The Questions of Easter | I Corinthians 15:1-11 | Pastor Neil McClendon

Neil McClendon, Lead Pastor
Grand Parkway Baptist Church

The Questions of Easter
I Corinthians 15:1-11
1. What is the Gospel? v. 1-2
Six experiences with the Gospel...
1) preached to you
2) you received it
3) in which you stand
4) by which you are being saved
5) if you hold fast
6) unless you believed in vain
2. What is important or ultimate, v. 3-7
Here is what the good news says is important...
a)Christ died for our sins
“The wisdom of God has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the
wrath of God without compromising the justice of God.”
- John Piper
a)b) He was buried
b) c). He was raised
The resurrection means two things:
1) the death of Jesus was enough

2) we get to live a new life
Romans 6:4
d) He appeared
3. Is the Bible reliable and can it be trusted? v. 3-4
“...in accordance with the Scriptures.”
Examples of the Bible’s reliability...
1) historical reliability
2) internal consistency
3) spiritual authenticity
4) prophetic reliability
5) scientific reliability
Ecclesiastes 1:7
Psalm 1:1-3
4. Does your past feel bigger than your future? v. 8-9
I Corinthians 15:10

Mental worship...
1 Does the Gospel alter or affect the way you actually live your life?
2 Who or what has clarified your view of what is important?
3 How often do you experience this “newness of life” the Bible talks about?
4 Are there areas of your life where its hard to trust the Bible?
5 Do you have a “because” that you think disqualifies you from the promises of the
Gospel?

Transcript

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Here's the greatest thing about Christianity, okay? Look at me. It's not that your sins are forgiven, though they are. It's not that you get to go to heaven and you have heaven on earth, though that's true. The greatest thing about Christianity is not the quantity. You live forever, it's the quality of life you get to live. This is why Jesus said, I came so you could have life and have it to the full. Ask yourself this morning, is there a fullness to the life you're living right now?

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This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God. For more information about Grand Parkway, visit our website at grandparkway.org.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Amen, amen. Amen. Absolutely. Let's pray together, Church. Lord Jesus, thank you. Dead things come alive at your name. That's why the Bible teaches us that you didn't come to make bad people good. You came to make dead people alive. And so let me preach like a dead man who's who's been brought to life today, Lord. We understand we sang earlier that line that said, See the price of our redemption and see the Father's plan unfold. Lord, whenever we're paying a price, there's still a plan. And so if we're going through hardship right now, we're paying a heavy price. That doesn't mean you've abandoned us or forsaken us or forgot about us. You can't forget about us. The Bible says you inscribed our name on your palm. You're never going to forget about us. And so there's there's a plan. And so, Lord, when we read the Bible this morning, let it just unveil and reveal that there's a plan all along. It's one plan from start to finish that you're telling you're the central character, and we get to play a part. Help us understand that today, God. For your glory and our pleasure, we pray in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen, amen. Have a seat. If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I want to talk to you this morning about the questions of Easter. The questions of Easter, because this time of year they always put out a TV special or a magazine, you know, was Jesus really the Messiah? Did he really rise from the dead? Blah, blah, blah. And so I just want to, instead of us asking, I want I want Easter to ask us some questions. More importantly, the Bible to ask us some questions. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 to 11, and then I'm going to speak to the four questions of Easter, okay? Let me just jump right in. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 1. Now look at me before I get going. There's a lot on me today. Everything I say is going to come on the screen. Don't try to write it all down. You can take a picture if you want of the screen. Like, hmm, I want to think about that and remember that. But just listen and engage because here's one thing we believe here at Grand Parkway. Christianity is not an emotion we try to maintain, it's a truth, it's a reality that we seek to understand because the more we understand it, the more we enjoy it. Does that make sense? Say amen. And what I want today is you just to understand a little bit more than you did when you walked in here. First Corinthians chapter 15, verse 1, Paul says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word that I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, although some have fallen asleep. And then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as the one untimely born. Let me pause right there, as the one untimely born. The Bible is originally recorded in Greek. And that word, that Greek word for untimely born is where we get our English word miscarriage. And so listen to me. If you're here and you're like, dude, this isn't kind of my jam. I'm just here because somebody invited me to lunch. We're gonna have a ham and potato salad when you're done, okay? By the way, nothing glorifies our Jewish Messiah more than you eating ham, okay? Uh but I digress. But look at me. If you're like, I'm out of sync with this, I ain't down with all this, I'm so glad you're here because the Bible's full of people that relate. Like this guy named Paul, he says, Hey, I he lastly puts himself at the bottom of the list, and you'll understand why later on. He says, He appeared to me as the one untimely born. God will appear to you. He he will like by the way, is he when he says, I don't know what it was. Psalm 19 says that the heavens declare the glory of God. That's what it was. When he's looking at the stars, and all of a sudden God says, Hey, by the way, I'm real. But he says, He appeared to me, lastly, as the one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I'm the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace towards me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, but it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was the it was I or they, so we preached, and so you believed. Okay? He's reminding them, hey, this there's a reason you believe the things you believe. The four questions of Easter, and the first one's right there in the first two verses, it's simply this What is the gospel? What is the gospel? Paul says, now remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preach to you. Now, here's the thing: find a church that consistently reminds you of the gospel because we are hardwired to forget. I get it. Life gets crazy. You got baseball, you got swim team, you got volleyball, you got working out, you got work, you got to your yard, you got kid drama. And then you wake up on a Sunday and you kind of look at your spouse, like, are we going to church today? And your spouse says, How about a Sunday brunch? You're like, I don't want to shave my legs, let's go. Uh yeah, and then you just get in this habit and this thing. And then when you do go to church, typically and tragically, you're more entertained than you are equipped. You walk away and you're like, hey, that was funny, but I don't know anything more than what I knew before I walked in. So tell me again why I'm doing this. So when it comes to the question, what is the gospel? There's six experiences that Paul lists out here uh that people have with the gospel. You want to have five of them. There's one you don't want to have, okay? Let me point to them. They're all right there. He says, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you. And then he says, This, what you received and what you stand by which you're being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. Those are the six experiences. Five of them you want to have, one of them you don't want to have. Let me just go back and kind of sharpen the focus on them. Number one, he says it preached to you. I'm gonna remind you of the gospel I preach to you, not at you, okay? Uh, it's literally means to bring the good news. You need to consistently be in an environment where you hear and you grow in your understanding of the good news of Christianity. This is why people go to church. You don't go to church to be yelled at, screamed at, manipulated, made to feel guilty. You should go to a church and find a church that helps you understand more than the good news of the gospel. That's what gospel means. It's just good news. Secondly, he says, so first of all, you need to have the experience of it being preached to you. Secondly, you need to have the experience of that you received it. You can hear the gospel but never receive it. Do you know that? You can be around it your whole life and never really ever receive it, okay? So it's important that you ask yourself today have I ever received this gospel? Has it ever become a part of you? How do you know? It stays with you, okay? It informs you, it influences you, and it interrupts you. Let me say that again. It informs you, it influences you, and it interrupts you. Uh now, now you say, What do you mean it interrupts you? Like I just take last night, for example, one of our students, he's a senior in high school, texted me last night. Now, I love pastoring this church because I like knowing people, I like to get to know people. Uh, and so I've known this young man since gosh, he was little. And so he texted me about 10:30 last night and he goes, Hey, bro, can you DoorDash me some food? My parents are not here and I don't have any money. Uh and I wrote back, I don't have DoorDash, dude. I was like, how does DoorDash? My daughter's, my youngest is home from grad school. I said, You got DoorDash? He goes, Yeah, I can. I got an account. And DoorDash is where you pay people exorbitant amounts of money to bring food to your door. And I'm like, and then I said, What do you want? He goes, I want uh I want chicken McNuggets from McDonald's. I went, You're paying DoorDash for that? And so I was prepared to come tell you, well, the gospel informs, influences, and interrupts you. And the Holy Spirit said, Hey, big boy, instead of DoorDash, why don't you just go get it and take it to him? And so there's a by the way, a brand new McDonald's right here in Highway 6. I got up and got my flip-flops on, went to McDonald's, 10-piece McNugget, large fry, large chocolate shake, drove it to his house. He just lives right there in the old orchard, right down the street from me. So I texted him and said, DoorDash is outside your house. He came outside and he's like, dude, what are you doing? I said, dude, it's no big deal. I don't care. But what I didn't say is the gospel, it interrupts you, it gets in the way of your preferences. I wasn't bothered. I just took a good nap yesterday. So I was up looking over my sermon notes. I said, This is a great opportunity for me to practice tonight what I'm gonna preach in the morning. And so when this be, by the way, be careful, hold hold it at bay as long as you can because once you receive it, it has power over you. It informs and it influences. I remember when I was a kid, I was telling somebody this the other day, and they were like, No way. I was like, Way, happened all the time. It wasn't just my family, other family. I grew up in a small town in East Texas, and I remember one of my siblings got chicken pox, and they had a sleepover, and we all slept on the living room, so everybody could get chicken pox at the same time and get it over with. And I was just like, did anybody else experience that? Say amen. Okay, thank you, old people, because this this guy was like 25. He's like, dude, that's child abuse. I said, or it it's pretty economical, they're just getting it over all at once. Because that's the way they did it back then in small towns, all right? But here's the thing the gospel's like that. Once you receive it, uh, okay, look at me. Once you receive it, it becomes a part of you and it has authority over you. That's an experience you're supposed to have with the gospel. Here's a third experience. He says, in which you stand. In which you stand. The gospel is the only story big enough to live in. There's room for your intellect, your emotions, your inconsistencies, your doubts, your fears, your uncertainties, your questions, your failures. There's a robustness to the gospel that you will not find anywhere else. Also, it's always redemptive by nature. It's always calling you back to what matters and who matters. Here's a fourth experience you should have with the gospel that helps you answer the question what is the gospel? He says, by which you are being saved. By which you're being saved. This refers to the good news of Christianity and how it never stops working on us, okay? It's an ongoing reality in our lives for the rest of our lives. What do you mean? I became a Christian. The word we use for that in the Bible is saved. I was saved on July 5th, 1982, okay? That's a long time ago. Now, as I stand before you this morning, I am being saved. Okay, when I walk into my kitchen at night after my wife's gone to bed, and everything's not as it should be, and I think, Golly, can't you clean this kitchen? I am stay with me, ladies. Don't hate me yet. Look at me. I am being saved because there's a little voice in me that says, You can load the dishwasher. That's not a woman's job. I can unload the dishwasher. That's not a woman's job. And so the gospel has influence over me. I was saved, I am being saved, I will be saved in the end. And so I have this deep assurance of my salvation again because the gospel it interrupts me, it informs me, it influences me. I am being saved. Okay. I wasn't Christianity, it's not something I did in the past. It's not like a box I checked, and now I prayed the prayer. I've got fire insurance, I'm not going to hell. Let me go live like I want. That is believing in vain. To be clear, that is believing in vain. He says, by which you are being saved. If you're not careful, some of you will lose your salvation trying to get out of the parking lot here in just a little bit. Okay? So just hang in there. See, here's the fifth one. He says, if you hold fast, if you hold fast, it's not a condition, it's just a consequence. He's saying to these people in the Corinthians, hey, you gotta continue to follow the truth that you learn from the gospel in order to experience the effects of the gospel. You have to continue to follow the truth of the gospel. Like January the 9th, 1993, I stood at the front of First Baptist Church, Pensacola, Florida, and I said, I do to my wife. Okay? That was 33 years ago. Okay. And had I'd have known what all our life would involve on that night, I never would have done it. And that's not a statement about her. No, I told somebody this morning, it's got to girl, yeah, it's my girlfriend. We're serious thinking about getting married. I said, You know how you need, you know, you're ready to get married? No, you're ready to spend 98% of your money on other people. You get married and you have kids. I had no idea what all was involved. Now, I that's not a complaint. It's just that, hey, this is the thing. You hold fast to this, you continue to follow the truth that you've learned from the gospel in order to experience the effects of the gospel. I'm not I'm a better man because of who I married, but also I'm a better man because I stayed with her. And more importantly, she stayed with me. And she still says to me, like, you're a bigger man than that. That person's going too slow in the fast lane. You don't need to stare at them. Yeah, they need to be stared at. Just a little bit. Just a little bit of like, hey, hello. See, there's five experiences that you need to have to help you answer the question, what is the gospel? Here's the one experience you do not want to have, and it's the last one, nonetheless. He says, unless you believe in vain. Unless you believed in vain. It refers to a belief in Christ. Look at me, that has no purpose to it and no consequence of it. There's no purpose to it and no consequence of it. The gospel, the Christian faith, it doesn't restrain you at all. It's just kind of like, hey, it's where I go and I get forgiveness. When I go a little too far, have too too many or whatever. That's believing in vain. He said, What first question Easter asks us is what is the gospel? Second question it asks us is what is important or ultimate. It's verses three to seven. He says, For I delivered you in verse three, I delivered you as of first importance what I also received. When he says, I received this, he's saying, I didn't make this up. God revealed this to me. I received this, and this is of first importance. And he ticks off this list. Let me just touch on them as we kind of walk through them now. Now, by the way, I would never try to tell you what's important because that varies from person to person. It's not just a matter of preference, but it's a matter of experience. I know this life has a way of clarifying what is important. All right? You say, What do you mean? Let me say it again. Life has a way of clarifying what is important. That's like when you're in high school, there's a lot of things that are important that 90 days after you, a lot of people that feel important, and 90 days after you graduate, they won't be important at all. You will just feel so, you'll be like, why did I waste my life seeking those people's approval? Okay, life has a way of clarifying what's important. Allow me to demonstrate. I'm on a plane one time, going to preach at a church in Arkansas. I flew from here to Dallas, Dallas to Little Rock. Flight from Dallas to Little Rock's hour and 15 minutes. We got caught between two thunder sails. And so we're just going, the hour and 15-minute flight took three hours and 45 minutes. It was so bad. Now we first got on the plane, sat down, I'm on the aisle, I'm reading a book. Lady next to me says, Is your book interesting? I said, It's very interesting. She said, What's it about? And I started telling her, Well, it's just about God's plan for the world versus man's plans for the world, secularism, and blah, blah, blah. And she said, Wow, you read interesting books. What do you do for a living? I said, What do you think I do for a living? She goes, I don't know, I'm asking. I said, Okay, well, I consult people on how to develop and maintain the most significant relationship in their life. And then from across the aisle, a guy leans over and says, You must be a financial advisor. And I say, Excuse me? And he goes, A financial advisor, bro. I mean, like, I heard you. Sorry, I wasn't eavesdropping. Yeah, you were. Uh, I mean, the most significant relationship in life is you and money, man. You got to get that money. And I said, Oh, uh, uh, okay, well, this is a January, February conversation. March your way out of it. Anyway, uh, and so I got up and went to the bathroom, came back, and they were talking about me. And then about that time we heard the ding, and the pilot said, uh, folks, I'm gonna go ahead and ask the fly attendants, go ahead and be seated. We're experiencing a little bit of expecting a little bit of turbulence, and there's a couple of thunder cells up here. We're gonna try to navigate around. We'll keep you updated. Everybody's kind of quiet for a minute, and then we went back to drinking. And about 20 minutes later, I mean, we are in it. I'd finished my diet coke. I had a cup of ice. At one point, the plane fell so far, so fast, the ice in my cup hit the ceiling. People were shrieking, people were falling. I looked up across the aisle, and the guy's just holding on the back of the seat. And I tried to be helpful. I leaned across the aisle and I said, Hey man, if you put out a couple 20s and rub them together, you'll feel better right now. The pilot, it got so bad. The pilot came on and said, Folks, we're doing our best. Just pray. On a public airline. I'm reaching for my phone thinking, this is not gonna go good. I love you. Tell the girls I did my best. I mean, it was like, and this lady beside me has got a hold of my inner thigh, and I'm like, ma'am, just on the outside, please. We just met. We were up around Boston by the time I got this thing turned around. And when they got turned around, the pot Dean came out and said, folks, sorry about that. Free drinks the rest of the flight. And all of a sudden, everybody stopped praying and started drinking. But here's the thing: in that moment, again, see, life has a way of clarifying what's important. In that moment, there wasn't many things that were more important than, oh, please, dear God, get us through this, okay? Now, Paul says, I I I I I appreciate what I received as a first importance. Then he ticks off the list. Here they are. Number one, he says, Christ died for our sins. Christ died is prophetic. The Bible promised that. For our sins is personal. This is called the atonement. It just basically, atonement simply means a reparation of wrong. You're repairing something that is wrong. And by the way, I think our world is aching for atonement. That's why you got up this morning and turned on Fox News and we're so excited. They found that second pilot. You're like, yes, yes, there's so much wrong with the world. Some of you can't watch the news anymore. You're like, I just can't take any more negativity, dude. Give me a break. One of the questions, America, when I say I think we're aching for atonement, here's why. I think all that we're asking, how can all that is wrong be made right? Because you see, here, sin presents a problem that only God can solve. Let me say it again. Sin presents a problem that only God can solve, and he does. Now, here's the problem, not just that sin exists, because I don't think you can exit, you can explain the state of the world without saying, without using sin, okay? Uh, but there's a problem. Because here's the problem. People in the New Testament are always trying to catch Jesus, trip him up, and get him in trouble. But here's the problem: God's a loving, forgiving God, true or false? True, okay? God is a holy and just God, true or false. So, how does a loving, forgiving God also hold up his holiness and his justice and say, hey, somebody's gotta pay for sin because we're not gonna tolerate this? A man named John Piper, a preacher from Minnesota, says it like this. He answers the question the wisdom of God is ordained a way for the love of God to deliver from to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God. This is how God does it. Again, the wisdom of God, think the cross, has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God. Christ died for our sins is of first importance. Secondly, he was buried. That seems like a throwaway line. He was buried. What do you mean he's buried? Of course. He was buried to signify that he was dead because people have always tried to disprove Christianity. You go home today and you can Google a thing called the swoon theory. Swoon theory, they believe Jesus lost so much blood on the cross that he just basically passed out. And when they put him in the tomb, he laid there and his body kind of recharged his battery and he got up and moved the stone away. And so he didn't really die, and he really didn't rise from the dead. The Bible says he died, not just a purposeless death, he died for our sins. He was buried. Thirdly, he was raised. This is what the resurrection is. The resurrection means two things for us. Number one, it means the death of Jesus was enough. What do you mean the death of Jesus was enough? If you've been to CVS lately and you can buy a tube of tooth patient and you get a six-foot receipt, have you noticed that? You're like, I don't want to wallpaper my bathroom with this thing, lady. Stop, okay? Uh but the resurrection is the receipt that confirms payment for sin. But I don't think, in my personal opinion, that's the best part of the resurrection. The best part of the resurrection is that we get to live a new life. What do you mean when you say you get to live a new life? Now, I became a Christian when I was 18, shortly after I graduated high school. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I didn't have a Bible. I had to find a Bible, and they said, I said, What do I do? They said, Well, you start reading the Bible. So I started reading the Bible and like page one, Genesis. I did go through Genesis and Exodus. I was like, oh, this is great. Got to the book of Leviticus and quit. I was like, the book of Leviticus is just a bunch of rules, it's just a law. And so I went to church like two weeks later. Uh I was going every Sunday, just wasn't telling anybody, hey, I quit on the Bible. That thing didn't make any sense. And so he said, Hey, Neil, how's it come on reading the Bible? I quit. Apparently, you're not supposed to say that in a Sunday school class. And then when you quit, I said, I don't understand a word of a bunch of rules about how to do everything, man. There's no, there's no way anybody can keep all those rules. That's the point. The law is like a schoolmaster, it takes you to Christ. So they say, Hey man, don't start in the old testament, start in New Testament, start in the gospel, Matthew. So I started Matthew. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. I was like, this is awesome. Read the book of Acts. They said it's about the church, how God starts a church, creates a people. This is awesome. Got to the book of Romans. I got some questions. And so I took my Bible. I'd go to church and wait outside the preacher's office in the hall and come by. And he's like, I don't have time, son. I don't have time. I don't have time. Like, I just got some questions. I don't have time. But I was like, I he goes, Why you got so many questions? I said, Because I keep reading the Bible and it stirs up questions in my head. I want to know what this means. He's like, Well, I ain't got time. One time he looked at me and said, Son, do you have a moral problem? I was like, I used to have, but not any Moha. I became a Christian. And uh and and finally I said to somebody, I said, Hey, How do you get your questions asked and answered? Because I read the Bible, I got a lot of questions. They said, Oh man, he's really busy. And I said, not busy preparing sermons or studying, because he just says the same thing all the time. Don't smoke and don't drink. And the guy goes, What do you think about these sermons? They make me want to smoke and drink. Here's one of the questions I had, okay? I read in the book of Romans, I got to chapter six. And remember when Ian baptized Izzy over here, he put him under the water, he said, buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life. It's not just a slogan. Look what the Bible says. This was one of my questions that no one would answer for me. Romans 6, 4. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. I underlined that might walk in newness of life. I circled it my Bible, I got a yellow highlighter. And I said, What is this newness of life? Because all I was being told was, hey, life is hard, but you get to go to heaven, do your best. And I was like, Oh, well, I don't think I'm gonna last very long in this Christianity thing. I'm gonna believe in vain. Walk in newness of life. Here's the greatest thing about Christianity, okay? Look at me. It's not that your sins are forgiven, though they are. It's not that you get to go to heaven and you have heaven on earth. No, though that's true. The greatest thing about Christianity is not the quantity. You live forever, it's the quality of life you get to live. This is why Jesus said, I came so you could have life and have it to the full. Ask yourself this morning, is there a fullness to the life you're living right now? Here's the fourth thing he said. He said, He appeared. He appeared. Why is this a big deal? The resurrection had eyewitnesses. And some he said, some were alive, though some have fallen asleep. That's a euphemism for death. And the people that were alive could have easily discredited what these people said. Yeah, he appeared to us, okay? But they didn't. Why? Because it's true. Now ask yourself this question: if I watched you for a month without you knowing, what would I believe was the most important thing in your life? Because Paul says, I appreciate you as of first importance, what uh utmost importance, what I received. Here's the third question that Easter asks us Is the Bible reliable and can it be trusted? You say, What? Oh, sure, it asked that question. Some of you in this room are asking that question. Is the Bible reliable and can it be trusted? You say, Where do you get that? Verse three and four, twice we see this phrase, in accordance with the scriptures. In accordance with the scriptures. What does that mean? That the scripture that God said in the Bible, things are gonna happen this way. And look at me. And then they happened, just like the Bible said, or in accordance with the scriptures. Now, by the way, Bible reading 18 months ago in 2024 was at an all-time low. Did you know that? Excuse me, a 25-year low. It was just nobody was reading the Bible. It's just like, hey man, we're just trying to figure it out. But in the past 18 months, Bible reading is up, excuse me, it's up 12 points in the past 18 months. People have gotten this keen interest in who it is as Gen Z and millennials. Because they've looked around and they do not have faith in what their parents had faith in. They just think, you people believe in vain. This has no bearing on the way you actually live. We do not want to be hypocrites. And so they're turning to the Bible. They call it, it's happening in England, they call it the silent revival. It's happening here among Gen Z and millennials. They call it the silent revival. They're fed up with institutions and people just feeding them a line of bull jive, okay? Is the Bible reliable and can it be trusted? Well, twice you see that phrase in accordance with the scriptures. What does that mean? It means that the Bible tells how things are going to happen before they happen. They're called prophecies, and then uh they happen. Now, this should cause us to see how reliable the Bible is. But despite that, some people are skeptical or they're cynical or they're jaded or they just outright disbelieve it, okay? But I want to give you some examples of the Bible's reliability uh that that that you may not think of. Some of them you'll think of, but some of them you're like, I didn't see that coming. Uh so here's some examples of how reliable the Bible is. First of all, it's what's called historical reliability. Historical reliability. What does that mean? It means the Bible's full of historical references to real people, real places, and real things that happen. Okay? Here's the second one. It's called internal consistency. I had to learn this in grad school, okay? So you get this for free. So you're welcome, okay? I had a professor who would walk around and go, he would just pick on you at random. He would say, Mr. McClendon, explain to me internal consistency of the scriptures. Okay, uh, but it got ingrained in your head and your bones. Internal consistency. I know it's two disparate-sounding words, but basically it's this: it was the Bible, despite being recorded over 1500 years span by 40 different authors that recorded it from diverse backgrounds, the Bible maintains this remarkable consistency. By the way, these 40 different authors were never in the same room together. It's not like they met together at a conference and said, Let's make up some stuff and write it down and call it the Bible. No, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says it like this of itself. Men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, okay? They were never in the same room, and yet it's this coherent, cohesive story about God's character and his redemptive plan for all of humanity. Here's the third reason the Bible's reliable. It's called spiritual authenticity. What does that mean? It's full of flawed people that did stupid stuff. Be comfortable, I'm comforted by that, okay? He said, What and it's got hard stuff in there. Jesus says, in this world you will have tribulation. If you were making the Bible up, wouldn't you leave that part out? I mean, Jesus said crazy things, and people were like, What? Yes, that's what's called spiritual authenticity. Fourth reason the Bible's reliable is prophetic reliability. The specifics of biblical prophecy is what sets biblical prophecy apart from all these other vague, open-ended predictions. Like, I met a man recently and he goes, I kind of follow the teachings of Nostradamus. And I just thought, awesome. Some of you know who Nostradamus. I said, dude, you got the history channel on your cable package. Nostradamus was a man that lived, he made some predictions. They were kind of vague, like, in the last days, there'll be great chaos, and a great leader will arise. And people are like, Oh, that's Donald Trump. And then other people come along and say, in the last days, a great leader will arrive and we'll deceive many. He's the Antichrist. And some people say, That's Donald Trump. Make your mind up, people. Look at me. The Bible is exacting in its detail when it makes a promise or a prophecy. Here's one you didn't see coming. This is the last one scientific reliability. Now, all the engineers just set up and just said, What'd you say? Yes, I'm not saying the Bible's a scientific textbook, not at all. I am saying this. Scientific reliability means it records natural phenomena that were unknown in their time. Here's one. It's called the hydrologic cycle. You're like, what? Yes, the hydrologic cycle. It was recorded in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, verse 7, where it says this all streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full. To the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. Now, thousands of years later, smart men and women came along and said, you know what? There's this cycle, there's this, we call it the hydrologic cycle, that everything flows to the sea, but somehow these streams seem to get replenished and it just keeps flowing to the sea, and the sea never fills up. The Bible talked about that long before scientists discovered it. This is what I mean by scientific reliability. Now look at me. I'm not saying the Bible explains every scientific phenomenon. I'm saying that it has scientific reliability, okay? It's one thing to hear the Bible, it's another thing to experience it. It's one thing to hear it, it's another thing to experience. Like growing up, my mom struggled with mental health issues. And sometimes she would just get in a bad way and she kicked me out of the house. I'd been a Christian for a couple months, and I was like, they didn't talk about this at youth camp. And so I didn't know what to do. I went down the street to a payphone. This is how long ago it was. There were payphones. Now, if you're a student, a payphone is a little booth that you go in, you clap, the little door folds like an accordion. You go in, drop a quarter, you call somebody. I called Bob Razor. He was a man that went to the little church I went to. Bob Razor was a Vietnam vet. I love that guy. He was just a wise old guy. He's like, Yeah, preacher means well, but he's kind of stupid. Some Sundays, like, I want to stand by Bob. I called Bob, it's 11 o'clock at night. He said, Come on over, son. I'll get the couch made up for you. I walked in, had a laundry basket all full of my worldly possessions. On top was my Bible. I set it down and Bob said, Hey, I'm sorry. Uh breakfast will be at 8 in the morning. Get some sleep, son. Just a common plain man. He was a phlebotomist. He drew blood for a living. Not a preacher, so loving, so forgiving, so accepting. And I just thought, well, I might as well read the Bible. Picked it up and cracked it open, which I don't suggest doing this. I just, Lord, I just need to, I just need something. And I just cracked it open. And I looked down and I read Psalm 27.10. My mama just kicked me out for no reason. She just wasn't right in her head. And I looked down on Psalm 27.10 and it says this Though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will take me up. And I just closed it and put it back on top of my laundry basket full of worldly possessions and cried myself to sleep. Not in a sad way, in a glad way. Because I experienced the Bible. I didn't just hear about it. You should ask yourself, do you experience the Bible or do you just hear about it? And if you experience it and you start experiencing it, what would that life look and feel like? Well, the Bible tells us. And it tells us in Psalm chapter 1 with these words. It says, Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of the sinner, nor sits in the seat of the scoffer. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law. That's the Bible. He meditates day and night. He's like a tree. This is what he's like. He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season. Its leaf does not wither, and in all he does, he prospers. So if you're here and you're skeptical about the Bible, you're like, hey man, you're just saying that because you're a preacher. Let me just say this back to you, okay? There's a reliability to God's word that you will not find in anybody or anything else. And I read, I don't read the Bible because I'm a preacher. I read the Bible because I'm a Christian and it explains me to me. It explains the world to me. It helps me make sense of the world in which I live, okay? Here's the last question of Easter. Does your past feel bigger than your future? Does your past feel bigger than your future? Let me boil it down for you with three words. Most of you in this room have a because. God has a but. One T, not two. You have a because, God has a but, and that but is big enough to make you believe. Now I want to show you that in the Bible before we're done. So does your past feel bigger than your future? Look in verse 8. He says this. He says, Last of all, as the one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I'm the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called apostle. Now there's two things he says about himself. Look at me. You still with me? Say amen. He says, I am the least of all the apostles, and I'm unworthy to be called apostle. Why? Look at the next word. Because. Because some of you in this room have a because. You have a because. You have a reason. Paul says, hey, because I persecuted the church of God. Before Isis, he said I was persecuting Christians. All right. So you have a Paul had a because. Some of you have a because. I want you to think about what your because is right now. For some of you, it's because I'm divorced. It's because I had an abortion. It's because I struggle with same-sex attraction. It's because I did time in prison. It's because I have an addiction. It's because I had an affair and I'm trying to repair my marriage. Everybody in the world has a because. But I just want to come along and say, stay with me. You have a because, but God has a but. Okay, God Paul lets out, hey, I'm on the word, I'm least of all the apostles. I shouldn't be called apostle. Why? Because I persecuted the church of God. Here's God's butt, verse 10. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Now what do you mean? Just draw your attention to that last part of verse 10 where he says, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Grace is not like lightning and then it doesn't strike you intensely, this shocking experience, and then leave you alone and say, Hey, stop doing bad and do good, or I'm about to hit you with lightning again. No, grace stays with you. Paul says, This grace is still with me. It is with me right now. Some of you believed in vain because your believing just all depended on you. It didn't rely on God's grace. But this grace stays with you, the Bible says. Again, it's not like lightning, it doesn't strike you and then leave you alone. It stays with you. Grace turns a persecutor of the church into a preacher, which is why he says in verse 11, whether then it was I or they, so we preached, and so you believed. You believed. See, you have a because. God has a but. It's his grace, but the grace of God. And this is what allows you to believe. Okay? So let me close by asking you a simple question. Have you ever received this gospel? Has there ever been a moment in your life where it became part of you? You were not just inoculated to it because you prayed some prayer because you didn't want to go to hell. You got infected by it. It informs, it influences, it interrupts your life. Have you ever surrendered your life to the grace of God? Had the experience of knowing that your future is bigger than your past. That's how I explained Christianity. Someone asked me not long ago in counseling session, they said, What's it like? He's not a Christian. He goes, What's it like being a Christian? I said, Well, the first 18 years of my life, I had this foreboding sense because there was a lot of stuff back there. My past was bigger than my future. I was not a very hopeless young man. I was pretty angry, pretty, pretty destitute. But when I became a Christian, my future got bigger than my past. And every day I walk into my future, it gets bigger and better. I'm not saying every day is perfect, every day is there's some hard days along the way, but my future is bigger than my past. Look at me. Can you say that same thing? Because if you can't, you should ask yourself, have I ever received this gospel? Because it's available to you. Christ offered himself up on the cross in your place and for your sins. He was buried and he rose on the third day in accordance with the scriptures because the Bible's reliable. And he did that. Look at me. So you too could live a new life. Let's pray together. If you're here today and you've never experienced this new life, you should ask God, God, could I could I have that? You could even sit in a church here right now, you could just pray in your head and your heart and just say, God, you know what? I think the light just went on for me today. And I want to have this new life that you talk about in your word that Izzy experienced over here. Not because he got baptized. Being baptized doesn't make you a Christian. And God revealing himself to you and turning the light on in your heart makes you a Christian. We like to teach the Bible and give you some space to think about it. So just take the next minute and just ask yourself, God, what did you say to me today? What had my name on it? What do I do with it? And we agree that life is worth a living just because you live. You were resurrected. We celebrate the resurrection on this day as a reminder that there's a newness of life that's available to everybody because of what Jesus did in our place and for our sins. That's not religion, that's a relationship. And for that we're eternally grateful. Lord, turn the light on in our head and in our hearts. Illuminate. Let us see clearly, and we'll respond appropriately. Thank you for that privilege in Jesus' name, and all God's people said. Amen.

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