Is The Resurrection True?

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. If Christ hasn't been raised and the dead aren't raised, then if the dead are not raised, let us eat, drink, for tomorrow we die. In other words, eat your desserts first, right? Get what you can from whomever you can, whenever you can, however you can, in whatever way you can. Just do it. YOLO. You only live once. So go out, have a good time. More and more people are kind of living that way. Have you noticed that? They're living like as if today is the only thing that matters. There is no tomorrow. Let's just do it. Let's just live for whatever they're just hoping for right now. That's all they've got. It sounds like a good way to live because you can't guarantee anything else, can you? And yet, what happens when the vacation is over? When the credit cards are maxed out? What happens when there's no more fun to have? We've done it all. We've tried it all. We've done this. We've done that. And then all of a sudden, there's just nothing amusing on TV anymore. What happens then? What happens is that people who live for the moment, who live for the day, who live for just enjoyment, for pleasure, end up... I mean, it makes sense to me. It makes sense. If there is no hope beyond what I've got now, no wonder there are a lot of people who are facing... We have higher rates of depression and anxiety in our society than ever before because there is no hope. I would paraphrase Paul on this statement, if Christ has not been raised and if the dead aren't raised and eat, drink, for tomorrow we die, I would paraphrase the statement, if for this world we only have hope for the moment, it's sad. We're the most to be pitied if all you're living for is today. But you might say to me right now, John, what can I live for? I mean, come on, this whole religion thing, you know, you really expect me to blindly accept the idea of that one person, of the billions of people who have existed on this planet, that this one person somehow after death rose bodily from the grave and then he happened to just appear to a few hundred people over a short period of time, 30, 40 days, and then he ascends into heaven, so there's no way to prove it. This is just like any other religion that's just totally subjective. For those who can look and not at the facts and just kind of believe blindly, fine, that makes sense. Just like people can believe in the Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch. Maybe it's a step above those flat earthers, but that's about it. Do you really expect me to just believe this blindly? No, I don't. Nor do I think his first disciples did. Nor did Jesus expect you to believe it blindly. This is why I love Easter. I think Easter is the perfect time. It's the perfect time to answer the big questions in life. It's the perfect time to deal with all of your questions, to see how they fit together in a sense underneath the big question. If Jesus rose from the dead, then it's all true, and it's worthy of following and being a follower of Jesus. This is the perfect time for someone to follow Jesus for the first time in their life, if they've never done it before. Because he can handle your questions, he can handle your objections, he can handle your scrutiny, your criticisms, your objections. Everything that you have, he can handle it. And so if you came because today is the thing, this is the thing to do, mom kind of got you to come to church because, well, you know, and then you'll go to brunch, and I'm just doing it with the family, that's great, I'm glad you're here. And if you came because someone invited you and you're just kind of curious, I am glad you're here. And if you came because, well, you've tried everything else, you want to believe, you've tried to believe, you just don't see how this works, and yet you're here because you've got to try something. We're glad you're here. We love at Thrive, we love people who think, we love people who've got questions, we love people who have some skepticism about them, who don't just buy in just because somebody else tells you to. We love that. And I'm just asking you today as well to not just share your doubts, but also doubt your own doubts, to be open, maybe, that there's something more that you don't know, that you don't understand. Let's read a little more from Paul, okay? This is from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and let me tell you, those people in Corinth at that time were some of the greatest skeptics, some of the greatest know-it-alls, some of the people that just were trying to live for the day and live whatever way they wanted. And this is what Paul tells them, he says this, But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how could some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless,...