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Red Rocks Church, how we feel? You sound good. You excited to be in church? Can you guys at every single location make some noise for our unbelievable worship team? I'm gonna try to remember to say this at the end of this talk, but just in case I forget, our brand new song, the Lord is With Me, just came out this weekend. Go wherever you buy music, download that thing. And that's your homework assignment for this week. If you're dealing with anything, go get that song, put that thing on repeat, and remind yourself nonstop. No matter what I'm dealing with, no matter what I'm going through, there's nothing I can't get through because the Lord is with me. Amen. Help me say hi to everybody. What's up? All the Denver locations, we love you. Oh, you guys gotta help me better than that. There we go. Awesome. Texas, we love you. Brussels, Belgium, we love you. Men and women at our correctional facilities, you are family. We believe in you. We love you. Welcome to Red Rocks Church. Welcome home. High five. Somebody have a seat. As you're having a seat, tell one person on one side, they look good. One person on the other side of you, they sound good. You pick single people, you're welcome. Trying to make things happen for you. We're in this teaching series called TikTok Theology. You guys enjoying this series? We're in this series called TikTok Theology and we're talking about reasons for our faith. Why do we believe what we believe? And you may know this, you may not, but God's word actually tells us we're supposed to know the reasons why for our faith. We're supposed to know why we believe what we believe. In fact, 1st Peter 3 says this. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. God says you're always supposed to be able to tell somebody why you believe what you believe, but just do so kindly. And I was thinking about it this week and I thought, you know, one of the people that needs to. That I need to tell why I believe what I believe often is myself. Sometimes I need to remind myself, sometimes it's, I want to share with somebody I love why I believe what I believe. But oftentimes life happens and I need to remind myself why I believe what I believe. You know what I'm talking about? Like when. When things are going great, we don't need to ask that question, right? When you got the girl, when you got the guy, when the marriage is perfect. When everybody's healthy, when you got the raise, when you have more money than you know what to do with, it's easy then to go, ah, God is good, God is God. It's when things don't quite work out, when there is, when somebody is hurting, when somebody is sick, when we do lose somebody, when a relationship goes bad, when money is a struggle, when life gets hard, every now and then we find ourselves going, wait a sec, is this whole thing real? Like, because look what I'm going through. Like, is God real? Does God care? Am I crazy to believe this? You ever thought that you can be honest? We're in church. I was in Rockford, Illinois. I had just given my life to God and was driving around this little orange rusted station wagon that someone had donated to the church that they were letting me drive. You couldn't tell where the paint started or stopped and the rust started. It was just all one big rust bucket. And I'm driving this thing and I'm living with a family at the church, had a college degree, thinking about doing a two year internship. No money, no plan, nothing's going the way I wanted. It just wasn't where I pictured my life would be. And I started thinking about. I remember I had this professor in college at the University of Kansas, little dude with a ponytail and Birkenstocks. And he said, you'd be crazy to believe in the Bible. You'd be crazy to believe that Jesus actually came back from the dead. And maybe he was right because look at my life. You ever get to one of those points where you just go, man, am I crazy for believing this or are there some reasons for my faith? And I remember this that day very, very vividly. And I remember having this huge crisis of faith. And I remember there were some things that I could instantly sort of go back to to remind myself, to preach to myself. Here's why you believe what you believe even on the hard days, even in the bad seasons. So if you're taking notes, and I think you're going to want to this week, the title of today's talk is Am I Crazy for Believing in Jesus? Hit your neighbor on the thigh. Say, wake up. You guys are too quiet. At Red Rocks Church, we believe. We believe in the God of the Bible. We believe that he revealed himself to us through his son, Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus Christ is the one and only son of the one and only God and the one and only way to heaven. That's what we believe. And I just want to say, if you're joining us from, you know, in one of our locations or watching or listening somewhere. And you believe differently. We're so glad you're with us. We want you to know that no matter what you believe in this place, we're gonna do everything we can to make you feel loved and valued and welcomed. We just believe we've. We don't think we're smarter than everybody else. We don't think we've got all the answers. We definitely don't think we're perfect, not even close. We just think we've experienced the real savior of the universe. And our goal as a church is to share that with as many people as we can. And so this series, that's what we're getting into. Why do I believe what I believe? And today I want to ask that question. Am I crazy for believing in Jesus? And I want to give you some reasons why I don't think we are. And that we can start to remind ourselves even on the bad days. No, I know why I believe what I believe. I have reasons for believing what I believe. And so you don't have to just rely on when someone says, why do you believe in that? You don't have to go back to what? Well, cause my grandma told me. Well, cause that's how my family's always believed. Because that's what the guy at church said. Now I want you to know why you believe what you believe. And so we're gonna get into that today. I'm gonna give you some reasons. And I did a lot of soul searching because there are a bazillion different things we could talk about. We could talk about the fact that Jesus did 35 plus miracles. And most of them weren't in little bitty pockets of people. Most of them were in big groups of people with so much eyewitness testimony that couldn't be ref. Not even going to talk about that. We could talk about the fact that he fulfilled approximately 300 futuristic prophecies about himself in a miraculous way that only God could do crazy things. Like in the Book of Psalms, it talks about Jesus dying by crucifixion. And this was a thousand years before the Romans would ever even invent crucifixion. It wasn't vague prophecies about Jesus either. One of the prophecies was what he would be given to drink. This was a thousand years before crucifixion was invented. It was prophesied what he would be given to drink while being crucified. And he fulfilled them all. We're not even going to talk about that. I want to give you a few things that have meant a bunch to me. But what I really want you to do is not just take my word for anything you hear today. I want you to research. I want you to investigate. I want you to ask questions. Because understand this. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. And truth is never afraid of questions. God's not afraid of our questions. God's not afraid of your doubts. Truth doesn't have to hide from questions. I love this. Ryan said this to the. To the Austin crew a couple weeks ago. He said, imagine. He said, imagine you're in a parking lot and you're sitting in your car and, like, your car's off, it's in park, and you're just, like, texting people. And all of a sudden, somebody comes out to their car and sees that someone in the park had not hit their car, and the person blames you for hitting their car. Well, if you know you didn't do it, are you afraid of any questions? Ask me all the questions you want. I'll tell you when I got to the parking lot. I'll tell you which driveway I pulled in on. I'll show you my phone. You can see that I've been texting. Get the surveillance footage. Ask any question you want. Truth is not afraid of questions. And I know the truth. Right. It's different. You ever been caught in a lie? You don't want anybody to ask any more questions. Leave me alone. Truth's not afraid of questions. So we can ask questions. God's not afraid of our questions. And so, in fact, will you put that slide up of those books? I just want to recommend today, four books. You can take a picture of that if you want. The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. The Reason for God by Tim Keller. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. I'm actually going to be reading some portions of that in today's talk and Systematic Theology. Now, that last one, Systematic Theology, you order that one, you're going to get what looks like an encyclopedia, but honestly, it's got an index, and you can go into certain chapters and you can read about things that you might have questions or doubts about. But I want you to start investigating things on your own, because it's okay to ask questions and it's okay to have doubts. We just don't want to let our doubts and our questions paralyze us, because what happens is nothing wrong with doubts. But if you never ask questions and if you never investigate and if you never pursue answers, you might blink and find out that your doubts actually caused you to find yourself at a destination. And the destination is, I just have nothing to do with God because I let doubts paralyze me. Doubts and questions are great as long as we keep asking questions and investigating. Sound good? Are you ready? I believe Jesus is the Son of God church because he said he was. This is important. I want you to understand this because no one else, no, there's no founder of any other major world religion who would dare make this claim. Every other founder of every other major world religion. Go, go research this for yourself. Said, no, no, no, I'm not God. I heard from God. I heard from an angel. Is there any proof? No, trust me, that's not what Christianity is. Christianity is not based on a guy who said, I'm not God. Trust me. Christianity is based on a man who said, I am God and I'll prove it. See, he said he was. And many, many years ago, I had somebody come up to me and we were talking about faith, and they said, well, why would you believe in Jesus? They said, he never even claimed to be God. And I was like, oh, really? I didn't know that. I'm gonna go rethink everything. I don't want you to hear something on TikTok or social media or a podcast or someone at school or work or the gym. I don't want some of these things to rock your faith. I want you to know the reasons why you believe what you believe. And Jesus absolutely claimed to be God. I'm going to read Mark 14 now. There's a couple times I'm going to read the Bible today. And if you're like a real skeptic and you're like, man, there's just no way. I don't believe in any of this. And then I start to read the Bible, you're thinking, well, don't read the Bible to prove Jesus to me. They wrote that thing to make him seem real. And so I want you to understand that even, like strong atheists, people who would maybe try to get in rooms like this and debate in front of crowds to try to disprove the resurrection, they would tell you, even if you don't believe that the Bible is from God, inspired by God, they would tell you that the 27 documents that make up the 27 letters or books that make up the New Testament, they're all historical documents with thousands and thousands of pieces of physical evidence that we have today that show us their Authenticity and accuracy. So even if you don't believe this is inspired by God, this is an ancient document, and we know we have what they wrote. Mark 14. Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, are you not going to answer? Jesus had just been arrested. What is that? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you? But Jesus remained silent, gave no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? I am, said Jesus. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven. The high priest tore his clothes. Why do we need any more witnesses? He asked. You've heard the blasphemy. What do you think? They all condemned him as worthy of death. And if you spent some time in church, you may remember Moses in the Old Testament. God came to Moses through a burning bush and said, I want you to go to Pharaoh and get the nation of Israel out of slavery. Go tell him, let my people go. And Moses goes aight. But when I get there, who do you want me to tell them sent me. And God says, you tell them I am sent you. That was how God referred to himself. That's what we see Jesus doing here. They said, are you the Messiah? He said, I am. And I will be with God and I will come back to get my kids. He definitely claimed to be God. Don't let anyone ever tell you Jesus never claimed to be God. In fact, and again, I just. I want to bolster your faith. Would you put that slide up for me? Take a couple pictures here. You're going to like this. These are 10 I just could have made it much longer list. I put together 10 things that Jesus claimed that we can be absolutely sure the only reason they executed Jesus was because he claimed to be God. He claimed he would judge the world, claimed he could give eternal life, claimed to see him was to see God. He said to know him was to know God. He said he could forgive sins. He claimed titles exclusive to God. Claimed he and the Father were one. Claimed pre existence in heaven with God, Claimed he could answer prayers, claimed he could grant salvation. Tell me he didn't say he was God. What would you think if Pastor Douglas Wekenman, in between quoting Zoolander in the office and singing Disney songs, just sort of every now and then threw in little one liners like, by the way, I was. I was in heaven with God before the earth began. Let me sing Moana. I can forgive sins. Let me talk to you about Big Tuna. I can grant salvation. You see what I'm saying? It's cool if he can, but if he can't, if he's not, it's crazy. Jesus claimed to be God and nobody else. No other founder of any other major world religion did this. Other founders of other world religions. And I'm not trying to talk down on anyone's beliefs. I'm just saying investigate this for yourself. None of them claim to be God. They said, I can show you the path. I can show you the way. Jesus is just different. He said, I'm not showing you anything. He said, I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. He made a claim that he was God. That's. That's important. I believe that he was the Son of God because he said he was. I believe he was the Son of God because he predicted his own death, burial and resurrection in a way that no human could ever do. Baseball fans, you may have heard of the famous World Series where Babe Ruth stepped up into the batter's box and pointed over the fence and then hit a home run and the whole sports world went crazy. You can't do that. You can't call your shot. Jesus called his shot and it wasn't for hitting the baseball over a fence. He said, I'm going to make sure that you understand that I'm the one and only son of the one and only God and the one and only way to heaven. I'm going to tell you what's going to happen, and then I'm going to do it. He says, I'm going to tell you that I'm going to die, who's going to kill me, how long I'll be in the tomb, and that on the third day I will come back to life. And then he actually goes and does it. See, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God because he predicted his own death, burial, and resurrection. Mark 8, 31 and 32. He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things. The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law. And then he must. He must be killed. And three, after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this. See, Jesus is different. He's the only one who says, let me tell you how I'm going to die and who's going to kill me and how long I'll be buried and then I'll come back to life and then actually pull it off. He's Different. So that day in Rockford when I'm going, my life's not working out and things aren't making sense, and am I crazy for believing this? I just had to bring myself back to center with some of these reasons. I got to remind myself the reason why I believe what I believe, because sometimes my circumstances make me want to question that. No, he said he was God. He predicted his own death, burial and resurrection. And then Red Rocks Church. I believe he was the Son of God because he rose from the dead to prove it. Now, listen, if you want to try to debate parts of the Bible and whether or not they are authentic and accurate, and again, do your own research on this, you don't want to mess with the writings of Paul. You'll find that out very soon, very soon as after you start investigating this, especially Corinthians and this creed that he talks about. There's just. There's literally thousands and thousands of pieces of physical evidence, copies and partial copies that show us we're reading exactly what they wrote. And we're reading in the first century church. You just can't mess with the. The fact that it's a. Whether or not you believe it's the inspired word of God. You just can't mess with the fact that this is a historical writing and what we have is accurate. Here's what he said. And this was read out loud in churches all throughout the first century. Listen. For what I received, I passed on to you as first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Some of you may go, man, I don't know. That sounds crazy, right? I don't know if you ever thought about this, but like our entire faith, if you're a Christian, our entire faith hinges on that one event. If anyone wanted to disprove Christianity and shut the whole thing down, all you gotta do is prove the resurrection didn't happen. But no one's been able to do it for 2,000 years. That's all you had to do. So we're gonna talk about some reasons why we can have faith that the resurrection happened. But I just want to make sure that we're all sort of starting from the same foundation. I want you to know that historically, outside of the Bible, we know that Jesus lived, that he was a virtuous man. We know that he was crucified, we know that he was put in a tomb. And we know that on the third day, the tomb was empty. And we don't know those things just because of the Bible. We know them from the Bible, obviously, but I just want to sort of build your faith. We know a lot about Jesus from historians outside of the Bible. I just want to show you this a little bit. Maybe you've been in church before. I know I was for years. And every now and then I would hear someone. They'd read the Bible and then they'd put something up on the screen and they'd go, Josephus said. And I've always heard. And I'm like, man, this Josephus guy says a lot. Who is this dude? So I was studying who he was this week and I was going to read you this whole thing, but I won't for time. But basically the Romans invaded Galilee and he was taken prison or he actually surrendered and. And then he found favor with the king. And interestingly enough, you can read this on your own. Google it, throw it in chat. He became one of the greatest, if not the greatest historian during the days of Jesus. And his name was Flavius Josephus. And he wrote what is now his famous book, Antiquities of the Jews. And he finished that about 93 AD in book 18, chapter 3, section 3. This is Josephus, who was not a Christian, but the greatest historian of the time. Listen to what he says. At this time, the time of Pilate, there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive accordingly. He was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders. So I don't want you to ever go, well, I can't really just, you know, can't really think about all this Jesus stuff and whether or not he rose from the dead. Cause, you know, it's only talked about in the Bible. And I just don't believe the Bible's from God. So there's really nothing to talk about. Well, that wouldn't be good reasoning on your part. Cause there's a lot of sources outside of the Bible that talk about Jesus. In fact, put that slide up. You can take a picture if you want, but I just wanted you to see it. And I'm gonna get out of the way in case you do wanna take a picture. This is 10 historical sources that talk about the life of Jesus. Again, research this for yourself. Investigate this stuff for yourself. 10 different sources not in the Bible that talks about Jesus. And I read something this week that was super interesting. A couple authors took these, what all these 10 historical sources outside of the Bible had to say about Jesus, and they put it together in one document. And I want to show you this. Go ahead and put that slide up. There'll be two of these. This is what the historians outside of the Bible had to say about Jesus. Tell me if this doesn't sound an awful lot like your New Testament. Jesus lived during the time of Tiberius Caesar. He lived a virtuous life. He was a wonder worker. He could do miracles. He had a brother named James. That's important. He was acclaimed to be the Messiah. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover, darkness, and an earthquake occurred. When he died, his disciples believed he rose from the dead. His disciples were willing to die for their belief. Christianity spread rapidly as far as Rome. His disciples denied the Roman gods and worshiped Jesus as God. This is history outside of the Bible. So as we talk about the resurrection, we can know, we don't even have to look at the Bible for this. We can know just from history that Jesus is real, that he was virtuous, that he did miracles, that he was crucified on a cross, that he was put in a tomb, and on the third day the tomb was empty. That's history. All right, our question is, what caused that tomb to be empty? And here's where I want to build your faith a little bit. Let me give you five, five arguments. Five arguments that skeptics have used over time to try and disprove the resurrection of Jesus. And I want to help you know why. You don't have to let any of these rock your faith. You might or might not hear of some of these on social media, from a friend, whatever. And truthfully, the first four wouldn't even really be used by people who are trying to argue this stuff today because they're just. They don't logically add up, but you might hear it. And I don't want you to hear one of these things and it rocks your faith at all. All right, so here's what skeptics have tried to say over the years to try and sort of come up with some. Some theories as to why the tomb was empty. And the first one was this. They said maybe, maybe he never really died. And they. People use that one for a Minute. And man, there's so much you can read about this and all these reasons why that just logically makes no sense. First, I would tell you this. There's not one record in any historical document that we've ever found that says anyone ever survived a flogging and Roman crucifixion. Not one. So, so you don't have to listen to this, but these historical texts, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they all say he died. Maybe you go, I, no, no, no, But I'm not. We're not going to use the Bible. This one's easy to solve. Josephus, Tacitus, Thallus and the Jewish Talmud. You won't know how to spell some of those, so just hit rewind and Google it. All four of those historical sources outside of the Bible corroborated the fact Jesus was crucified and he was absolutely dead when he was put in the tomb. Modern day skeptic James Tabor he admits this. He said, I think we need have no doubt that given Jesus's execution by Roman crucifixion, he was truly dead. Michael Lacone, Ph.D. said this in an interview. The first fact is as solid as anything in ancient history. Jesus was crucified and died. As a result. The scholarly consensus again, even among those who are skeptical toward the resurrection is absolutely overwhelming. To deny it would be to take a marginal position that would get you laughed out of the academic world. Jesus was dead and buried in the tomb, so maybe he never really died. It doesn't really work. Well, maybe, maybe the guards stole the body. Maybe they trying to pull off a prank. Anybody like pranks? We. I was thinking today, I was like, what's a good prank I've done? And I was thinking back several years ago, me and Chad and some of the guys here at work, we got on this thing called Craigslist. Very ancient source of. You couldn't even ask it questions. It was weird. But you could sell stuff on it. You could find things that you could buy on it. So anyways, we put an ad in Craigslist and we put BZ's phone number in it. And the ad was, is I just had a new herd of baby goats and I love them so much I don't even wanna sell em. I'd just love to talk to you about whether or not you'd be a good home. So call me and I'd love to talk to you about giving you for free one of my baby goats. Now this was before iPhones, so you didn't get the number pop up and it says, you know, scam, scam, possibility, or whatever. It says we just had to answer the phone when it rang, and I would hear BZ all day long for weeks in the office going, hello, I don't have any baby goats. Nothing really to do with the message. Just thought you needed a break from all these stats. Maybe the soldier stole the body for a prank. Well, we know historically that when Roman soldiers were given a task and they didn't carry that task out, it was very, very likely that they'd be executed. Executed. So it's probably not possible, but this is really cool. Archaeologists actually found this little. This little Easter egg, and it just sort of helped take away this argument as a real possibility. In the 1800s, some archaeologists identified a marble tablet. Go ahead and put that picture up. It's called the Nazareth inscription. And you can actually go to Paris, go to the Louvre today, and you can see this. And what they found inscribed on it was all these rules about what could and couldn't happen with dead bodies. And what you find out is if the Roman soldiers would have tried to take that body out of the tomb, that they themselves would be executed. And it was all on this marble tablet. And so we know historically that that one just doesn't make sense. Maybe the disciples stole the body, or, excuse me, maybe he didn't die. Maybe the Roman soldier stole the body. Doesn't really add up. Maybe the disciples stole the body. And this is actually the story that Matthew says that, that they went with on the day that it happened. Matthew 28 says this. While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, you are to say, here it is. His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep. That's what they came up with. We were sleeping. The disciples took him. If this report gets to the governor, we'll satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. Notice that this very argument proves that the tomb was empty. There was no argument about whether or not the tomb was empty. It was just how we're going to cover up the fact that it is. So we know the tomb was empty. They said, you tell anybody, we'll pay you. So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day. So some problems with this is first off. And again, as you Begin to research this. You'll find out that when the the Bible says they sent a guard to guard the tomb, that that word guard actually described a fleet of four soldiers. And so when Roman soldiers were sent to guard or protect someone, each guard had four soldiers in it. In Acts 12 we see the apostle Peter was guarded by four guards. So there were 16 soldiers. 16 Roman soldiers were sent just to guard the apostle. Wait, maybe it was the apostle Peter. I wrote it down, Apostle Peter, and It's in Acts 12. Now, we don't know how many guards were placed outside the tomb. You've probably always thought two because that's how many are in the Easter play at church. I know, I was one of those guards one year. Really? Really takes a lot of takes takes care of your pride when you're a Roman soldier in the Easter play. What we know is the text said they sent guards, so we don't know. Historians would say four guards, minimum, 16 in Acts to guard one guy. Very plausible. Maybe more, we don't know. But we know there was a fleet of soldiers at the tomb. And so the argument was, well, the soldiers fell asleep and the disciples took the body. Well, there's just a few problems with that. Number one, are all of them gonna fall asleep when their lives are on the line? You know what I'm saying? Like all of them. That some uneducated fisherman and an ex CPA can sneak in and roll away what could have been up to a two ton rock and nobody wakes up. Number three, if you're asleep, how do you know what happened? Right? They didn't think about this. It was kind of like in the heat of the moment. Go tell them this. The biggest problem though with this argument and let this just build your faith, is that the disciples, it makes no logical sense that the disciples would have stolen the body of Jesus because they died. They were murdered and executed. Every one of them except John, who was sent to be on an island by himself to die in isolation. Every single one of them. They were tortured, they were sawn in half, they were stoned to death. They were crucified. They were crucified upside down, they were burned alive. All one of them would have had to do is say, okay, okay, okay, stop, stop, stop. We made it up. It didn't happen. But not one of them did. Every single one of them. They were so sure that they saw Jesus come back from the dead that they were willing to die for it. James, the half brother of Jesus. If you read the Bible, you'll see that all Throughout Jesus ministry, James, the half brother of Jesus, did not believe he was the son of God. But then the Bible tells us that Jesus appeared to James after the resurrection, and he was so convinced that his own brother was the son of God. Now, what would it take to convince you that your brother is the son of God? You know what I'm saying? Like, I was thinking this. I was thinking this week, like, what would it take for Ashton and Austin to think Ethan was God? They're not going to buy that. Austin's going to tell me, remember the time he threw a roll of duct tape at me and hit me in the face and I had to get stitches? God wouldn't do that. Ashton would say, remember the time he hit me in the head with a basketball in the basement? I fell and broke my foot. And then remember when he sprayed sunscreen in my eyes and told me to go jump in the pool? And I jumped and missed the pool and hit the cement and broke my foot again. Tell me that dude's God. One of the greatest proofs that Jesus came back from the dead is his own half brother was so sure he saw Jesus after the resurrection that he gave his life for his belief in his half brother. He became one of the pastors of the church in Jerusalem, wrote a book of the Bible, and died for his faith. The disciples taking the body just doesn't make much logical sense. And here's the one that's probably used more than any of them. And again, I just don't want these to mess with you, is, well, maybe they just had a hallucination. This is real. Might sound funny to some of you, but that's real. And that's actually an argument. Maybe these people just hallucinated. Maybe the disciples, like, man, they were so torn up that Jesus died. They really wanted him to still be alive. They wanted to believe he was God. They started sensing his presence. And, you know, over time, people get stories mixed up, and pretty soon, you know, legend has it, he came back from the grave. Maybe it was just a hallucination. The problem with that is we don't share visions. We don't share dreams. We don't share hallucinations. Those things happen inside of our mind, right? Like a dream. Like, you don't. Have you ever woken up and went to everyone in your family and went, man, did you guys love our dream last night? Why? Because you know we don't share dreams, right? I read this this week. First, hallucinations are not experienced by groups, but only by individuals. If rare psychological conditions exist. An individual may have a hallucination, but his friends won't. The hallucination theory doesn't work because Jesus did not appear once to just one person. He appeared on a dozen separate occasions in a variety of settings to different people over a 40 day period. He was seen by men and women. He was seen walking, talking and eating. He was seen inside and outside. He was seen by many and he was seen by few. A total of more than 500 people saw this risen Jesus. I love this quote. Gary Habermas said this. Hallucinations are individual events. If 500 people had the same hallucination at the same time, that would be a greater miracle than the Resurrection. That argument doesn't work very well either. Don't let that one mess with your faith. Red Rocks Church. Jesus died on the cross. Guards wouldn't have stolen the body because they'd be executed. Disciples wouldn't have died for their faith if they took the body. And 500 people can't have the same hallucination. So then what happened? And again, we go back to this text that we know is accurate and authentic from Paul in first Corinthians and listen to what he says. Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you've already taken your. You've taken your stand. So he's saying, I'm reminding you of something we've already been talking about. This is a creed that historians have dated back to possibly just a few months after Jesus death, when this creed became a real thing. But Paul's reminding them, we've already been doing this for a while. You guys know the creed. By this gospel you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you. Otherwise you believed in vain. For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. And then he appeared to Peter and then to the 12. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. And then he appeared to James, that's his half brother, then to all the apostles. And last of all, he appeared to me also. And so you see what's happening. Whether or not you believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. We know that this text was being read out loud and passed around churches in the first century and no one could refute it. And they were in the Same place where it supposedly happened. They would have been the best skeptics on the planet because all it would have taken to debunk this whole thing is one person going, jesus wasn't at the cafe. I was there. But no one could because he gets up and says, you saw it. And they saw it and they saw it and they saw it. I know it's crazy, but they were there and they were there. Go ask them. They were there, too. They were there. Over 500 eyewitnesses. That's the kind of evidence, I've said it before that would stand up in any honest courtroom in this world. Jesus is the one and only son of the one and only God and the one and only way to heaven. And he came back from the grave. And we have more eyewitness testimony than almost any event in ancient history. Let this build your faith. I believe Jesus is the son of God because he said he was. Because he predicted his own death, burial and resurrection, because he rose from the dead and because church. I've experienced him for myself and so have a bunch of you. In fact, if you're at a building right now and you have had a personal experience with Jesus yourself, would you raise your hand? Would you hold him up high? And everybody look around, please. See, I love this series and that we're talking about reasons of why we believe. But I also believe this kind of information is really, really powerful for us when it's paired or partnered with our personal experience. Think about this. The Apostle Paul, before he was called the Apostle Paul, he was Saul and he was trying to kill and murder Christians. And he knew everything we just talked about. He knew the tomb was empty. He KNEW There were 500 eyewitnesses. He knew that Peter had said you could ask everybody and that it happened. He knew everything we just talked about, and he still didn't believe until he had a personal experience with Jesus. And then it changed everything. And I'm telling you, you can have that today. I'll never forget the first time I walked into a church as an adult. And I was just. Man, I was hurting. So lost. I'm just miserable. I had no hope. So much anxiety, so much depression. Like, I was 100% sure I was not going to make it through the next few days. And I raised my hand and said, I want to say yes to Jesus. And what I experienced changed everything. Freed me from an alcohol addiction, freed me from a drug addiction, put peace in my heart where only anxiety had been. I remember walking out of that building feeling like a Thousand pounds had been taken off my shoulders. Like, I know I had an experience with Jesus. And listen, you can debate my beliefs about the Bible, my beliefs about Jesus, you can argue my thoughts on the resurrection. I. But you can't argue away my experience. I know Jesus changed my life, and I know he can change yours. It's like. It's like the. The disciple Thomas that Doug talked about at the end of last week. Unfairly, who gets called doubting Thomas, right? As Doug said, because he had doubts for a day. And I don't want to correct Doug publicly, but he had doubts for a week. But again, I wouldn't do that. So let's. Let's read about Thomas now. Thomas, also known as Didymus, one of the 12. He wasn't with the disciples when Jesus came. This is after the resurrection. So the other disciples told him, we've seen the Lord. But he said to him, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe he's with a bunch of people who they believe Jesus came back from the dead. But he's like, sorry, I know you believe that. I just been through some stuff, and I got some doubts and I got some hurts and I got some things going on, and I just can't buy it. Some of you know what that feels like. That's where you're at right now. Watch this verse 26. A week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with him. And I love this because I literally, as Doug was talking about this last week, I sat right there and I typed this into my phone. I went, for the first time, I saw this differently. I went, wait a second. Thomas is doubting, but he's still trying, right? He's with the people who believe Jesus came back from the dead and he didn't buy it, but he didn't give up. He didn't walk away. He came back next week and he hung out with him again. And you know what it told me? He's doubting, but he's trying. He's hurting, but he's trying. He's got questions, but he's trying. He's mad, but he's trying. He's sad, but he's trying. That's all God wants. And I want to bring this up because I know what some of you are going through right now because I cried with you at your house last month when you lost that family member, because I cried with you and prayed right here when you got that cancer diagnosis because I've been on the phone with you, praying about the things that you're so scared about in the future right now. Like, I know some, but I don't know all. But I know this. If you're listening to this, if you're at church, if you're watching this, no matter what you're going through, no matter what you've been through, you're still trying. Cause you're still here. And God can do something with that. Here it is. A week later, he says, I'm hurt and I'm doubting, but I'm still trying. A week later, his disciples were in the house again. And Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here. See my hands? Reach out your hands. Put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. And Thomas said, my Lord and my God. He would learn a whole bunch of things that day, but two things in particular. No matter how many doubts I have, no matter what I've been through, no matter what I'm going through, Jesus can change my life. Jesus can change my situation. Jesus can miraculously, miraculously intervene. And then he would be reminded of this. No matter how much I'm doubting, no matter how many questions I have, no matter no matter how hard life may have gotten, Jesus will come be with me. Jesus, the Lord is with me. And that means I got this. Because if he's with me, he's got me. And if he's got me, I got this. Stand up with me if you would. Church, those are promises that God has given us today. Says, listen, do not be discouraged. Do not be afraid. For the Lord, your God is with you wherever you go, no matter what you're going through, no matter what you're feeling or doubting. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ Jesus, the new creation has come. The old is gone, and the new is here. Let us be reminded that no matter what you're going through or battling, Jesus can change your life. Jesus can change your situations. And no matter how long it's been or what it's been, he's still with you right here, right now. And that changes things when we remember that. So let me say it again. Your homework this week is, go wherever you listen to music and download this new song. The Lord is with me. And put this thing on repeat and just be reminded. I'm hurting, but I'm trying. I'm doubting, but I'm trying. I'm confused, but I'm trying. And that's okay because the Lord is with me. Amen. Let's pray. God, I thank you for your son, Jesus. I thank you that he died on a cross and paid the price for our sins. I thank you that you gave us all these great reasons why we can believe what we believe. But God, I thank you for the personal experience you give us when we decide to pursue you, when we decide to put our faith in you. And I pray, God, you would open up some minds and open up some hearts and give somebody the courage today to slip up a hand and say, I want to say yes to Jesus and God. I pray when they do that you would blow them away with your presence, that they would accept you in a real and authentic way. So with everyone's head bowed and eyes closed today you go, you know what? I didn't know what to expect. Not even sure why I came or tuned in. But I know that God is trying to get my attention today. I want to put my faith in Jesus. Something clicked in my heart. I believe he came back from the dead. I believe he's the Son of God. And today I want to say yes. I don't know how this is going to turn out, but I want to ask him to forgive me of my sins. I want his spirit to live inside of me. I want to make sure I'm on my way to heaven forever. So if that's you right now and you say, that's me, I want to say yes to Jesus right now. Just raise your hand. I'm going to say a prayer for you. Just slip it up and say yes to Jesus. Put him up high. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Good. Good. I see you there. I see you back there. God, you know exactly why you brought us here. You know what we've been through, you know what we're going through. But you know the plans you have for us. I thank you right now for these people who raised their hand. And I pray, God, as we begin worship you, that they would sense your presence in such a real and authentic way. I thank you for the eternal lives that are being changed right now. In Jesus name and God, it is our absolute honor to worship you. We love you. We believe that you can change our lives. We believe that you can do miracles. We believe that you can do the impossible. We believe that even if we're standing in the middle of a fire, that you'll be right there with us and we will get through this. And we will look back one day and say, look what God has done in Jesus name. That's going to be our story. And everybody said, amen. Let's church, let's worship.