Reasons for Believing in Jesus' Resurrection

Well, I think that's the perfect way to end this. I have

to tell you though, I want to tell you the seven reasons I believe that Jesus rose

from the grave. And I can do it in 60 seconds or I can do it in 60 minutes.

You tell me what you want.

Let's just go. Okay.

Let's go longer than 60 seconds. Okay. I can do it in 60 seconds.

But what I want

people to know is based on the evidence,

Jesus's resurrection

is the only way that we ultimately make sense of the suffering in our lives.

Romans 8, 18, Paul said,

That's the number one reason I believe in the resurrection.

Suffering doesn't make sense without it. Number two, Jesus called it. He

foretold it.

You've heard of Babe Ruth calling a shot, Joe Namath calling a shot, Muhammad Ali.

Nobody called their shot like Jesus did.

Jesus was constantly predicting his death,

burial, and resurrection. Mark 8, 31, Mark 9, 31, Mark 10, 33, and 34.

This is where Jesus said,

Remember, Sean, we only have 89 chapters in the Gospels.

We have parts of 26 days of the life of Jesus.

One third of the Gospels is what this program has been about.

The death, burial, and resurrection, it all points to that fact.

That energized the church in Acts 17, 6 to turn the world upside down.

So it's the only way we make sense of the suffering in our world. Jesus foretold it.

Jesus also adumbrated.

He showed he had power over death.

Mark 5, he raises Jairus' daughter from the dead.

Luke 7, he raises the widow of Nain's son from the dead.

And then, of course, John 11, he raises Lazarus from the dead.

I've been in Lazarus' tomb in Bethany. Many Christians don't go there because

it's West Bank or whatever. I had a great time there. I

got all the way down to the tomb, Sean, and I literally yelled out, Lazarus,

come forth! Just because I wanted to be like Jesus.

It would have sounded duro exo, literally stand up, walk out in grief.

So Jesus showed he had power over death.

Fourthly, this is really fascinating.

All of the textual and archaeological evidence authenticate the resurrection

accounts that we have in the Gospels.

Jodie Magnus, who is an atheist archaeologist from the University of North

Carolina, when studying the death, burial,

and resurrection passages in the New Testament, guess what she says?

The Gospels get it right. Fifthly, this is unique.

I just wrote this for, co authored it

with Craig Evans for Macmillan Interdisciplinary

Textbooks on Philosophy of Religion.

There is no psychological reason in Judaism to invent

the Jesus story unless it actually happened.

It is not, as I mentioned earlier, what any of his disciples would have expected.

I already mentioned 4Q285,

where it's seen that Jesus would kill the Roman emperor.

Sixthly, you cannot explain the conversion

of hostile witnesses to Jesus apart from the resurrection.

Jesus appeared to those who loved him, Jesus appeared to those who were

indifferent to him, and Jesus appeared to those who hated him. Look no further.

We've talked about James and then the Apostle Paul. The seventh fact is huge.

Everywhere the gospel goes,

society is brought freedom. Not perfection, but freedom.

The gospel re humanizes people. The gospel brings freedom.

Galatians 328 says,

and this was seditious for Paul to say this, that in Christ there's neither

Jew nor Gentile, there's neither slave nor free, there's neither male nor female,

we are all one in Jesus Christ.

He said that when Rome was at its highest, 40 of the empire were slaves.

The gospel re humanized women and children.

There's an ancient fragment that I've published called Pioxi 744.

It's a love letter written in Greek from

Hilarion to his wife Alice. This is what the world was like before Christianity.

People don't realize it was hell on earth.

There was something about the X factor of the resurrection that was a game changer.

This is what Hilarion writes, I'm going to say it in Greek.

This is what he wrote to his wife.

Beautiful love letter.

And his wife will give birth to their child before he returns home.

And what I just quoted in Greek verbatim was, if it is a boy,

keep it. If it's a girl, throw it away. And no one would have batted an eye.

You and I would not have batted an eye. That was the first century BC.

Jesus comes on the scene.

Let the children come to me. He re humanizes children.

You have literally rescue missions,

saving children from the Christian movement.

In one of my books, Unimaginable, I give 12 ways the

world would be radically different tomorrow if there were no Christians.

And listen, I don't worship Christianity. I don't worship the Bible.

I don't worship the church. I worship the risen Christ.

I want to make that very clear. But I also want to make it clear,

the church is the greatest force for good on planet earth.

And we don't talk enough about what the Jesus movement does.

All the idiots get the click baits, the people that fall,

the people that can't keep their life straight. But you know what?

There's an army of believers out there doing amazing work.

They're the front people in, front line in.

Every time there's a disaster, they want to help people.

They want to love their enemies,

pray for those who persecute them, and just be there.

My daughter's in Montreal right now serving Canadians, loving Jesus, freezing her

tail off, just to tell people about Jesus with a group from our Christian Academy.

This is what is the most underreported

phenomenon, is the impact that the gospel made. And of course, then the eighth

reason is the Shroud of Turin. So I've just given you the top eight reasons of

why I believe Jesus rose from the grave and why it matters today.

Thank you. Thank you.