3 Reasons to Believe The Resurrection is TRUE | Easter at Lakepointe | Pastor Josh Howerton

Hey guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Every week we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free. An episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lake Point YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free now. Enjoy this Bible teaching. Amen, amen, amen. All right, man. Welcome to our Super Bowl. Hey, we've been, Christians have been doing the same thing for 2,000 years. I like doing stuff we've been doing for 2,000 years. For nearly 2,000 years, Christians have gathered on Resurrection Weekend and they do this thing where like one person will say he is risen and the other person will fire right back. He's risen indeed. So turn your neighbor and say he's risen and then fire it right back. Do it right now, man. Come on. 1,000 years. All right. Well, hey, heads up. If I get a little emotional today, it's because I am. Because this weekend, we are not just gathering with tens of thousands of people at our church. We are gathering with billions of Christians all over the world to celebrate, listen, man, to celebrate the greatest event in the history of the world on which our faith is built. The tomb is empty. God's Son and Savior, Jesus Christ, is risen from the dead and he lives to give life to everybody who would call on his name. Come on, man. Let's celebrate it. Here we go. Amen. Now, hey, we got tons of people, tons of y'all who maybe it's your first time with us ever, thousands across all of our campuses. So Lake Point family, can you help me show our guests how honored we are that they're here? Come on, man. Amen. Now, heads up. It's going to get on you, man. It's the first day of the rest of your life. If you're new with us, I want you to know this. We don't have a whole lot of traditions here at Lake Point, but we got one. Every Easter, we do this thing that we call our annual Easter survey. So even if you're brand, actually, especially if you're brand new with us, I'm going to ask you to do this. You're going to help me lead our church right here. That's what's happening. So you're going to see this. All of our campuses on the seat right in front of you. Will you grab this thing? This is 2026 Easter survey. Remember right now, actually do it. Actually grab it. Even if you're not going to do it, just grab it and make me feel better and boost my self-esteem. It's going to be great. Now, here's what I want you to do with this. This helps us. On one side, you're going to see this because we actually use this to plan and lead in our church. On one side, you'll just see basic info, name, phone, email, all this stuff right there. There's a spot right here that's asked for prayer requests. Every single one of these gets prayed over individually by a Lake Point prayer team member. So we want to pray for you. So do that. That'd be amazing. But then here's who I really need your help. You're going to see this on the back. Look at the back. On the back, you'll see up here where it says, I would like to hear a teaching series about and you'll see a bunch of stuff right here. I use this in July when I go away and do a little study break and I plan the next year's preaching calendar. I use what you tell me on this to in part plan the next year's teaching calendar. So check all these boxes as many as you want on things you're like, man, it'd be helpful to hear what the Bible says about that. And then you're going to see this little blank where it says other. Honestly, that really helps me more than anything else. So if there's something you're like, dude, if you could teach on that, I want to hear what the Bible says about that'd be amazing. Now I'm going to give you one caveat. You'll see up here where it talks about end times. Don't check that. Don't check it. Because next week, I'm continuing in this Luke series that we're in right now and that's what I'm doing next week. Next week, I'm answering the question from the book of Luke. Then will Jesus return? What will be the signs of his return and what will he do then? So that's next week. We'll see you next week. That's going to be awesome. But that's right there. Then you'll see this spot. If there's a step in your spiritual journey that you need to take as a disciple of Jesus, check that right there. We're going to help you out. And then this is really going to help us. You'll see this spot where it says, where would you like to see Lake Point open a new campus? We have two campuses in our church right now in part because of what you told us. You tell us where we need to come and then we aggregate all the responses and go, oh, man, bunch of people coming in from over there. Two campuses, like I said, one of the campuses from this survey is Lake Point family. If you would help me, welcome for the very first Easter ever, our brand new Roy City campus. Come on, man. Let's celebrate it, man. Welcome Roy City. Over there next to the Buckeys, that's our Buckeys campus. Beaver Nuggets coming out there a year. It's going to be awesome. Okay. Let me get right at it today. I'm going to run up the middle. Let me do this. I want to start like this. If you've been around just life, but especially sports, I'm a sports guy, live in sports, there's nothing that we like more than like a great reversal. So I'm going to figure out, sometimes we'll call it a comeback, right? I'm going to figure out how Texas you are real quick. How many of you know what this is or remember this moment right here? How many of you all remember this? Okay. You'll see it. Hook them. I see it. Okay. Now I hear some booing over here. Calm down. Okay. Now this, here's what this is. This is 06 Rose Bowl, fourth and five. Texas is down 38-33. So fourth and five is 19 seconds left. It looks like USC is going to go on and win the 06 Rose Bowl until our boy Vince Young goes in for the go ahead touchdown, ends up with 467 yards in the game, flips it around, this wins in Jesus' name, right? Everybody there, that's it man. Y'all know that. Now, I will say this, every service is like a mixed response to that because I can tell the tech and A&M fans are like, ah, okay. So I just hang on, hang on, man, hang on. You're not going to like this next thing I say. Let me just tell you that. Do you guys know, I feel bad for this guy right here. Do you guys know what tech and A&M fans have in common when they win championships? They turn off the PlayStation and go to bed. There you go. Sorry, brother. Sorry, brother, I got you. We love a great reversal. Here's another one. This is a non-sports one. This is old Robert Downey Jr. Now, you know, as soon as I did this in the first service, I realized it's very thirst trappy. So a lot of the ladies just had a spiritual experience. Let's take that down. This is Robert Downey Jr. back in the 80s, early 90s, top of his game acting career, and then addiction and just life falls apart, actually ends up spending some time in prison and then great reversal. Got his life back together, got sober, got out, and then worked his way back and grinded until for multiple years was the highest paid actor in Hollywood, great reversal. I'm going to do one other one. It's not like I said, I'm a sports guy. I'm a lifelong, I grew up in rural Kentucky, rural Kentucky kid. I'm a lifelong Kentucky basketball fan. And so there's nothing I love more than seeing Duke loose. There's nothing I love more. Nothing I like that guy right over there. You're my favorite person's whole room. There's nothing I like more. So it's, and I just want to remind you, they're called the Duke blue devils, right? So there was a great reversal that happened last week in March Madness. So if you watch this, it was Duke Yukon in the elite eight, Dukes up by two with only 10 seconds left and they have the ball. All they got to do is inbound it, dribble, dribble, game over, and then a glorious reversal happened. I just, we're going to soak this in here. Boom, boom. Now listen, on Easter, it's great to see the devil defeated. Can I just say that? You just got to see devils defeated. You got to, you all are the most fun service so far. Okay. Now today, I want to spend a few minutes from the Bible talking about the greatest reversal in human history. Help me finish these words for my friend, Pastor Jobu Martin. Help me finish this sentence. If the tomb is empty, one more time like you mean it. If the tomb is empty, listen, and I was sent here today to tell you that the tomb is empty. Then listen, sin is atone for, death is defeated, and because only one man in human history defeated death and walked out of that grave, more songs have been sung to him, more paintings painted of him, more books written about him than anyone else in human history. In fact, we divide human history into AD and BC by the coming of that one man, the God man, Jesus Christ. And because Jesus Christ is alive and because he walked out of that grave, it means by his power you can walk out of your grave too. That chains can be broken, that addictions can be freed, relationships can be restored. The blind can see, the lame can be healed, and the dead will be resurrected again in Jesus' name. Listen, I was sent here to, listen, we're going to talk about it, man. So here we go. Let's talk about it. This is the book of Luke. Here's what it says. Now I need you to say the bolded first two words out loud for me. It says on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the took the, these are the original spice girls. Watch out now. Here we go. But if you don't know who that is, they were an evangelist group in the 90s. Okay, let's keep going. They had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they entered, they did not find the body of our Lord Jesus. Amen. Now, while they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed light lightning stood beside them. In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground. But the men, that's the angels. The men said to them, very important question. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Hey, like one church, let me ask you a question. What this whole different sermon, why are you looking for life in places that cannot provide life? Why are you seeking with your life to find life in places that can only bring death? Whole different sermon. Let me just say it in one sentence. Life satisfaction, happiness, joy. Life cannot be found in getting sex, success, stuff and status out there. Life can only be found by asking Jesus Christ to come in here and do a work in your life. That's the only place you can find life. So they go, man, why do you see the living among the dead? And they go, he is not here. He's risen. Remember how he told you. I'm going to come back to this. The Josh standard version of that is seriously, bro, how'd you miss that? I'm going to come back. Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of men, delivered to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again. Now when it says, remember how he told you, what he's going is, again, they're going, seriously, bro, how'd you miss that? The reason they say that is at least three times just in the book of Luke, Jesus had specifically told all his disciples exactly what was going to happen. I'm going to read them to you. Luke 9.22. And he said, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be killed and on the third day be raised to life. There it is. Luke 9.44. Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. Luke 18.31. Everything that was written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him. They will flog him. They will kill him. On the third day, he will rise again. So think about this. What happens is they're all coming back to the tomb on that Easter morning. Angels are hanging around and they're looking down at him and they're like, you're surprised. I'm surprised. You're surprised. I'm shocked. You're shocked. They're going upstairs right now. All of heaven is roaring. I think what the angels are thinking is we thought you'd be down here like Chip and Joanna on the first Easter morning, standing in front of the big old tomb going, five, four, three, two, one, move that bus. Jesus bus out, little Rick Flair strut, all the thing. I think that's what they were expecting, man. They're going, you know, a little too much fun. Okay. Now listen, here's why this bothers me, man. You can hear all the things. You can know all the things and you can still miss the main thing. Jesus Christ. Listen, you know, what I do right before I come out of preach is I just walk around. I pace back there and I look out of the room and I remember that everybody that I'm about to preach to is going to die and they'll stand in front of God someday and I pray for you. And when I'm standing back there on a week like this, every Easter I feel the same thing. I'm like, man, from here, everybody looks real saved. It's like everybody comes in with all their little pastel matching outfits. Mom picked out on Amazon three weeks ago and everybody comes in and they know all the stuff. You got your little bibles in hand. You haven't seen in a while and you come in and it's like, man, you know all the things. You know when to sit. You know when to stand. A lot of you like you've been sitting in literally the same seat for 26 years in the same service, all the things. And you even know, listen, you even know when to plan your vacation calendar around what we do as a church. Like, well, we can't go on vacation two weeks before Easter because that's always free t-shirt Sunday. It's like, you know all the stuff. You know all the things. You know when to leave in the service where if we leave right here, then we'll get out and we'll beat the Hunger Games in the parking lot. It's going to be awesome. And you even know, listen, you even know the spot in the sermon. So you're like, ooh, Pastor Josh is throwing fire today. And you get your little Instagram out and you start posting, mm, Pastor Josh is spitting fire today. Praise hands, praise hands, fire, fire, fire. You know, you do the whole thing. I love that joke. I love that joke. I'm so good. I'm so good. You know all that stuff. So listen, man, it's possible for you to know all the things and be around all the things and miss the main thing. Remember what Jesus said. Jesus said in that final day that everyone would be gathered before him. Remember what he said? He said many. He didn't say a few. He said many people would say to him, Jesus, didn't we prophesy in your name, do awesome works, cast out demons in your name. And he would say to many people, depart from me. I never knew you. So listen, your blood will not be on my head that day. I am telling you, you can do a lot of things for Jesus. You can know a lot about Jesus and you cannot know Jesus. So Lake Point family, let me just remind us, man. The whole point of all this thing, it's not buildings. It's not campuses. It's not a worship team. It's not some dumb preacher. It's not all this stuff. The point of all this is one thing and one thing only, that the Son of Man was delivered into the hands of men. He was crucified. And on the third day, he rose from the dead. That's the only thing that matters. Nothing else matters. That's the thing. Now check this out. It goes on. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the 11. We're down Judas now. So it's only 11. 11 and all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the others who were with them. They told this to the apostles. Watch this. But they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense. This is, I'm coming back to this. This is for you. If you got dragged here by mom or grandma and you got a lot of doubts, I just want you to see this. So did they. I'm coming back to that. So did they. Now watch what Jesus does. Verse 25, Jesus looks to them in the midst of their doubt and here's what he does. And he said to them, oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Now here's the problem as a preacher. Let me let you into my world for a second. One of the problems you got as a preacher is it's impossible to interpret the tone in the text. So like, I don't know what Jesus vibe was when he says, oh foolish ones. I don't know if it was like super compassionate, like, oh, you foolish ones. I don't know if it's like a Mr. T vibe. Like I pity the fool. I don't know if that was the thing. I don't know if it was like your grandma when she says bless your heart. I don't know if that was, by the way, we got a ton of Yankees moving down here and people moving East from tech or from California because it's still America. Let me explain something to you real quick. If you moved here from like California or New York or whatever it is and you moved down here and somebody said to you, bless your heart and you may have thought that is so sweet that they took time to bless me. Can I just explain to you what happened is you have just been old lady Southern Baptist cuss. That's what happened to you. So let me just give you a heads up. If somebody around here says bless your heart, what they're really saying is, oh, you're too dumb to talk to. That's what they just said to you. So I don't know if that's what Jesus is doing, but here's what I know, man. What I know is check this out. Is the disciples got a lot of doubts? Can I say something to you? If you're a person with a lot of doubts, you struggle with a lot of disloyalty to God, you struggle with a lot of depravity. Let me say this to you. If you got a lot of doubts, you're going to make a great disciple because that's exactly who these dudes were. In fact, get that. I need you to get this in your heart. A disciple is not a person who doesn't have any doubts and it's not a person who doesn't have any questions. In fact, these guys got doubts and they got questions, but watch this. Faith is not the absence of questions. Faith is the moment when the unexplainable gets bowled over by the undeniable reality that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. So what it is, is these dudes, what they go is they're going, hey, man, I got all these questions and I got stuff I can't figure out. By the way, if God's the size of the Pacific Ocean and your mind's the size of a Coke can, you better expect there to be some things that are not going to fit. So these guys are sitting around and they're going, man, I got all these questions. I got all these doubts. I got this stuff that doesn't make sense to me, but they're going, I can't explain this, but I can't deny that one thing. He got up out of that grave. If he got up out of that grave, I'm going to take all these questions and I'm going to follow Jesus and I'm going to trust that someday he'll answer all of them because I know one thing, if he got out of the grave, that's the guy I want to follow. So again, if you got a lot of doubts, you're going to make a great disciple, but watch this. God does not ignore their doubts. He addresses their doubts with a demonstration. So here's what I want to do for you, especially if you got dragged here by mom or grandma and you're like, ah, I don't know about this, the Jesus thing yet. I want to give you three reasons that you must, in fact, that it is actually, it is very illogical for you not to believe the resurrection. Okay. I'm going to give you three of them real fast. Here you go. Number one, the eyewitnesses to the resurrection were to a man willing to die for their testimony that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Now listen, I don't have time to do all this, but 12 out of 12, I say 12 because they replaced Judas with the due day, Matthews. 12 out of 12 of the apostles, church history tells us were martyred and died brutal, horrific, torturous deaths, refusing to recant their belief and testimony that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Now listen, people don't die for lies. Now listen, some of you, every year somebody does this, like, oh yeah, Josh, objection. People die for stuff that's not true all the time. That's why I got to take my shoes off of the airport ever since 01. Okay. Well, listen, people will die for things that aren't true that they think are true. What no one will do is die for something that's not true that they know isn't true. Nobody will do that. And to a man, these men laid down their lives. In fact, the word witness in English comes from the Greek word martyr. These dudes 12 for 12 were murdered and martyred going, I cannot help but speak of what I have seen and heard. I'm not going to do all 12. The apostle Peter, the failure apostle, the dude that denied Jesus and cursed him, profaned his name three times before his death. At the end of his life, Roman Empire grabs Peter and they're like, hey, ma'am, deny Jesus. In other words, just do what you already did three times. I just need you to do it one more time. Deny Jesus or we're going to kill you. And Peter's response is, you do what you got to do. I cannot help but speak of what I have seen and heard. And they're like, well, fine, then we're going to kill you. And Peter's history tells us Peter's final request is that's fine. One request crucify me upside down instead of right side up because I am not worthy to die in the same way as my Lord. And Peter gives his life testifying to the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. How about this one? How about James? Jesus' own blood brother. I'm going to come back to that. Jesus' own blood brother. Worships Jesus as God. They grab him end of his life. They're like, James, deny Jesus. And he's like, you do what you got to do, but I know what I saw and I know who he is. And I'm not giving this up. And so they take James to the top of a temple, throw him off the top of the temple. Church history tells us that his body bounced three times, shattered his rib cage. He's in agony. They grab him before he dies. They're like, deny Jesus. And he's like, you do what you got to do, but I know who he is. I know what I saw and I know when I die, I'm going to stand in front of him. So you do what you got to do, but I'm not recanting anything about the fact that that guy got up. And we do another one. Matthew. Matthew burned at the stake slowly from his ankles to his head. Now, can I just listen, bro, like be honest with yourself for a second. Do you think Matthew lets the flames get up to his shin and goes, you know, man, I might as well go through with it. Quitter's never prosper. No, man, when he's got Jesus body back in a Yeti cooler in his garage, I don't think so. People don't die for stuff that they know is a lie. Number two, I mentioned this earlier, alluded to it. Jesus own brothers died worshiping him as God, James and Jude. Now listen, man, can I just make a point real quick? Let me make a point. How many y'all at all of our campuses? How many y'all got brothers? I got a brother raise your hand. You got a brother look around. Look at all these. Now keep them up. Keep your hand up if you have written a worship song to your brother. Yeah, that's what I thought. How about that? That's what I thought. Now listen, man, I got a brother. He's a great dude. He's like one of my best friends in the whole world. But if my brother showed up at a family holiday one year and was like, behold, I'm the son of God, you know, I'm like, man, you're a son of something brother, but it ain't God. Jesus own brothers died testifying to the fact that he was God and he was raised from the dead. Number three, this is the biggie. The fact and the reality of an empty tomb and there is no place for Christians to go to see the remains of the founder of our way to God. There is no place. Now listen, what I'm going to say in the next 30 seconds is very politically incorrect, but it is biblically correct. And that's my job to tell you this. So listen, man, in every other religion, worldview and philosophy that has ever existed, the adherence to that religion, worldview and philosophy, they can travel to the place, the final resting place of the remains of the founder of their quote unquote way. It's like this guy, what you're seeing right behind me. This is called the temple of the tooth is in Sri Lanka. And every year, tens of thousands of Buddhists make a pilgrimage to that place right there, to the final resting place of one of the decaying teeth of the Buddha. And they go and they commemorate the place where the dead body of their founder lies. This next guy right here is called the tomb of Confucius is in China. And every year, tens of thousands of people who practice Confucianism, they travel to this place, they make a pilgrimage and they honor and give homage to the decaying remains of the founder of their quote unquote way. And his body is laid to rest there. This next guy, this gives me trouble every now and then. This is the grave of Joseph Smith in Illinois. And every year, thousands and thousands of Mormons travel to this place to commemorate the body, the remain, the decaying remains of the man who revealed a quote unquote new religion, a new way to got new recovery of the gospel to this guy and his decaying remains are right there. This last one will definitely get you in trouble. This is what's called the mosque of the prophet in Medina. That is the place where the decaying remains of the quote unquote prophet Muhammad are laid to rest. And every year, not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, millions of Muslims travel to this place and they make a pilgrimage to the place where the remains of the founder of their religion lies. And I must say this right now. There will come a day when Jesus Christ will crack the skies. The last trumpet will sound. He will descend. Every eye will see him. Every knee will bow. And Muhammad will bend his knee to King Jesus Christ on that day. That will happen. And you will see it with your own eyes. That will happen. It will happen. Now listen, all of those are places that people can go. But listen, the whole reason we are gathering here today is because there is no place for Christians to go to see the body, the decaying remains of the founder of our way to God. Jesus Christ was risen from the dead and there's no place for us to go. Some people, you may hear that and you may go, yeah, Josh, but all roads lead to God. Yes, everyone will stand before the judgment seat of God and give an account for what they did with Jesus Christ. Some of you say, yeah, Josh, but are you saying that all the other religions are wrong? No, I'm not saying that. Jesus said that when he said, I am the way, the truth and the life and nobody comes to the Father except through me. And listen, when they're all in the ground and he's not, I'm going to go with him. Listen to me. I don't talk to my kids about Bible stories. I don't say that. These are events. These are actual things that happen in history. A real Jesus died on a real cross for the real you and he really rose from the dead. And if you give him your life, he could really change it forever. That's what we're talking about, man. Now listen, what do you got to believe? Check this out. This is Luke 24, 7. Now watch this. I want you to see it. I want you to say the second bolded word out loud. The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified. And on the third day rise again. Father, help me preach this. Now, what I'm getting ready to say right here, there's so much that's encapsulated in this one word that we just gloss over. We're like, oh, they crucified him. Okay. What I'm getting ready to say is admittedly very brutal, but you cannot understand the love of God without understanding the death of God. So let me explain in two minutes the death of God. So when I was a senior in getting my biblical theology degree, I did a biblical background paper on crucifixion and studied all these, you know, first century accounts of this. You need to know that no depiction of crucifixion, if you saw Passion of the Christ, whatever movie it was, no depiction of the crucifixion you have ever seen even comes close to accurately depicting what happened to Jesus Christ, like not close. In fact, it's only in the last six, about 600 years that Christians began wearing crosses on necklaces or putting them on paintings to adorn their homes or making a sign of a cross because for centuries upon centuries, even the mention of a cross was so shocking, so revolting to the senses, so barbaric, so savage that people wouldn't even mention it. Crucifixion, what it was, it was a form of capital punishment that was invented by the Persians, but it was perfected by the Romans with two specific goals. The goals were to inflict the maximum amount of pain on a person while simultaneously inflicting the maximum amount of shame, humiliation, and degradation. In fact, in the English language, we actually have a word in the English language that comes from the cross. In the English language, we have the term excruciating that comes from two Latin words, excruciatus, that means from or of the cross. The reason for this is that crucifixion had two simultaneous goals, again, to inflict the most amount of pain and the greatest amount of shame. It was so vile that the historian Josephus records that Romans wouldn't even say the word crucifixion in public because it was considered barbaric. It was reserved for slaves and barbarians, people that the empire viewed as non-Persians. Now, when someone was crucified, their goal was not just to torture you, it was to publicly humiliate you. So when somebody was crucified, they were crucified completely naked, stripped completely naked, and they weren't crucified like in a back alley or in a capital punishment ward. This was done in very, very public places. Sometimes, every now and then, this will happen where an Islamic terrorist cell group, they'll brutally, savagely behead somebody, and then they'll upload it online so that the video like goes nasty viral, and they do it as a form of psychological warfare. They're trying to send a signal that the belief of this man or the behavior of this man that you just watched his head sawed off, you better not repeat the belief or behavior of that man or what happened to him may happen to you. It's psychological warfare. The Roman Empire used crucifixion in all its barbarity as a form of psychological warfare to send the same signal. So when someone was crucified, they were crucified in the most public place in a city. Imagine driving onto the parking lot of your local mall at the main thoroughfare of your city or right outside of the grocery store or the Walmart in your city. This is where people would be crucified. Now it wasn't just the degradation, the torture was unimaginable in crucifixion. Three of the gospels record that Jesus was quote unquote, scourged before he was crucified. And they would scourge a man, what they would do is they would bend his body over a pike and they would whip him mercilessly with something that was called a cateinine tails. A cateinine tails was a long leather whip with long braided streams of leather and embedded into the braids of leather. There would be pieces of broken pottery, broken glass and bent nails from construction sites. And they would put them in the threads of the cateinine tails so that when they whipped a man, the broken shards would literally embed themselves into the flesh on the back of a man's rib cage, sink in, and then they would literally rake the flesh off the back of the rib cage of a man. Now, Jewish people had a restriction that someone could not be lashed until death. And so they called it 40 lashes minus one, 39 was the most lashes somebody could receive. The Roman Empire had no such humane restriction. And so people who were crucified were first scourged and they were beaten an unlimited number of times until they raked the entirety of the flesh off the back of a man's rib cage so that all was left were the exposed bone, the exposed muscle, the exposed tendons. Think about this, the exposed nerve endings sticking out of his back. And once that was done, they would play something called a petibulum, 125 to 150 pound. One of this rough shod splinter laden cross beam on the back of that man that would mock him and then tell him to carry that petibulum to the place where he would die being nailed to it. So think about this, our Lord Jesus with the exposed nerve endings on the back of his rib cage, a splinter laden cross beam, he carried it nearly a mile. And with every step, all of those splinters would rub across the exposed nerve endings on his back. When the person got to the place of their death, they would take long six to nine inch nails and they would drive them very strategically. The Romans had enough medical awareness that they knew that there were bunches of nerve endings both in the wrists and in the ankles of a man and they would strategically drive the spikes through those bunches of nerve endings to inflict the maximum amount of pain on the man as he lay dying on the cross. Now, when somebody died in crucifixion, they didn't die of bleeding to death. They didn't die of the pain. It wasn't like a heart attack, whatever it was. What men would do is they would die of asphyxiation. They would die of choking to death on their own blood because the only way that on a cross that you could, their lungs would begin to fill with blood. And the only way that you could gasp your next breath would be to pull up on the spikes that were driven through the nerve endings in your wrists and your ankles. And for every breath that a man tried to gasp, he would have to pull up for that breath. And men would last anywhere between 10 hours and three to five days gasping for each breath on the cross. The pain was so great that what men began to do, historians record around the time of Jesus, is they would literally break their wrists and pull the spikes through the flesh of their arm, rendering themselves unable to pull up any longer to gasp a breath, thus ending their lives more quickly. So around the time of Jesus, what they began to do is they began to, the Romans began to fix a seat to the middle of the cross to force a man to stay up there and breathe so that he could experience the pain for as long as humanly possible. But then some prisoners began to do this. They began to intentionally dislocate their own hips as they hung dying so that they could scoot off the seat and thus end their life more quickly. And so right around the time of Jesus, the Romans began to literally to drive a spike through the genitals of a man. To nail him to that cross to inflict the maximum amount of pain for the longest amount of time. The pain would be so great that historians record men would become incontinent. Their bodies would release their fluids. So the foot of a cross, it was caked with blood, urine, and feces. The smell of it would just waft. The smell of death, wafting over an entire city. Dogs would gather around the feet of crosses, waiting for the flesh of men to fall off, lapping up whatever fell down. Lowlifes are recorded as gathering around the crosses, mocking men, placing bets on which man would cry out the first, or which man would cry out the loudest, who would die first, mocking the anatomical build of a man. This was done to God. Why? Three of the gospels record that a Roman soldier right before Jesus died took a sponge on a stick, dipped it in sour vinegar wine, and put it to Jesus' lips. This was not because he was trying to ease the pain of Jesus, he was mocking Jesus. If you've ever spent time in the military, you understand that any military conscripted man, he has offered a military, it's a field kit. This sponge on a stick was something that Roman soldiers called a teresorium. It was part of their field kit. And what it was, it was a sponge on a short stick that Roman soldiers were issued to wipe themselves after defecating. And so this Roman soldier in mockery of the Lord Jesus Christ took his wiping sponge, dipped it in vinegar wine, put it to the lips of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and with the taste of another man's bowel movement on his lips, Jesus Christ hung dying and he prayed his final prayer, Father, forgive him, for they know not what they do. And then with that taste still on his lips, he answered his own prayer by giving up his life and listen, dying for your sins. You see what you must understand is that Jesus Christ was not just crucified for you, he was crucified instead of you. What was happening in that moment is Jesus Christ was paying the penalty for your sin and for my sin. The old hymn says, in my place, condemned he stood. You see, some people ask, why did Jesus have to die? Well, listen, God is just and so payment for sin had to be made, but listen, God is loved. So he made that payment himself. And when Jesus cried, it is finished. What he was saying was finished was the payment for your sin in full by him. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our sins. The chastisement that brought us peace fell upon him and by his wounds and his wounds alone, we are healed. There is no other way. You see, Jesus wasn't just crucified for us. He was crucified instead of us, but listen, it gets even better. The death of Jesus wasn't the end of Jesus because Jesus last words, listen on the cross where it is finished. His last words were not, I am finished. And if he's not finished, you're not finished. It means that when he, that's it. When he raised from the dead, he raised with a power that can give life to you and that resurrection can overcome pain, death, despair, addiction, all of those things in your life. He released that for you. Check this out. This is a verse from Romans 8. Go to the, go to the Bible verse. There's this verse for real. Go to the Bible verse. It's going to be great. Romans 8 says this, the spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you and just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead. Watch this. He will give life to your mortal bodies by the same spirit living in you. Here's what this means. What this means this Easter is that watch this. You don't just have to celebrate Easter. You can experience it. That the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead is available to you that sin has been paid for. Sin has been atoned for. Death has been defeated. And now his death counts for you and his resurrection will happen to you if you are united to him by faith. That's the best news you're ever going to hear. Now listen, that requires, listen, that requires you responding to that message we call the gospel by faith and placing your faith in Jesus Christ. So check this out. That brings me back to this card. Would you do this real quick at all of our campuses? Would you grab this one more time? I'm like, I'm asking you to do this for real. Like I'm asking you to do this. Would you grab this? And I want you to see at the very bottom where it says ABCD, I'm not asking you to make a decision right here. I'm not, I'm not asking that. All I'm asking you to do is answer the most important question you will ever answer in your life and just self identify where do I stand with Jesus Christ? That's all I'm asking. So let me help you out. Right down here, ABCD. Now I want you to check A and I actually grab a pen. I want you to check A if you would say about yourself, man, I'm already a Christian. And when I say a Christian, that's not like, well, you know, I'm not a Muslim, I'm not an atheist, so I guess I'm a Christian on a census. That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about like you have a living, vibrant, real relationship with Jesus Christ. I want you to check A, if that's you. Okay. Now B, this is awesome, man. I want you to check B if like you may have been hanging out here for a minute or maybe it's your first time and something's like rising in your spirit and you're starting to realize like, man, I think I need to cross a line of faith and begin a relationship with Jesus. I want you to check B if you're going, man, I need to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ. If that's you, you're like, I think I need to do that, man. That's awesome. I want you to check B. Now I want you to check C if it's kind of the whole reason we do this every week, a little bit, part of it. I want you to check C if in all honesty, you're like checking this whole thing out and you're going, man, honestly, I just need to consider it more first. Need a minute, I need to consider it more first. That's you. Check C. That's fine. I just want honesty. Now D, again, I just want honesty. You know, a lot of people's experience, church is no place for honesty. I just want honesty. I want you to check D if in all honesty, you're sitting there and you're going, man, honestly, I don't ever intend to make that decision. All I'm asking you to do is right now, pen to paper, I'm asking you to self-identify where do you stand with Jesus Christ? A, B, C, or D. Now give me a second. I want to talk to you B people real quick. If right now you're going like, man, I think I need to cross a line of faith and either come to Jesus, maybe come back to Jesus for the first time. I want to show you how to do that. So at all of our campuses, would you bow your heads and close your eyes real quick? If that's you and you're realizing you need to do that, I just want you to pray this prayer after me silently in your seat. Just silence your seat, just pray this after me with a sincere heart. Just pray. God, I know I'm a sinner. I know I have lived for other things besides you first. But I believe that you died for my sin. I believe that somehow in some way the cross counted for me. And I believe you rose from the dead. And that now you live to give life to everybody that will call on your name. From this day forward, as best as I know how, I will live for you first. Today I receive the free gift of forgiveness of sin apart from anything I've ever done just as a gift. Thank you, God, for adopting me as a son or a daughter. Now keep your head bowed and your eyes closed. And if you pray that prayer to give your life to Jesus Christ, maybe for the first time, I'm going to count to three. And on three, I want you to shoot your hand in the air. And here's why I'm doing this, no fear, no shame. The reason I'm doing this is because I believe something solidifies in you spiritually when you respond physically. So count of three, no fear, no shame, only faith. If that's you, hand in the air, one, God loves you. Two, you came here for a reason today. Three, right now, hand in the air, right now, right now, all over the room. Wow, keep them up, man. Keep them up, get them a highlight, lock that elbow, like I'm coming home. I'm receiving grace. My Father, thank you. Keep them up, man. I'm yours, Lord. And all over the room, amen, amen, and amen.