Thank you, guys. Thank you. Hey, if you reach under the armrest, right between you and your neighbor, you'll find a Bible, and I hope you'll pull that out and turn to page 792, page 792, Acts chapter 25, as we continue in our study of the life of that great man of God, the Apostle Paul.
Now, you know, several years ago, Newsweek magazine ran a cover story entitled "Rethinking the Resurrection." And when I sat down to read it, I thought, "Well, I'm going to get an onslaught of liberal, unbelieving, ridiculous, secular nonsense as I read this." But I was a little surprised. Here's what the article said, and I quote: "The risen Christ is the center of the Christian faith. Without it, there would be no hope of eternal life." By any measure, the resurrection of Jesus is the most radical of Christian doctrines. Jesus's teachings, his compassion for others, even his martyr's death—all of these find parallels in other religious traditions. But of no other historical figure has the claim been so persistently made that God raised him from the dead, and then.
In the article concluded, it wasn't the morality of the Sermon on the Mount which enabled Christianity to conquer Roman paganism, but the belief that Jesus had been literally raised from the dead. End of quote. And you know, when I read this, I thought, all right. Newsweek gets it. They really get it.
They really understand that Jesus rising from the dead is the linchpin of biblical Christianity. It's the silicon chip that drives all the rest of biblical Christianity. And this is what I want to talk to you about today. We want to talk about the resurrection, and we want to answer two questions. Number one, did it really happen?
And number two, so what difference does that make? To me. And all of this grows out of an incident in the life of the Apostle Paul, where in a sermon that he preached, the resurrection was his central focus.
So let's look at our passage first, and then we'll come back and we'll answer these questions. Here in Acts chapter 25, let me give you a little bit of background. Remember, it's the summer of 59 A.D. The Apostle Paul is in jail in Caesarea, the Roman capital of the Middle East. We'll show you a map about.
70 miles northwest of Jerusalem, he was sent here two years before, in 57 A.D. He was sent here for his own protection after the Jewish people in the city of Jerusalem tried to kill him twice in two days. While he was here in Caesarea in 57, two years before Acts 25, the governor, the Roman governor Felix, heard his case, decided there was no real reason to hold him, but he didn't want to anger the Jewish leaders, so he left Paul in jail where Paul has been for two years.
Now Felix, the governor, has been replaced by a new Roman governor, a fellow named Festus. And Festus, when he arrives in town, the Jewish leaders come to him, and they say, "Would you please do us a favor and transfer Paul back to Jerusalem for a trial?" What Festus did not know is that the Jewish leaders secretly were plotting to ambush Paul on the way and kill him.
Well, Festus held a preliminary hearing with these leaders and with the apostle Paul. We read about it in the beginning of this chapter, and at the end of that preliminary hearing, he said to Paul, "Paul, would you be willing to go back to Jerusalem and stand trial there?" And Paul Paul didn't know about this ambush, but he smelled a rat, and so he said no. He said I'm going to exercise one of the rights that I have as a Roman citizen. I'm going to appeal my case directly to Caesar. I want to go to Rome and I want to stand before the emperor, and that's where we left off with Festus agreeing to do that, agreeing to send him to Rome, and making plans to do that.
Now that's where we've been.
So let's pick up and see what. What happens? Acts chapter 25 verse 13. A few days later, King Agrippa and Bernice, his sister, arrived at Caesarea to pay their respects to Festus.
Now, this King Agrippa was the great grandson of Herod the Great, the fellow Matthew chapter two in the Christmas story that killed all the babies in Bethlehem. You remember him. This is his great grandson, and he ruled a small portion of the empire that had belonged, the kingdom that had belonged to his great grandfather. We'll show you a map. This king.
Agrippa ruled a small territory around the Sea of Galilee. He came to Caesarea to pay his respects to the new governor, verse fourteen. And since King Agrippa and Bernice spent many days there, Festus discussed Paul's case with the king. Festus said, "There's a man here whom Felix left as a prisoner." As soon as I arrived, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem brought charges against him, and asked that he be condemned to death. I told them it is not the Roman custom to condemn a man before he's had the chance to face his accusers and defend himself.
So the next day, he says to the king, "I took my seat on the tribunal, and I ordered this man Paul to be brought in before me." Verse 18. When Paul's accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had suspected, crimes worthy of death. Rather, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion, and about a certain dead man named Jesus, whom Paul claimed was alive. Verse 20. And I was at a loss how to investigate such matters, so I asked Paul if he would be willing to go to Jerusalem, and stand trial on these matters.
But when he appealed to Caesar, I ordered him held here at Caesarea until I could send him to Rome. Verse 22. Then King Agrippa said to Festus, "I would like to hear this man for myself." And Festus replied, "Tomorrow you will hear him." Now, what follows in the rest of Acts 25 and most of Acts chapter 26 is the very famous sermon speech that the apostle Paul gave before King Agrippa and Bernice and Festus. The sermon that ended with King Agrippa saying, "You almost persuade me to be a Christian, Paul," and we'll talk about that in the weeks to come. But let me let me direct your attention back in this chapter, chapter 25, to verse 7.
Back in verse seven, we have a description of the preliminary hearing that Festus had with Paul and these Jewish leaders. The hearing that he's just described to King Agrippa, and I want you to see the scene in this hearing. Verse seven says that the Jewish leaders at this preliminary hearing stood around Paul in a circle and hurled many and serious charges at Paul. One commentator said Paul was like a man doing battle for his life in a ring surrounded by ferocious animals. End of quote.
This must have been quite a scene. It must have been chaotic. It must have been wild. With these Jewish leaders shouting all kinds of epithets at Paul, shouting all kinds of charges at Paul. Paul trying to defend himself.
But here's what I want you to see. By the end of all of this, by the time Paul had finished defending himself. Festus, sitting there and trying to figure out what all the hubbub was about, Festus had been able to boil everything down to a single central issue. Festus figured out, as he told King Agrippa, "Look, verse 19. He said it's all about a certain dead man named Jesus, whom Paul claimed was alive.
Isn't it interesting that the resurrection of Jesus was so central to everything Paul said here at this preliminary hearing that it was the one issue out of all of the shouting and the screaming. It was the one issue that Festus walked." With and said, well, at least I understand it's about some dead man that Paul says is still living. What that tells us, friends, is that as far as Paul was concerned, it was all about the resurrection. Or to go back and recap what Newsweek said correctly, the risen Christ is the center of the Christian faith. It wasn't the morality of the Sermon on the Mount that enabled Christianity to conquer Roman paganism, but the belief that Jesus had been literally raised from the dead.
End of quote. Now that's as far as we want to go in the passage, because it's time to stop now and ask our most important question. And you know that question.
So, are you ready? Are you ready? Here we go. One, two, three. You know, I'm going on summer break, so this is the last time we're going to do this for a few weeks.
And let me just say. I think we can do better than that.
So, as a send-off to me, here we go. One, two, three. So what?
Now wasn't that better? Yeah, I knew you could do better. You say, all right, Lon.
So we yelled it louder. What difference does that make to my life? Very good. You got us to yell it louder. But still, so what?
I mean, when I walk out of my house on a Monday morning to go to work, like, what difference does the resurrection really make to my life?
Well, I'm going to answer that question, but first, let's answer another question, and that is, is the resurrection really true? Did it really happen? You know, friends. In spite of all the other controversies that swirled around Jesus Christ, there is one thing that everybody agreed about. The followers of Jesus agreed about this.
The Jewish leaders agreed about this. The Roman officials agreed about this. The people of Israel agreed about this, and that is that three days after they put Jesus's body in the tomb, the tomb was empty. Everybody agrees about that. The real question is why it was empty.
Was it empty because Jesus rose from the dead the way he predicted, or was it empty because of some alternate explanation?
Well, let's look at some of these alternate explanations and see if they well let's see if they make any sense. I've got three that are common, so let's look at them. Number one, alternate explanation number one. Is that some critics will claim that Jesus's tomb was empty because Jesus never really died in the first place? He was in a trance.
He was faking it. He was playing possum, if you will. Is that possible? No, it's not. You say, well, how can you be so sure?
I'll tell you how, friends. It was the Roman soldiers of the day who took Jesus down from the cross and pronounced him dead. It was not his followers. That took him down and pronounced him dead. And believe me, Roman soldiers knew what dead people looked like.
They made dead people for living. You understand what I'm saying to you? And they knew dead people. And when they took him off the cross and certified that he was dead, you can be sure that he was stone cold deceased. There was no chance Jesus was playing possum.
He said, "Well, all right. Then I have another explanation. A second explanation is that other critics claim that Jesus' tomb was empty because his disciples came and they stole his body away. This, as you know, is a very common theory, popularized in the novel *The Passover Plot*. That Jesus's followers then spread the rumor that he had risen from the dead, when actually they just took his body away and hid it somewhere.
Now, is that possible?
Well, no, it isn't. The Bible tells us, Matthew 27. That Jesus's tomb was being guarded by a group of Roman soldiers, whose expressed job was to prevent this very thing from happening.
Now, these Roman soldiers, you need to understand, had a vested interest in making sure nothing happened to the body of Jesus, because in those days, if a Roman soldier lost his prisoner, even his dead prisoner, guess what? He lost his life. They put him to death. If you remember in Acts chapter 16, that wonderful story about Paul and Silas being in the jail in Philippi in northern Greece.
So, in fact, we'll show you a picture. This is the actual jail cell in Philippi that's been unearthed by archaeologists where Paul and Silas were being kept that night. And if you remember, there was a great earthquake and all the chains fell off everybody and the door swung open. And here's what the Bible says: Acts 16:27. When the jailer woke up and saw That the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he was sure the prisoners had escaped.
Friends, why is it that this Roman soldier was going to kill himself?
Well, because he was going to save his boss the trouble who was going to kill him in the morning. If you lose your prisoners, they kill you, and he knew that. And that's when Paul cried out and said, "Don't hurt yourself. We're all still here." Now, in light of this, do you really think? That a bunch of fishermen?
Do you really think that a bunch of women could get past these hardened men of war who were sitting there guarding that tomb, understanding that their lives were on the line if anything happened to the body of Jesus? And you really think they could steal the body of Jesus away from a bunch of Roman soldiers? Absurd! No way in the world that could have happened.
Well, you say, then, Lon. I got a third explanation. This is my last one, and here it is. I believe maybe the maybe the tomb of Jesus was empty because it was all just a big con game. I mean, I don't have an answer as to exactly how they did it, but maybe they bribed the soldiers.
Maybe there was a back entrance into the tomb somehow. I don't know what they what they did, but they were running some kind of con. But let me say to you, folks, this is illogical. This is irrational. Think about it for a moment.
The followers of Jesus, Peter and James and John, these guys—what we know about them from the New Testament—these guys were massive cowards. They were certified yellow bellies. Understand what I'm saying? You know, you remember the story? They were out on the Sea of Galilee in a storm, and they panicked and were going crazy.
And they were fishermen, for goodness' sake. They they they deserted Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. They denied knowing him outside of his trial in Jerusalem. These guys were afraid of their own shadows, and yet. Rather than deny that Jesus had risen from the dead, you remember our scripture reading earlier that said Peter saw him, all the disciples saw him risen.
Rather than deny that Peter was crucified upside down by Emperor Nero, 66 A.D. in Rome, Paul had his head cut off by Nero the same year in Rome, James was executed by Herod Agrippa, who was the father of the King Agrippa right here. This guy's father killed. James and in prison Peter Acts chapter twelve. All the rest of the disciples were were tortured and killed for their faith, except for John, who died a natural death.
But he was exiled for years on the island of Patmos for his faith.
Now, friends, if this was just a big hoax and a big con game.
Somebody somewhere would have broken ranks and said, "If you're a yellow belly, you say, 'Wait a minute, hold on. This was fun when it was working, but I'm not dying for a con. Come with me, and I'll show you where he put his body. I'll show you right now. I'm not going to die for this.' And yet, isn't it interesting?
Nobody did that. Nobody. And let me tell you why they didn't do it. Because they had seen the risen Lord." They had seen him and touched him, and they knew he was alive. And that's why they went to their deaths rather than deny it.
Friends, the point is the empty tomb has got to be accounted for. Where did the body of Jesus go? His enemies wouldn't have taken it. His followers couldn't have taken it.
So where did it go? And think about it: 2,000 years ago, all anyone had to do to stop Christianity dead in its tracks was to explain away the empty tomb, explain it in some way apart from the resurrection. And yet, even though the enemies of Christianity opposed the preaching, And persecuted and killed the preachers. The one thing no one was ever ever able to do was discredit the resurrection. And I'll tell you why, because the resurrection happened exactly the way the Bible says it happened.
Now that's what I believe with all my heart, and that's what I hope you believe with all your heart. Anybody agree with me? What do you say? You bet. All right.
Now. If the resurrection really happened, let's answer our final question of the morning.
So, like, what difference does that make to my life on an everyday level?
Well, friends, if the resurrection is true, then as a result, if we have a true resurrection, we have some other things that are true in our lives as followers of Christ, and I want to tell you about three of them. Three benefits that we have if indeed the resurrection is true. Number one. We have the true assurance about eternal life. We have the true assurance that we have followed the real and living way to get to heaven and to get eternal life.
Jesus said, John 16: John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father unless they come by way of me." You say, but on every religion claims that they have the right way, the true way. I know, and that's why God raised Jesus from the dead to authenticate that this biblical Christianity is really the true and correct way. And Jesus went on to say, John 14:19, "Because I live forever, you, as my followers, shall live forever also." If we, as followers of Christ, need a guarantee that we really are going to get eternal life, what did Jesus say? He said, "I'll guarantee it by my own eternal life, because I live forever.
Every one of you who follow me, you're going to live forever too." Now, if you're dead and rotten in the grave, you can't make that promise. But if you're a living, risen, eternally alive Savior, you can make that promise. As long as I live, you're going to live. You know we're on 13 channels here in Washington with not a sermon, just a thought. And one of the things I love to say often in those little one-minute ditties is this phrase right here: "Follow a dead Savior." And you'll end up just like him.
Now that's one of the few truly profound things I ever thought up myself. I actually thought that sentence up myself, which is probably why I like it so much. But anyway, it's true, isn't it? Follow a dead Savior, you'll end up just like him. But the great news of the Bible is we don't have a dead Savior.
We have a living Savior, a risen Savior. On a Savior that's alive for all of eternity, and the converse is also truth. What did Jesus say? John 14: Follow a living Savior, and you'll live for all eternity, just like He lives. That's the first benefit we get from the resurrection: is we get the assurance that we're following the true and genuine way to have eternal life.
The second benefit is we get true purpose for living, a purpose for living that satisfies.
Some of you know who Jim Clark is. He's the founding genius of Netscape, and Clark said in a book that he wrote, "The new, new thing." He said he would retire after he had become a real after-tax billionaire.
Well, when his worth rose to three billion dollars, he was asked about this promise to retire, and here's what he said, and I quote: "He said, 'I just want to have more money than Larry Ellison, the president and CEO of Oracle.'" I don't know why, but once I have more money than Larry Ellison, I'll be satisfied. End of quote. Well, you know, six months after he gave that interview, he had more money than Larry Ellison, but he still didn't retire. And he gave another interview in which he said this, and I quote: "You know, just for one moment, I would like to have the most of anyone, even Bill Gates, just for one tiny moment." Now, friends, will Jim Clark ever be satisfied like this? No.
You remember the movie Citizen Kane? Maybe the greatest movie ever made. Made by Orson Welles, you know, before he grew as big as a large town. You understand what I'm saying? But anyway, the story of Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane, is that there here's a man who spent his entire life living for himself.
His entire life absorbed with himself, he even built the ultimate monument to himself, named Xanadu. But he died a bitter man, a broken man, an empty man. Citizen Kane learned what every smart person learns eventually, and that is that living for self is a wretched purpose for living. And hopefully, Jim Clark's going to discover that. It's a purpose for living that will never bring true happiness, never bring true satisfaction, never bring true fulfillment.
But listen to what the Bible says about all this. Second Corinthians 5. It says, "And Jesus Christ died for all of us, believers." That those of us who live, listen now, should no longer live for ourselves. Aha! Listen.
Well, then, who should we live for? But for Him who died for us and was raised again. And friend, when our purpose for living changes from gratifying ourselves to serving a living, risen Savior, suddenly our lives take on a whole new dimension. An eternal. Dimension, a dimension that floods our lives with true meaning, true purpose, true satisfaction, in a way that this world system can never ever duplicate.
Listen, when you walk out of your house on a Monday morning, and you're able to say to yourself, "Now I'm not walking out of my house today to live for myself. I'm not walking out of my house today to live for power or money or prestige or fame. But I'm walking out of my house today." To live for the living, risen Savior of the universe, you know what? You walk out of your house with a reason for being alive today. A risen Savior brings true meaning and true purpose to life.
Third and finally, the third benefit that we get if Jesus is truly resurrected is we get true comfort in the struggles and the ordeals of life. I don't know if you can ever think of a time where where you felt so alone, cosmically alone. But I'll tell you one incident where I could have very easily felt that way. My little girl Jill, as you know, has very serious seizure disorder, and and when she was a little over a year old, she would often have seizures and stop breathing. And I would have to give her CPR until the rescue squad arrived.
Hopefully, we'd get her going again. But one night, around 2 a.m., she woke up having a seizure. The monitor alarm went off. I rushed in her room, started giving her CPR, and it didn't work. She didn't start breathing again.
We only live about five minutes from Fairfax Hospital, so I woke up Brenda and I said, "Get in the car. I'll give her CPR while you drive. Let's run to the hospital." We ran into the emergency room with her in my arms, and this nurse grabbed her, and took her from me and ran down the hall and hit some kind of alarm. And all of a sudden, people started coming from everywhere with a blue ambu bag and all this stuff. And we were following them down the hall.
They turned the corner, went in this little room, about six or eight. People gathered around her. They closed the door, left Brenda and me standing in the hall, looking through the blinds. And when they saw us standing there looking through the blinds, they pulled the blinds.
Now it's three o'clock in the morning. There's not a person in sight. They're all in the room working on her. And there we stood, not having the slightest idea whether Jill was going to live or die. Our little girl, totally alone, nobody around us.
And I'll tell you, if there was ever a time in the world to feel cosmic loneliness, that was it. But I didn't feel that way, and let me tell you why. Because standing there next to my wife and me in the emergency room, I didn't have Islam with all of its rules. And standing there next to me in that emergency room, I didn't have Judaism with all of its empty rituals. And standing next to me there in that emergency room, I didn't have Buddhism with all of its enlightenment.
Standing there next to me in that emergency room, I had the risen, living Christ, who had his arm around me, whispering in my ear, just as real as if I could hear him today, saying, "Lon, don't worry about it. It's going to be okay. I'm here." And it's going to be okay. And friends, when the storms of life hit us, and they do, the most comforting thing you and I can ever know or feel is that we're not in those things alone. Jesus said to his followers, Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you." Jesus said to his followers, Matthew 28, "I will be with you always." Jesus said to his followers, Isaiah 43, "When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you.
When you go through raging rivers, they will not sweep over you. Do not be afraid, for I will be with you." Now listen. If Jesus is dead today and rotting in the grave somewhere, these promises aren't worth the paper they're printed on. But if Jesus is risen from the dead and if He's alive forevermore, the way He says He is, then these promises mean that as a follower of Jesus Christ, I can take the word alone and permanently remove it from my vocabulary because it'll never be true of my life again. And that brings people real comfort, even in the worst of times, to know it's not just me; it's me and the risen Lord Jesus together facing this.
Let me summarize. What are the benefits that we get from having a Savior who is resurrected and alive? Number one, we get true assurance that we're following the real way to get to heaven. Number two, we get true purpose for living—a purpose for living that transcends living for ourselves. And number three, we get true comfort in the struggles of life because we know we're never alone as we face those things.
Now these are benefits that only a risen Savior can give you. You can go anywhere else you want and try anything else you want, and the world system cannot duplicate any of this. You'll only find this in the risen Messiah. And if you're here today and you don't know the risen Messiah in a real and personal way, then friends, these are benefits that He wants to give you starting today, if you'll just give Him an opportunity. And we're going to give you that opportunity right now to do that.
Let's bow our heads together, shall we? If you're here today and you would like to ask Jesus Christ, the Risen Messiah, to come in and be part of your life, be Lord and Savior in your life, then what I want you to do is, as I lead us in prayer with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want you to say this little prayer right after me, and let's ask Him to do that. You pray silently, one phrase at a time, as I lead you, one phrase at a time, and let's ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart and life today. You pray silently. Here we go, Lord Jesus.
I come to you today because I want the benefits that Lon's been talking about. I want to know for certain. That I have eternal life. I want to have a purpose for living. That's worth getting up for in the morning.
I want the comfort that comes from knowing I'm never alone in my struggles in life. And so today, I open up my heart. And I invite you to come in and be my personal Lord and Savior. I transfer my trust off of all my religious activity and onto what Jesus did for me on the cross. Forgive my sins today.
Grant me eternal life. And change my life forever. I open my heart and life to you today, and ask you to come in. In Jesus' name, and Father, I want to pray for the folks who prayed that prayer with me, that you would confirm in their heart and lives as they sit here this morning that a great transaction has taken place. That, as the Bible says, they have passed from death into eternal life.
And for all of us who've done that, remind us that the fact that you are the living, risen Savior of the universe gives us certain things that no one else in this universe can duplicate. Thank you for offering these things to us, Father. May we revel in the wonderful benefits you've given us as our risen Savior. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Now listen. Look.
