man, I think heaven is going to be so much better than any of us can ever imagine. What God has planned for us is going to be so much better than anything we can ever conceive because ultimately, God is not calling Christians into some kind of escapism where we just need to escape this world and the pain of this world and the physicality of this world through death. No, He's actually saying, "What I'm going to do is redeem everything that was created that fell when we sinned." Everything that was created is going to be redeemed by Jesus, including you and me, our physical bodies, and this physical world.

For those of you who care about our planet, guess what? God is going to remake it. He's going to renew it. He's going to restore it in a way that we can hardly ever imagine. And why does this matter for us? Because it shows that God cares about the material world that He created. When God created everything in Genesis, He said, "It is good." This is good, right? But when we look at the world around us, we think this is bad. Why? Because sin came into the world, and through sin, death and the curse of sin not only affected us but also the world that we inhabit. Praise be to God that He plans to restore it because Christianity isn't about escaping our bodies or this physical world that we live in. It's about their ultimate redemption and restoration.

That's why when Christ raises from the dead, the resurrection promises us new life after death. Not only that, it has some seriously profound implications. He's giving us a preview of what's coming. In 1 Corinthians 15, we can look at verses 42 through 44. It says, "So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, but it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body."

See, Christ Himself made the claim in Revelation that He came to make all things new, and He says, "Write these things down."

Because they're true and they're faithful. Jesus said in John 10:10, "The thief came to steal, to kill, and destroy, but I came that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly." Jesus came to give us specifically, to offer us abundant life, new life, better life—not just good life, but eternal life.

So how should we view the physical and natural world? First, we need to realize that our body is not in its final form; it's a project. And guess what? It's decaying. Your body is not just a shell for your soul; it's part of God's good creation that will be raised and renewed. The work that we do with our hands, the beautiful things that we create, and the relationships that we build—none of that is temporary or meaningless. It's all part of the world that God is going to redeem.

God made us in His own image. Romans 8:21 tells us that creation itself, which is awesome, will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. This means that when we rise, all of creation rises with us. The empty tomb is not just about Jesus going to heaven; it's about heaven coming to earth. Jesus is starting with His resurrection body, and it culminates in the new heavens and the new earth, where we will live forever with Him in glorified bodies on a renewed creation. That is the hope that we have because Christ raised from the dead.

Praise be to God that He did that for us. Point number one: praise be to God that He did that for us. Point number four on your outlines is this: God's desire for you is to share in His resurrection. It wasn't just for Jesus. When Jesus died and rose again, He showed off His glorified body by appearing to the multitudes—500 people, the disciples, all the people that He knew. When He appeared to them in His glorified resurrected body, like He did on the Mount of Transfiguration, He was showing them all, "This is the reality that you're going to inherit when you follow Me." This is going to be your new reality, and God has this deep desire to share in His resurrection with us.

He wants to share it. Romans 6:4 says, "Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we should walk in newness of life." How many of us need new life today? How many of us need to experience the resurrection power that is at work in us today through Jesus Christ? We need that. We need that power to go from the fearful disciples who were hiding in the upper room to the bold proclaimers of the truth who could go and make a defense for the good news that they believe in Jesus Christ, that he rose from the dead.

Our greatest enemy has been defeated. When you trust in Christ, you share in his death to sin and his resurrection to a new life. The same power that was at work in Jesus, that raised him from the dead, is at work in you, breaking chains of addiction. It can be breaking and transforming broken relationships, giving us hope in despair, and providing us strength every single day. That's good news. That is the resurrection power that works in us.

Another reason I believe we can trust in the resurrection is because of how it transforms the lives of those who put their faith and hope in Jesus Christ. It is undeniable how people's lives have been utterly changed from one person to another because of their belief in Jesus Christ. He completely changes them. What God desires for us is not just eternal existence, but eternal existence with him—new resurrection life. He wants you to experience victory over sin now and victory over death forever.

I will close with C.S. Lewis's argument. I promised you I would have an answer. He says that Jesus could have either been a liar, a lunatic, or he could be Lord. I will add another option for all of our keyboard warriors out there on the internet: he could have just been a legend. This means that the Jesus of history is not who the Gospels depict, that the writings of the Gospels do not accurately represent the Jesus of history, and that these are really just legends.

The challenge is that C.S. Lewis makes it clear throughout his books that he does not believe the genre of the Gospels is legend. The way they are written is not like a legend. Additionally, C.S. Lewis did not have this information in his day, but we now have manuscript evidence—meaning the actual original documents of our New Testament books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—that date back to the very early church. These are some of the oldest documents ever found that tell us this.

The word of God that we are reading today has not been changed in 2,000 years. That's powerful stuff. This is not a legend. Therefore, I believe that Jesus must be Lord.

I’m going to invite our worship team up, and we’re going to partake in communion. You might be asking, "Okay, Pastor Garrett, how do we share in the resurrection of Christ? How do I share in the resurrection of Christ?" It begins right here at the Lord's Supper. It’s not just us remembering that He died; it’s a celebration of His resurrection life that He offers to share with you. The broken bread reminds us that His body was broken, but more importantly, that it was raised and renewed. The cup reminds us that His blood was shed—not just shed, but made eternally effective by His rising.

So when you take communion, you’re not just remembering what Jesus did; you’re participating in what He continues to do through His resurrection life. Before we partake, if you don’t have these, you can raise your hands, and the ushers would be happy to bring you one.

I have just two exhortations I want to give you, some encouragement for the believers and maybe for those of you who are visiting us this morning who don’t believe. I thank you for sitting through our message or listening online.

The first one for the believers: the resurrection is important for your life today. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 58. He concludes his chapter with these words: "Therefore, my beloved brethren, stand fast or be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain." That’s my encouragement I wanted to leave you with. Because we know that Jesus raised from the dead, you also have this resurrection power living in your life. So be steadfast, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Know that your labor for the Lord is not in vain, believers. His word does not return void. Stand firm in your faith.

For those of you who haven’t believed in Jesus Christ yet, maybe you’re still skeptical about all of this. That’s okay. My encouragement for you is this: two weeks ago, I got to welcome one of the coolest things in my life—welcoming my kids on their birthday. Being in the hospital and welcoming new life into this world has got to be one of the coolest experiences you can ever have.

It's just awesome. There are really no words to describe it. It's a miracle. However, what I think is even more miraculous and exciting is seeing people receive new life in Jesus Christ. Why? Because I'm welcoming Henry this week. Just two weeks ago, he began his temporary life, right? But I get to welcome you all and offer you eternal life, where I get to be with you forever. That is the greatest gift that I could ever offer, that Christ could ever offer you this morning.

The Scriptures declare, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts against Him." Believe and be saved, for Jesus said He came to seek and to save that which is lost. If you simply confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. You can partake of communion with us this morning. So with that, let's partake together.

Let's read from First Corinthians, chapter 11. Paul says, "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread. And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'Take, eat. This is My body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.'" Let's partake of the bread together.

In the same manner, Jesus also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." Let's partake of the cup together.

Heavenly Father, I thank You so much that You offer us resurrected life, new life in You. I thank You that Jesus came to this earth from heaven, lived a perfect life, and then gave Himself willingly, Lord, for Your purposes to redeem mankind and all of creation that has fallen.

Father, I pray that there would be new people here this morning who would experience Your resurrection life, that they would be born again and put their faith and trust in You. May we experience Your resurrection life in a whole new way. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.