Jesus Died"¦but God - Part A

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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. I want you to consider the two most important words in our vocabulary. Now, if you were to ask different people, they would tell you different things. Harvard Business Journal says the two most important words in the human language are recognition and praise. Recognition and praise.

And this is what they said. When people do a good job, they want to be told they did a good job. They want recognition and praise. One psychologist says the most important two words in the English language are the words act now.

Act now. Because according to this psychologist, too many people dream and think and plan, but never take any concrete steps to do anything about it. Many people will tell you, including marketing firms, the two most important words in our language are the words thank you. To show appreciation to another human being is so important. I love what one freelance writer said.

Here's a writer who gets checks if he gets published. He said the two most important, the two most beautiful words I've ever seen in English are on an envelope that says check enclosed. But let me tell you about two important words that can change your life.

They can change bad news into good news. These two words can be placed into any situation and alter any outcome. They are the words but God.

But God. Each word has only three letters. Each word is very simple to say.

Only one syllable per word. But when you put those two words together, they form a very powerful truth. In fact, there may not be two more hopeful words than these two words, but God, because they point us to the great interrupter, the one who can powerfully and graciously interrupt our lives with his plans and change our lives forever. Did you know that phrase, but God, appears in the Bible 45 times? And every time it appears, what comes after those words is radical change. Situations are changed radically. According to Martin Lloyd-Jones, a great Bible commentator, he said these two words in and of themselves contain the whole of the gospel of Christ.

Why? Because no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, no matter how you've lived, no matter what mistakes you may have made, no matter what failures you have been involved in, no matter what addictions you may find yourself in, there can be a but God moment that radically changes who you were and who you are. Now, the first word, if you consider the phrase, but God, the first word, but, is conjunction in English. That's a type of speech. And a conjunction is simply a word that connects two phrases together. The word, but, means on the contrary. We use it to make a difference or contrast what we previously said. For example, he stumbled, but he didn't fall. Or this is expensive, but that isn't. Or you're pretty and I'm not.

Thank you. But when you add the word, God, to that little word, but, when you add the word, God, to that little conjunction, now anything is possible. Anything is possible.

With God, the Bible says nothing shall be impossible. I have a little paperclip with me on my Bible. And what if I were to tell you that I could trade this little paperclip? You can't even see it, I venture. What if I could tell you I could trade this little paperclip for a house?

You'd say, well, that's impossible. But did you know it happened? You can Google it.

I would say don't do it right now. But there was, in 2005, a young Canadian named Kyle McDonald. He had a dead-end job. He wasn't making much money, but he decided to go on a little adventure and trade up, trade up. So he got a paperclip and managed to trade the paperclip for a pen that you write with, a little fish-shaped pen. Then he took the pen and he traded that for a doorknob. Then he took the doorknob and he traded that for a Coleman stove, a camping stove. Then he took the Coleman stove and traded that for a Honda generator. Then he took the Honda generator and traded it up for a keg of beer and a Budweiser sign.

I don't know if you trade it up or down. Then he traded the keg of beer and Budweiser sign for a snowmobile. And one year later and 14 trades later, he then exchanged an acting part in a movie for a two-story farmhouse. It all started with a paperclip. Now that's not impossible. That's just resourceful.

That's just very, very creative. But I want to talk to you today about a real impossibility, something that most people think could never happen. And that's a resurrection. That's what we're here celebrating, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. You know, the resurrection of Christ is the ultimate but God moment in history.

If God can do that, then God can do anything. In Acts chapter 13, Paul the Apostle is preaching at a synagogue 2,000 years ago. And he gives a long message. It's the first and full complete message that Paul ever preached recorded in the Bible. And in verse 26, as he speaks to the crowd, he says, Men and brethren, sons of the family of Abraham and those among you who fear God, to you the word of this salvation has been sent.

For those who dwell in Jerusalem and their rulers because they did not know him, nor even the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no cause for death in him, they asked Pilate that he should be put to death. Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the tree and they laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead.

That's the great interruption. One single verse. But God raised him from the dead. He was seen for many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people.

And we declare to you glad tidings, that promise which was made to the fathers. Jesus died, but God. You see, difficulty must always be measured by the capacity of the agent doing the work.

Once again, difficulty must always be measured by the capacity of the agent doing the work. There lies a dead corpse. You show up. You're not going to be able to help. But God can. Because for him, it's not difficult.

He's the agent doing the work. Now what I want to share with you today are, let's call them four truths for Easter Sunday. Four truths for Easter Sunday. First of all, God has a message for you.

That's right. He has a message for each one of us. Paul here, when he preaches his sermon in the synagogue, he says, Men and brethren, sons of the family of Abraham, that is in the Jewish community, and those among you who fear God, non-Jews, Gentiles who are very interested. He says, to you, the word of this salvation has been sent. In other words, a message of salvation.

God has a message for you. Did you know that God has spoken throughout all of history? Generally speaking, he spoke. He spoke through creation. Psalm 19 says, The heavens declare the glory of God.

When you see a beautiful sunrise or sunset, when you see something in nature that should grab your attention, that is God reminding you of his glory. The heavens declare the glory of God. God has spoken generally, but then God has also spoken specifically. He sent prophets, spokespeople to proclaim his messages. The writer of Hebrews put it this way. Long ago, God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets.

You know what that means? That means that God, the creator, is interested in his creation. He's so interested in his creation, he doesn't want to just leave them alone floundering. He wants to communicate to them.

He has something to say to them. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, the question of God's existence has serious implications, from his presence and participation in our lives, to the reality of life after death, to the basis for human morality. And in his book, Is God Real?, Lee Strobel, former atheist and legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, weaves together the latest evidence from a range of brilliant scientific and philosophical minds to answer the most consequential question of all time. This resource will equip you to address your own doubts and respond to others' questions about God with confidence. We'll send you a copy of Is God Real? along with two messages Strobel preached on this topic at Calvary Church as thanks for your gift of $50 or more to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. Now we have a problem as human beings. We are inside a natural box and the walls of that box are time and space. We can't crawl out of that box. We're sort of stuck. Outside our box of humanity is the supernatural realm.

We all know it's true. All of us born suspect that there's something beyond us. But someone comes along and says, I gotta get outside this box. We gotta get into the supernatural world. And every time somebody comes along and makes an attempt to get out of this natural box and make contact with the supernatural world, a religion is born. That's what religion is. Man's attempt to reach God.

It's man's attempt to escape the natural and get to the supernatural. Here's the problem. We can't do it. We cannot transcend our own existence.

We can't reach outside the box. Someone outside the box must reach into our box and that's what God did. And He did it in many ways. He spoke in many ways. He spoke in a burning bush to Moses. He spoke in a lightning storm at Mount Sinai.

He spoke in a still small voice to the prophet Elijah. He sent prophets to His people. He spoke truth through those prophets.

Truth, His values, His desires, His longings for those people. Why did God speak? Why did God send His messages? Because God loves people. God loves the creation He created. He did not want people living on this earth without purpose, without meaning. He wanted us to have hope. Even when people messed up, God spoke. Listen carefully. Especially when people messed up, God spoke.

Especially when they messed up. Your life, you may feel, is a mess today. You say, my life is a mess. I say God has a message that will speak to your mess. God wants to speak to you. He has a message for you.

And here it is in a nutshell. He cares for you. He loves you. He loves you passionately.

He has a message of love for you. There was a mother who went to a doctor. She had three children and the doctor asked her a question sort of off the cuff. The doctor said, hey of your three children, which do you love the most? Well that caught her off guard. She didn't expect that question. She goes, what do you mean? Which one of my children do I love most?

I love them all the same. And the doctor said, well it's psychologically impossible to extend the same kind of a love to three different humans. She says, he said that's impossible. She started crying when he said that. She said, you're right.

You're right. When we are right, when one is sick, I love that one more. When one is in pain, I love that one more. When one is doing something bad, I love that one more.

But apart from that, I love all three exactly the same. Saint Augustine said, God loves each of us as if there was only one of us to love. God has that message for you today.

He has spoken, Paul said, His word of salvation throughout history. Has God been speaking to you lately? Has He been trying to get your attention?

Now He doesn't have to do that dramatically. You say, well I don't think God's getting my attention. I haven't had Him speak audibly to me. I haven't had a dream in the middle of the night or a vision.

That doesn't matter. Something deep in your heart God may be trying to get at and you've been feeling that. You've been sensing that. He's been knocking at the door of your heart saying, I want you to make room for me. Maybe it's through a friend. Maybe a friend invited you today, invited you to church.

You're thinking, why should I get up early and go to a stadium and sit outside? But God could be trying to get a hold of you and speaking directly to you. You're not here by accident, friend.

You're here by appointment. So God has a message for us. Here's the second truth. Not only does God have a message for us, God sent a messenger to us. Paul continues, for those who dwell in Jerusalem and their rulers because they did not know Him, nor even the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath have fulfilled them in condemning Him. Now notice what Paul just did. Paul just moved from speaking about an it to speaking about a Him. He says, God has had a message for people for years and they crucified Him, the messenger. So he goes from a message to a messenger.

And here's why. God's ultimate message to humanity. God's ultimate message to humanity is not a sermon. It's not a prophecy.

It's not a set of instructions or a law. It's a person. God's ultimate message to humanity is in the person of Jesus Christ. All those messages in the Old Testament, all those prophets that spoke, all pointing forward to a messenger the Jews called Messiah. We call him Jesus. Messiah means somebody specifically prepared and selected by God to save the world, including you. So God spoke through the ages, but His final message before judgment is His hand of love extended to people saying, I love you. Here's my son, my messenger.

I'm sending to you to pay for your sins. The writer of Hebrews, I just quoted him. I didn't finish the verse though. It says, long ago God spoke at many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets, but now in these final days He has spoken to us through His Son. If you think about it, the Old Testament was God's story.

It unfolded very gradually and progressively. Genesis gives some truth. Exodus gives more truth. The prophets give more truth. The Psalms give a few more, and it just progressed a little bit more completely, but it was never totally completed. We never really get the whole picture until we open the pages of the New Testament. Then suddenly it's all clear. That's why Jesus said, do not think that I have come to destroy the prophets. I didn't come to destroy them. I came to complete them, to fulfill them.

The picture is now complete. All those messages in the Old Testament were still a bit fuzzy until the messenger showed up. Then it's like, ah, I see it clearly. Listen to how John introduces Jesus. In the beginning was the Word. That's God's message.

And the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh, and He dwelled among us. So go back to that box analogy. Mankind is trapped in a natural box with walls of time and space. We cannot get out of our box. We can't reach out and connect with the supernatural. So God's plan was to send His Son to crawl inside the box.

Get in the box for God to become a man and come to our earth and show us all the truths of God. This is the difference between Christianity and every other world religion. Many people say it doesn't matter what religion you belong to as long as you're sincere. That's wrong. It does matter.

It makes all the difference. Religion is man's attempt to reach and discover God. Christianity is God bursting into our world, crawling inside our box. When Jesus came, He showed people what God is like. One of His disciples, Philip, said, Jesus, show us the Father, and that's enough.

Yeah, I guess it would be. Jesus said, Philip, if you've seen Me, you have seen the Father. If you see Jesus, you see God. You see the Father. When I was a kid, I remember looking up at my mom, and she was so huge, tall, massive.

Now, here's the truth. She was five feet tall. That's how tall she was. She was a very little, thin lady, five feet. I'm 6'5", and when I grow up, it's like, really? I used to think you were like really a giant.

But you know, from a kid's perspective, somebody five feet, that's pretty tall. I have grandkids. They're sitting right up here in the front. I can see them, Seth and Katie.

Yesterday, we were playing out here on this field, just getting ready, or I was actually, we were watching everybody else get ready for this event, and we were playing out here. And so, you know, whenever I flex my arms that I come at them like I'm going to get them, they cower. But when I get down to their level, something changes. Now, I'm approachable. Now, I'm gettable. I'm wrestle-able. I'm jump-able, and they'll tackle me to the ground.

Why? Because I've come down to their level, and when you come down to their level, the relationship changes. And when God came down to our level, the relationship changes. He showed us what God is like, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. So God has a message for you, and the message for you is His messenger for you, and that is Jesus Christ. Christianity is not a creed. Christianity is not a ritual. Christianity is not an institution. Christianity is Christ, personally. You say, well, I've received the rituals of Christianity.

Have you received Christ personally? So God has a message for us. God sent a messenger to us. Here's the third truth. God knows the mischief in us.

You know, we have a problem. God knows the mischief in us. Paul said, and though they found no cause for death in Him, they asked Pilate that He should be put to death. And when they fulfilled what was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the tree, that is the cross, and they laid Him in a tomb. This messenger from God, this Messiah, was innocent.

He lived a perfect life. The very people He was sent to, however, executed Him, condemned Him as a criminal. People didn't want to hear God's message, and people didn't want to have God's messenger.

So they killed Him. John said, He came unto His own, His own received Him not. That is His own people, His own nation. Jesus came to His own world. Jesus came to His own land. Jesus came to His own city. Jesus came to His own temple. The Jews had waited for the Messiah for centuries. He shows up. John said, We beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father, but the crowd shouted, Crucify Him!

They executed Him and put Him in a tomb. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Lee Strobel's book, Is God Real?, and two of his sermons on the same topic preached at Calvary Church to help you answer life's most consequential questions about God's existence. To request your copy of these resources, call 800-922-1888.

That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. For more from Skip, be sure to check out the many resources available at connectwithskip.com slash store. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.