Well hey guys, welcome to Mercy Hill across all of the triad, all of our campuses. Man, we're excited to celebrate the resurrection today. If you are new with us, I want to tell you that you are an honored guest and we are really excited to have you every year at Easter. We will have hundreds and hundreds of brand new people, not just here at the Ridge, but at our campuses as well. And so if that's you, I just want to be maybe I'm the third, fourth, or fifth person that said it, but welcome.
And we're excited that you're here. I know if you're new, this might be a little foreign, okay, because I got to do a little bit of a family meeting just real quick for about one minute, okay? It's really exciting, though. You guys know if you're part of Mercy Hill that for the month of March, we were opening up a fund that you could give to that goes directly to Christian adoptions that are happening within our church, okay? It's called it was a chosen fund, and this chosen fund is, there's no overhead in it, all right?
It's not staffing, it's not anything like that. That stuff's all just taken care of in our budget. This was a fund that you could give to, and every dollar. Of it is going to go towards families in our church that are stepping forward to adopt. All right, so you guys know we have this big goal: 1,000 chosen children by 2030.
That's adoption, foster care, and families that are helped through Families Count. We think about 100 of those thousand are going to be adopted right here in this church. And for that to happen, we would love for the church to be the first partner, all right, for financially with our people. And so it's basically just do the math: it's about $5,000 per 100 families, $500,000 goal.
So we set that big goal in March: $500,000. And guys, you gave $510,000. Can we praise God? For that. Amen.
Amen. I've been shocked by a lot at Mercy Hill. This is up there, okay? Because this is the church, in my opinion, putting their treasure where they want their heart to be. That's what Jesus said: where your treasure is, your heart will be.
We have tied our heart. To the cause of these 1,000 chosen children, all right. We have tied it to them in terms of our generosity, and now we believe that our heart is going to follow.
So, exciting times, all right. Hey, we're gonna be at First Corinthians chapter 15 today. If you have a copy of scripture, I want you to take it out, turn with me there. If not, I'm gonna have the scripture on the screen for you. But, man, what I wanna talk about today, surprise, surprise, is the resurrection of Christ and how it changes everything about everything.
All right, and it certainly changed everything about world history. 2,000 years ago, a movement was born that has done nothing but grow and multiply for the last 2,000 years. All right, a Middle Eastern Jewish carpenter was born, walked on this earth, assembled a little band of followers that might as well have been assembled from the island of Misfit Toys, okay. And next thing you know, they turn the whole world upside down. No political power, no military power, no money to speak of, and yet the entire world is different.
Guys, 100 years ago there was 600 or 700,000 Christians.
Now there's over 2 billion. In that 2 billion, you have people from every single walk of life. The Christian movement, this is a fact, is the most sociologically diverse movement that has ever existed in the history of the world. All right, you are having, in our country this year, there will be hundreds of thousands of people that are baptized. My point is: this: it's not going anywhere.
All right, right now, 120 countries, major countries, say that the dominant religion in their country is Christianity. What happened? 2,000 years ago. How could something multiply with that kind of power? It's not just out there somewhere, though.
It's right here. Guys, right here at home. It's not going anywhere. It's growing. Do you know what the two most engaged generations are with their faith right now in this country?
Millennial and Gen Z? The people who are seeking the most are younger men in our country that are coming back to the faith and they're seeking out what God might be doing in them. And it's not just happening out there somewhere, it's happening right here. Guys, in this church right here, and I know some of you are brand new. Hopefully, you're going to see us at our best today.
Man, we talked about the adoption fund. We're going to be doing baptisms. But, man, God is just moving like crazy. I mean, we'll see. People are stepping forward to adoption.
They're moving overseas to be missionaries. They're planting new churches. They're starting new community groups. We have people that are sharing the gospel left and right. We had a couple this week that shared the gospel with another couple in Costco, and one of the people got saved.
Okay? Seriously. I'm serious. I mean, hey, praise God, right? Yeah.
You go for the 35 pounds of chicken, you leave with Jesus. I mean, it's just like, it's incredible. We got people in our church right now. Many of you, your kids, your kids are so concerned about inviting their friends and making sure that they have an opportunity to come and hear the gospel. In this room right here, I know the campuses, it was at the ridge, but in this room right here, guys, well over 600 college students gathered for worship Tuesday night.
15 of them were baptized Tuesday night, right here in this room. Praise God. And my point is this: okay, if you are searching, which hundreds of you are, I promise you, I know that, all right, on Easter, you're coming in, you're trying to figure it out, you're not real sure where you land with this whole faith thing. You've got to wrestle with something. 2,000 years ago, something happened.
That changed the course of history. It has changed the course of our nation. It has changed the course of thousands of lives right here in one local church, Mercy Hill. What happened? What is the power of all of this?
And guys, there's a lot of things you could point to. But the main thing you would point to is this. There is a claim that stands as the bedrock. of the Christian movement. And that claim is simply this.
Jesus Christ is alive. He is alive today. You could say it like this in a big idea if you're taking notes. Jesus Christ was resurrected and is alive today. And if that is true, it changes everything about everything.
Because if he is alive and he gave his life for you, it not only shows you that there is a purpose in this life that you don't need to go find and discover from within, but it's bestowed on you from without. That there is a creator in the world who has you here for some reason and that he loves you enough to send his son to die on the cross for you and be resurrected for you. It changes everything about our life. It changes the trajectory of our life. And some of us right here, I pray, man, you're going to accept this truth and you're going to see what kind of change I'm talking about.
I want to dive into 1 Corinthians 15 with you this morning. Here's what it says. For I delivered to you. As of first importance, what I also received. This is the Apostle Paul talking somewhere 20 years after Jesus went to the cross and was resurrected.
That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
Now, notice with me in verse 3 that he says this: I delivered to you what I received. Paul did not make something up to keep to himself. He was receiving something that he then wanted to deliver. And what that means is very simple, all right? But it actually matters.
Paul is receiving this gospel message in a creedal form. All right, this language here is actually not very Pauline when he says Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Most commentators will point out that this was actually already a creed or a saying in the early church before Paul even picked it up. Here's why that matters: because if you've seen somewhere on an Instagram reel that some guru says, Hey, Christians made up a story about the resurrection 300 years after Jesus walked the face of the earth to kind of boost their claim, that is just absolutely bogus. From the very first days after Jesus was gone off of this earth, Christians latched on to this as of first importance, that he died for our sin, that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
My point is this. Christians have always believed in the resurrection since Jesus died and raised from the dead. This has been the bedrock of our entire. Hey, Paul said it like this: if Jesus is dead, then I'm a fool. And I would say the same thing.
I'm the biggest fool of us all. I'm sitting up here talking about this stuff, okay? But if he's alive, Okay, if he's alive, then it changes everything about the way we live and what we live for. And that's why Paul says, notice with me again in verse 3, that he says this is of, and I quote, first importance. First importance.
It's not, hey, this gospel message: live, died, buried, resurrected, it's not second importance. It's not third importance. It's first importance, right? And it's first importance for this reason. Every single one of us understands that we have a sin problem that has to be solved.
Actually, that is not unique to Christianity, okay? Every major world religion agrees about one thing. You and I have got some major issues, okay? We have some problems, humanity does. And that is universally agreed upon with all the major world religions.
Now, the difference in Christianity and the other major world religions is that the other major world religions say this: well, because of our sin problem, we need to become more moral. We need to try to do better, right? If we can muster up the energy to become better people, then God will accept us one day. And of course, Christianity says, no, no, no, no, no. There's no way you can become good enough for God to accept you.
What needs to happen in your life is that Jesus covers you. He wipes away that bad slate of sin and shame and guilt, and he makes you into a new person. That's why he died, was buried, and was raised from the dead, which is the creed from the early church. He died for us, meaning this. You and I in our sin, we deserve hell, we deserve death, we deserve separation from God for all eternity.
That's how ugly our sin is.
So Jesus went to the cross and died death for us. Then he resurrects on the third day, opening for us an opportunity to join him in the newness of life. It's a new humanity that the Lord founds, right? And so that's what he's talking about here. It changes everything about the way we think about life and death.
You know, death is the great enemy of humanity. I mean, you and I, we can act pretty tough, but at the end of the day, in the dark of night. You know, death is one of those things that's out there that we're like, man, I don't really know what happens after that. I don't know whose presence I'm gonna be in. I don't know if there's an afterlife.
It kind of gets to us. It's a great enemy. And yet, for the Christian, and I'm not saying death is not scary, certainly not saying that we invite it. But what I am saying is that for the believer, we would say, and Paul says this later in 1 Corinthians 15. Death, where is your sting?
It has been swallowed up in the victory of Christ. I don't invite it. I'm not excited about it. But at the same time, I understand that when I walk off of this planet into the next life, I am walking into an eternal kingdom. Where Jesus is at this moment preparing a place for you and I, if we are part of that new humanity, He took the sting for us so that what's left for us is not fear and shame and guilt.
What's left for us is the joy of the newness of life. I heard a story. About a dad who was riding down the road with his windows down, which I always do. And so his kid, three or four years old, and maybe you've had kids in your life like this, scared to death of bees. I mean, you might as well, I mean, a bee might as well be a monster, okay?
It just scares them absolutely to death. Bee flies in. Kid starts to go crazy because he's so scared of it and crying and all this stuff. And Dad's trying to smack it and swipe it and smash it all. And he can't.
Well, the bee comes by, and dad finally understands: like, man, this kid is very, very scared. He reaches out and grabs it, grabs the bee, knowing what's going to happen.
Okay, grabs the bee. and kind of shuffles it, throws it out the window. Looks at the child and says, Hey, you know, man, hey, calm down, B. I just threw it out in the window. Child says, No, B's still alive.
He could come back and attack us again.
Okay, so.
So then dad says because you know bees only sting once He says, Oh, no, no, no, child, and he opens his hand and that stinger right there. Already swelling, stinger right there. No, no, child. That bee cannot sting you because he stung me. That's what Jesus has done for us.
There is no fear. There doesn't have to be fear because Jesus has taken the sting of death for us.
Now, here's what Paul says: He says, of first importance, gospel. Got it? And I pray that some of you guys are going to accept it today. You don't even know it yet. All right.
Well, our church has been praying for a week that somebody in here, right now, many of you, we get saved and baptized today, didn't even know it when you woke up this morning. All right.
It's going to be the Easter that changes your life. But what he says now is, Okay, I've just, Paul says this, I've just told you this story about a guy who lived, died, buried, resurrected.
Now I wanna turn your attention to some witnesses who saw that. And here's what he says. And he appeared to Cephas. That's Peter. Then to the 12, so there's this chain, right?
1, 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time. most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
Now what is Paul doing here? Why does he make this statement? Hey, there were 500 people that saw Jesus resurrected all at once. We don't know exactly what that event was. Maybe it was the ascension of Christ.
I'm not sure.
Okay? But he makes the point. There were 500 of them. Go and he says many of them are still alive. What's he inviting people to do?
He's inviting people to go and investigate the claim. That's the idea. Hey, go ask them. They were there.
Now, why would he be telling people to go investigate the claim? Because he knows what he's saying sounds a little crazy. Can I give you a, can I bring you into something here?
Okay. Many of us in 2026, we don't want to think about it like this, but we do. We look back at people 2,000 years ago and we think they were kind of dumb and gullible. And so, what we think is, well, 2,000 years ago, well, of course, people thought a resurrection could happen or whatever. I mean, we're very modern now.
You know, we don't think like that now. And that's funny because it sounds really smart, and actually, it's literally a logical fallacy, okay? It's called appealing to modernity. If you think just because we have benefited from history and technology for 2,000 years that fundamentally we're really any different than they were back then, then you've appealed to modernity. You're saying, well, just because it's new, it's right, and that's not in and of itself good reasoning.
Okay? Here's what I want you to understand. 2,000 years ago, a resurrection would be just as shocking as it is today. All right.
If you told me, hey, my friend died, I went to the funeral, and then the next week I'm standing in line at Tractor Supply, and he just came up and said, What's up, man? I would think you're pretty crazy, right? And so Paul understands that. He knows what he's saying sounds a little crazy. That doesn't mean it's not true, but it sounds a little crazy.
And so he says, hey, go find the witnesses and ask them what they saw. And this is what I want to ask you today. Let's reason together.
Some of you today might be here and you're like, man, I'm not totally sure. But all this stuff with Jesus, and I've seen all this stuff online, and all this kind of stuff. And I want to really push you today. I don't want to say, hey, let's reason together. Just like he says, go look for the witnesses.
Man, let's talk about it. You and I, if you're a believer, all right, if you're a Christian, I know not everybody is. At our campuses, we're probably this crazy mix today of people that are searching and people that feel like they have found the way. But if you are a believer, you understand. Your faith is built.
on these witnesses. Who told somebody, who told somebody, who told somebody, who told you? That that's it. Like our faith goes all the way back to the witnesses that are here. They say they saw it.
They told somebody else they saw it. They wrote down what they saw. And if you're a believer, you've looked at it and you've said, I think they're right. I believe what they're saying. All right, so the idea of witnesses, and I wanna witness to you today, if you're not a believer.
I want to try to kind of bring you in and say, well, let's reason together. Let me witness to you about what has happened and the testimony that has been passed down. And let me say this: one more thing, and then I want to get into a couple of things about the resurrection here, a little proofs of the resurrection, or at least try to dismantle some major arguments about the resurrection, okay? Hey, I want you to know.
Some of us are choosing agnosticism in our culture, which means I just choose not to make a decision. I just choose to say, who could know? I don't know. We're choosing that because we feel like there is such a glut of information out there that many of you right now, even at our campuses, might be thinking to yourself, yeah, well, whatever he's going to say, I can find 15 other gurus on YouTube that'll say the exact opposite. They'll bring some new thing up.
And this is on all the shorts. And I can find people, professor, this, gurus that'll say the exact opposite. I want you to understand something, okay? This is not YouTube. Right?
This is I'm really here. And you're really there. And you and the campuses are really there. And maybe, this is not sitting around swiping something like that. This is real.
We're really reasoning together, okay? And maybe. is that God has brought you to this moment. Not to hear something new. I don't have a new twist and a new spin.
This is not something new. I want to tell you something really, really old. That has withstood the test of thousands of years. Jesus Christ is alive. Now, Here's the deal.
Everybody understands that the body of Jesus Christ was never was never produced. And it's a fact that has to be contended with. And I'm telling you, go down the list, all right? If you think about not outside of the Bible, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Tacitus, go look this stuff up. They're writing in the first century AD and it's just an undeniable fact.
We know that Jesus Christ was killed. His believers claim that he was resurrected. That claim could have been put to bed in one second if the most powerful people in the land who wanted it to go away could have found the body, the Romans and the Jews, but they didn't.
So the fact that Jesus died The fact that his body was never produced, that's undeniable.
Now, what happened, right? Because Christians claim there's a resurrection that was foretold for thousands of years before it even happened in the Old Testament, New Testament. But what you have is you have people that pretty much end up in about three arguments. And those, I mean, there's more, but they kind of start to devolve into nonsense, okay? There's three good ones, if you want to call it that, all right?
And those three arguments pretty much boil down to this. The first argument is: well, we understand the fact of the resurrection, we understand the fact of the crucifixion, and we know the body was never produced, and we know it started a world-changing, you know, kind of event because a resurrection was claimed. It must be that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross.
Okay, that's the first thing. It's called the swoon theory. The swoon theory says, well, Jesus didn't really die on the cross, he just appeared to die.
Now, the problem with this, of course, is that you're talking about the Romans, who are the most expert civilization they could have been when it comes to torture and death. And the cross was the centerpiece of their brutality. The cross was the centerpiece of their intimidation. All right.
The fact that we would have Roman executioners put Jesus on a cross after he's been scourged, nail him there, all of the dehydration, then when they know he's dead, kind of proving it to be true by thrusting a spear into his side in which blood and water flowed out from around his heart, okay? To look at that and then say we're going to take him off the cross, put him in a tomb, and three days later he wakes up because he actually wasn't dead, is strong enough to roll the stone away, and then appears to everybody in what they said was a glorified state, meaning some kind of way, the crucifixion and the three days gave him some kind of glow up, okay? And it's just kind of like, yeah, I don't really think.
Okay, so I'm gonna tell you: the idea that he wasn't dead takes more faith to believe than that he was dead and resurrected in some sense.
Well, the second thing, very quickly here, is that, well, the disciples stole the body.
Now this one probably, in my opinion, would be the best argument if it wasn't for this. Disciples stealing the body is not plausible for this reason. The disciples went from a people, follow this, that were denying Christ while he was alive. to dying for him after what they said was his resurrection.
Okay, they went from I I'm I'm I'm denying To now dying for. And you say, well, people die for their faith all the time. Oh, no, no, no. What you're saying then, if they stole the body and then they went to their own crosses and went to their own martyrdom, is not that they died for what they believed, but that they died for what they knew was a lie. A lot of people will die for their belief.
But nobody dies for what they know is a lie. Nobody. And I think that's the thing about the disciples. All the years later, nobody ever flipped. Nobody ever said, well, we did this.
Well, we stole that. We did this. It never happened. And if it would have happened, Christianity would have been stamped out in the first century. You know, there's a funny story that kind of goes with this.
Chuck Coulson, if you guys know Chuck Colson, he was Nixon's kind of hatchet man, and he got all involved in Watergate, you know, 1972, Watergate scandal. They break into the DNC and then they use government stuff to cover this and that, and Nixon doesn't run for president and all that stuff.
Well, one of the guys that took the fall for that was a guy named Chuck Coulson. Chuck Colson though ended up getting saved. And it's funny because through all of this, Chuck Coulson makes a very astute observation, and he says, It was Watergate that convinced me that the resurrection was true. I thought, well, that's a pretty big jump. All right.
How do we get there? Here's what he said. And he was involved. Watergate involved 12 of the most powerful men in the world, and they couldn't keep the lie for three weeks. All they needed to do was stay tight on their story.
And they couldn't keep the lie for three weeks. He said, you're telling me that 12 apostles could keep a lie like this for 40 years? Absolutely impossible. All right? Man, the idea the disciples stole the body, honestly, it's laughable.
Of course, the third and maybe final, but there are more, but the third one is pretty quick. It's this idea of shared dreaming. There are people, Bart Ehrman's one of them, UNC Chapel Hill professor that deconstructs people's faith. And there's others who say, well, it's clear that there was no body. And it's also clear that the disciples believed there was a resurrection because of the way that they acted afterward.
It must be that they had dreams or delusions or visions. They have seen visions of Jesus and they kind of internalize that and they thought that he had resurrected. I mean, at some point you started saying, come on, man. Like, I mean, having a vision is one thing. 500 people having the same vision at the same time.
You understand? Like, it's 500 people. It's not like my vision, your vision, my delusion, your delusion. The 12 apostles or the 500 are now dreaming in real time, all together. They all see Jesus within their minds.
That is a pretty interesting Leonardo DiCaprio movie called Inception, okay, if you guys remember. But that's not really reality. Like, people don't share the same dreams at the same time.
Now, people go on. Oh, the disciples forgot which tomb they laid Jesus in. I mean, come on. What ends up happening, this is the point, okay? What ends up happening with these arguments is that you end up kind of devolving into a little bit of nonsense.
And I think the actual heart of the matter gets revealed. Cause you know what the heart of the matter is many times? Many times, it's not an intellectual problem. It's a heart problem. The heart problem of if the mountain is rebellion.
The dynamite of intellectual argumentation will not move it.
So some of us are like, well, I don't know about Jesus, and it's intellectual. If you could just make it make sense to me, then I would. Is that really what's going on? Or is it possible today that what's actually going on is that there is a rebellion in my heart that says, man, I don't want there to be somebody else that's the Lord of my life. Man, if God created me for a purpose and sent his son, Jesus, to die for me, then I submit to him.
Y'all, we sang it. I don't know if you guys saw how aggressive that song was that we did. How long can Babylon stand? Every knee will bow.
Some of us are like, man, I don't know that I want that.
Well, if that's the case, then intellectual argumentation is not going to blow that rebellion mountain. What will, though, is understanding the heart behind why God sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for you in the first place. Listen, if you can accept all arguments, can do, they can shift the sand under your feet. That's all they can do. They can kind of lift the roof and let the sun shine a little bit in.
But at the end of the day, you gotta wrestle with this. Wait. If it is possible that Jesus is resurrected, Why did God do that? And here's why. Because he did it out of love for you.
Man, remember the Creed? Died, buried, resurrected. Why?
So that you could come into his kingdom once again. And I pray that you will. He wants you to come into his family. Here's the application: trust in the resurrection and be baptized today. All right.
Trust the resurrection and be baptized. This is what we've really got to wrestle with. If the gospel is true, if Jesus did come, die, and buried, and resurrected for you, that is some kind of love that the Father has, quote, lavished upon you. That you would be called his sons and daughters, 1 John 3:1. And for you to come into his presence, it changes everything about everything.
You say, okay, man, what happens in my life if I were to give my life to Christ today, admit my sin, believe in him, confess him as the Lord of my life?
Well, I'm going to tell you what happens. All of a sudden, you never live one more day not knowing what the purpose is for which you were created. You are here to glorify Him by living life the way He calls us to live. It is for our joy, it is for His glory. Man, you're part of a mission, you're part of a people, the new humanity.
You're given a church, you're given a future, you're given a calling, you're given a destiny, you're given the Spirit of God inside of you to never feel alone again. You will always have someone communing with you and convincing you of what Christ has done and convincing you of your relationship with the Lord. Man, not only that, you have a future in heaven. You know, we don't talk about hell enough, okay? I was.
I was driving in eastern North Carolina a couple years ago. I see a church called Brimstone Baptist Church. They don't play at Brimstone.
Okay. And my thought is like, man, yeah, we need to do more of that. Shoot you super straight. Look at the alternative. If Jesus Christ is alive today and you reject him, we walk off of this planet right into a place called hell.
Burning hellfire for all eternity. And yet, the opposite of that is open for us today: that in His resurrection, He has opened a door that you and I can walk into everlasting life. And heaven is not maybe what you're thinking.
Some people have this view of heaven, like, oh, I'm gonna turn into like a Cupid, sitting on a cloud, you know, playing a harp or something. That sounds more like hell to me.
Okay, we're talking about heaven, y'all. We're talking about a restored creation. No tears. Man, we're talking about a constant communion with our God where every breath is totally sinless. Can you imagine not warring with your flesh any longer, but living every single moment of every single day under God's sight?
For his glory. Can you imagine the relationships that we will build with each other 100 million years into our existence in heaven? This is all before you right now. It's all there. And I pray that maybe you would.
Pray that maybe you would take a few minutes today to consider some of these things, all right? I want to ask you to bow your head and close your eyes for just a minute. As we go into a time where we can have a moment to pray here. And I know some of you are maybe newer. If you're newer, just don't, man, and you're like, that weirds me out, then just don't do it.
You'd be alright. But uh but hey, if you want to just kind of quiet your heart for a moment You know, Christians a lot of times bow their head, close their eyes just to try to get some space, man, just to try to get some clarity in their mind. Hey, Is it possible that God has brought you here for this reason to stop running from him? to drive a stake into the ground, to make a decision. To trust in his life, death, and resurrection.
For you to become a Christian, to get saved, to ask Jesus in your heart, however, you want to say it. Today's the day you step over the line. Is it possible that God has brought you here for that reason? this morning at our campuses as well. Hey, if you believe the resurrection is true and you want to submit your life To the Lord, I'm gonna lead you in a prayer.
Admit your sin, believe in what Christ has done, and confess him as the Lord of your life, all right? You just say this. Prayer with me in your heart. You say, Father, I know that I'm a sinner deserving of hell. But Lord, I know that Jesus Christ stood in my place to give me a place in your kingdom.
On the cross And I believe in his resurrection. giving me the newness of life and I commit. and confess that you are the Lord of my life. You praying that prayer right now? No games, no playing around.
God's brought you here for a purpose. It's time to nail this thing down. You praying? Father, I pray you give everyone in this room and all across our campuses courage today. Take these next steps.
In Christ's name, amen.
