We're here this morning for a great reason to celebrate the most important event that's taken place in history because you see there was a man about 2,000 years ago in the area of Judea who when Judea was overrun by the Romans and he was poor and he started teaching and he gathered to him a group of disciples and he gathered so many disciples that Rome started noticing and as a matter of fact he was arrested and he was put to death and his disciples were dispersed and nothing came from that and a few years later another man rose up and he gathered 400 disciples and he marched into Jerusalem and actually the Jews into Jerusalem were made nervous and uncomfortable by him. He was a zealot and so the Romans came and arrested him and beheaded him and his name was Theotus and we're not here to celebrate him. You see there were a lot of people who claimed to be the Messiah in the 1st century AD. It happens so often that when the disciples were causing a problem in Jerusalem that the Sanhedrin came together and a leader in the Sanhedrin named Gamaliel called everybody up and said look guys stood up in front of everybody he didn't call everybody up. He stood up in front of everybody and said man don't worry this happens all the time this is the second time it's happened in our lifetime and it always comes to nothing. Don't worry it's not going to come to anything unless God is part of it. You see it was not rare for leaders to rise up and gather crowds and some of you have already been to college and others of you will go to college and at some point you're going to be forced to take western civilization which will probably be the best class the most important class you'll ever take but you won't like it because you'll be a college freshman and you will ignore it and in that class they're going to tell you that the reason why Christianity was so wildly popular in its first years was because it came it just happened to come at just the right time when there was a poxaramana when there were good streets it was good communication and when people were looking for a new religion well the problem with that is there were a lot of new religions to choose from and there were a lot of new leaders to choose from and they all got killed and all of their influence faded and went away forever when they were killed except for one one leader his influence got bigger after he died. His followers believed in him more after he died than they did before he died and his followers began preaching that he was still alive they said they had seen him in the body had touched his flesh had felt him he appeared to a few of his friends at first a few women outside the tomb tomb then he appeared to his disciples in a closed room and he again began appearing to more and more of them up to 600 at one time and they were so convinced they had seen their friend raise from the dead that most of them died for that belief and that belief continued to grow and it changed everything it changed them and it changed the face of religion so much so that Christianity grew from 12 actually 11 and to 15 and into a couple of hundred and into a few thousand and yet in the lifetime of the Apostle Paul it was preached to every nation in Rome and it is still growing today to the point that it's on every continent that the nation with the most Christians in the world today is China that no human government or religion or philosophy has been able to stop it the resurrection changed everything the resurrection not only changed what people thought but it's changed what people did you see Christians were different they were different up until that time religious people had given money to the poor but hadn't really gotten involved with elevating their lives but the Christians were different they started taking the poor into their homes they started training them they started giving them jobs and they made they took care of the poor they took care of the sick so much so that there was an emperor in Rome named Julian and his one desire was to crush Christianity to destroy it he killed as many Christians as he could and he failed he wanted to reinstate emperor worship he liked when people worship him can't blame him it's a good feeling I hear and he wrote in his memoirs we'll never be able to destroy Christianity as long as they insist on taking care not only of their own poor but not on of ours as well and that tradition of taking care of the poor is continued to the point that today right now if you'll go out and look on Forbes's website of the ten top charities in the country you'll see that eight of them are overtly religious they're overtly Christian the salvation armies the second biggest win is a church and they give not thousands not millions those those eight charities alone have given over 20 billion dollars to the poor last year it continues and it changes the society it's changed the world are you curious as to why the biggest hospitals in town are named St. John St. Francis because Christians got involved with helping the sick in this third century in Corinth people started getting sick and the unbelievers the pagans they literally drug their sick out into the street and fled the city and the Christians went out into the street and brought them in and took care of them and started tradition of taking care of the sick that translated into monasteries being opened up for hospitals and it's translated down to the day you wonder why where public education got its start well the Puritans who moved to this country loved education they wanted everybody to be able to read the Bible one of those Puritans was on his deathbed left money when every penny that he owned to go to education so they started a school named after Reverend John Harvard it was the first school in our country and I think something like 80 of the first 100 schools started here were started with the express purpose of propagating religion the revolution the resurrection has changed every thing it changed those men's lives it changed those women's lives it's changed our culture it has changed our world whether you like it or not whether you believe it or not the event that has shaped the world more than any other today was not the death of Jesus it was not the teaching of Jesus it was the resurrection of Jesus that's what made him different than the other 10 men who were claimed to be Messiahs in the first century and all of whom will put to death it's what it made has made him different from every leader and philosopher sense and it's him that we're here to worship this morning and my question for you is this the resurrection has changed everything has it changed you the resurrection has changed culture it's changed history it's changed education medicine science has changed everything has it changed you let's go to Romans chapter 10 please stand as we hear the word of the Lord I don't see how you're sitting down anyway it's Easter I haven't sat down since 8 so but anyway some of your get tired that's good I want to be gracious to you hear the word of the Lord from Romans chapter 10 beginning with verse 5 for Moses writes about righteousness that is based on the law that the person who does the commandments shall live by them but the righteousness that is based on faith says do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down or who will descend into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead but what does it say the word is near you in your faith and in your heart that is the word of faith that we proclaim because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved for with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved for the scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame for there is no distinction between you and Greek for the same Lord is Lord of all bestowing his riches on all who call on him for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved amen be seated if you can I guess you can well there you go the resurrection has changed everything and it changes everyone who believes in it has it changed you that's my question well Paul starts off talking about those who want to be made righteous by the way they live they want to just be good people they want to be good enough which is hard because God never know where it tells us exactly how far good enough is you'll have to live your entire life wondering if you're good enough but that's what we all want to do we all want to be good that's all right I don't think anybody's ever going to get mad at you for wanting to be good but Paul says this he says all you have to do if you want to be good enough is live by the law be perfect keep it all the time and it becomes this never ending nagging journey this struggle that we never seem to accomplish and it's in its epidemic primarily in the church I'll be honest with you the only people I know who struggle with this are people who are in the church and who just don't think they're being good enough I have I got an email from a good friend this last week and she she's been sad her mother died about a year ago and she's been sad ever since and she was writing to me because she's sad that she's not excited about Easter if no one's ever told you this I want to let me be the first to tell you it is okay to be sad when your mother dies okay that's not a sin but she feels so bad about being sad she feels so bad so guilty of that she's not happy all the time the way that she's been told the Christians all to be that she feels depressed about this despondent about it and she wants to write someone who lives in another state because she says this she said I can't tell anyone in my church because I don't want them to evangelize me I don't want them all thinking I'm not a Christian if I would just believe in Jesus I wouldn't be sad anymore do you feel that guilt that's the guilt the failure of someone who's trying to ascend into heaven by being good by being doing the right thing by feeling the right thing by always being just right and they're never make it it turns into this guilt that's so bad that you're afraid to let anybody in you don't want anybody to know how you feel and it's a it's a slavery but the slavery isn't just for those who are trying to be good the slavery is for those also who are not who feel like it's their duty to feel bad Paul says don't let us say who can ascend into heaven God's already come down from heaven and he says don't let us say who's going to descend into the abyss we're surrounded I feel part broken for so many of those I know who honestly believe their purpose is to feel bad enough about their sin if they can just feel bad enough about their past if they can just feel bad enough about their brokenness a good friend of mine has a brother who's just turned 50 and he's still single he's a great guy he's just wonderful everybody loves him I say that because he owns a shoe store and everybody goes to this shoe store and pays way too much for their shoes just so they can hang out with this guy is wonderful and my friend asking what you know are you going to stay single? you know you've had opportunities and he said this he goes I know but I just don't want to bring anyone else in on the hell that is my life it's just so overwhelmed with self hatred with self anger with self-loving not only does he not accept himself he finds it unbelievable as a matter of fact he thinks it would be a punishment for anyone else to accept him we don't and some people feel like they have to go there there are people that I love dearly that I almost feel bad telling them how much Jesus loves them because I know it's going to send them into a spiral of sadness I just don't deserve I know you don't deserve love that's the beauty of it don't feel like you're making yourself more acceptable better by hating yourself more you're not you're not you don't have to descend into the abyss Jesus has gone into that for us he has suffered the fullness of death he suffered the fullness of hell for you he has brought salvation to you salvation is no longer in heaven for you to ascend to it's no longer in hell for you to descend to it's right there next to you Paul tells you it's it's on the tip of your tongue he says if anyone will confess in our mouth with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts they got raised them from the dead they will be saved it's right there what does it mean what does Paul mean when he says if anyone confesses with their mouth we our problem is we you know we can only understand things in our context right and so it's almost like a verse that we don't like all you got to do is say Jesus is Lord and sometimes people say it and it just drives this crazy like if you say that you can do whatever you want it's kind of free pass as a matter of fact you're more likely you're probably more likely in our culture to get persecuted saying you don't think Jesus is Lord then by saying you believe it but you have to understand that Paul wrote this in the first century in Rome when nobody was saying Jesus is Lord when as a matter of fact if you wanted to be a part of one of the trade guilds if you wanted to be financially secure if you wanted to be socially accepted if you wanted to be to live in prosperity and prominence you had to go burn incense at the temple at least once a week and declare Caesar is Lord and if you refuse to do that you would be cast out you would lose money you would lose status and the apostle Paul says you have to be willing to declare him you have to be willing to own him you have to be willing to confess him that Jesus is Lord he is our our God he has God himself and he's our God think about this for a second the apostle Paul was probably the same age as Jesus he knew him he probably saw him in the temple it would be more likely that he saw him than that he didn't and he called him Lord in Colossians he said that Jesus created the heavens and the earth that we tend to have a chronological arrogance to us in other words we hear about things that people did a long time ago we think well they were dumb back then okay look people didn't just go around believing in resurrections back then that's kind of what made it dramatic people have always stayed dead it's one of those constants people have always stayed dead people didn't go around saying man I love Jeremy so much he created the stars I mean is there anybody that you know that you think he is so awesome he probably created heaven and earth I think everything that exists probably consists in him is there anybody that comes to that level of course not but Paul said that about his friend his colleague his contemporary what is his friend he tried to put into death but his colleague his contemporary why because he raised from the dead and Paul saw him alive from the dead and that changes things and Paul says not only is he God but he's my God he has control over me he owns me he rules over my money he rules over my time he rules over my life he rules over my sexuality he rules over my relationships he rules over everything he is the Lord and he is my Lord you'll confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead I love that believing in your heart there's a new book I haven't read it yet but here's good about it's called the emotional emotional argument for Jesus or I forgot the title just like that the argument of the of the book is that Christianity is still the only thing that's emotionally complete it's emotionally compelling you believe in your heart not just you know I believe George Washington chopped down a cherry tree I believe Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and I believe Jesus was raised from the dead but do you really embrace that does it change you the power of belief is an amazing thing I don't know if y'all saw a couple people posted it on Facebook this last week there's been a fascinating study done on milkshakes and you see it it's amazing this this psychologist named I wrote a name down so I wouldn't forget it she took these milkshakes she's normal 300 calorie milkshakes and she printed up nutritional information labels and on half of them she wrote a label that said no this is a date she gave it some name you know light something and she put the information on there it was only a hundred calories you know all this health stuff and all these vitamins and then she took the other half of the milkshakes and she put these labels she called them endolge and she put these labels on there it said 700 calories cream and sugar and you know just all this wonderful stuff and she gave them to her subjects and then she didn't ask them how they felt she actually studied the levels of hormones in their stomach their your body produces a stomach when you're hungry and when you're full when you eat enough your body stops producing it the people who ate the diet milkshakes never stop producing that hormone the people who ate the endolge were stuffed their stomachs believe they had eaten too much and stop producing the one in that fascinating and she was asked kind of what her conclusions were and she says we have no idea how important belief is belief shapes our reality it even shapes our physiology that's what Paul saying you believe in your heart Jesus is raised from the dead has it shaped your reality has it reshaped your personality has it shaped your physiology has it shaped your life because if you have if you believe it in your heart you'll be saved everything will be changed everything is changed you receive forgiveness you receive forgiveness that that weight that you carry around from just the nagging sense that you're not what you ought to be my wife's not here so I can give you a good illustration the other day one of our children woke us up at 10 30 to tell us that he had failed the test woke us up crying and which is fine it's really not that big a deal to fail a test in the Jones House but he believed because it was the you know the state test they put all this pressure on you about the state test is really that that's when the school's getting tested they don't really care how you do the regular test but when the school's getting test they stressed out about that stuff right and so it was a state test and he thought he had done badly and the teachers had all told him that if you do badly you can get put in remedial classes with the bad kids you know he thought his life was ruined and he came to our door and you know we invited him over the bed said there's no big deal I promise I promise there's no big deal will you please leave us alone and so I'm sorry did I say that out loud so he went back to bed I kind of thought was funny a little bit Bianca first response what have we done wrong that he won't come and tell us said honey who are you talking about we don't tell anybody bad news ever were the least confrontational people in the history of the world it took you three weeks to tell your boss you're pregnant he's just being like us what did we do but you see what she does in the media what did we do well it's just got to be my fault this guilt we walk around under you can be released from that from the real guilt and from the fake guilt and from everything in between some of the stuff you've done you should not have done you shouldn't have you should have known better you did no better you can be forgiven for that Jesus suffered for that and other things you've done you did it because of various reasons maybe inherited I came by all my sin natural I can point to somebody's blame for everything I've ever done wrong I can be forgiven for that too forgiveness is real the freedom is real you are not a slave to repeat the sins of your father you're not a slave to repeat the sins of your childhood you're not going to you don't have to live with this name tag on you that says adulterer or drug abuser or whatever it is that you're ashamed of you don't have to walk around with that name tag on you anymore you can be freed from that you can be saved from that I'm going to get better than this I'm getting better than this I'm still learning how bad I am I know I do how intense I was until I found out that normal people don't grind their teeth 24 hours a day what that was a natural way of holding your truth like this don't walk up through the legs like this oh I guess I am uptight I did this been telling me that for 20 years now I'm figuring it out we're learning we're growing we're finding out how far short we fall but I'm not a slave to that I am not a slave to that I don't have to stay the coward who lives afraid that his wife is going to find out what he's really like I'm not my dad I'm not a slave to impressing you I'm not a slave to anyone and we are not only forgiven and freed but we are filled with hope if you believe in your heart we got raised him from the dead then the resurrection becomes your ultimate truth hope for you hope for this world around you hope for the people that you love some of you are still awfully young and you have it figured out that this life is not a comedy it's a tragedy I'm not sure that out sooner than others and at that point when you really do learn that you're going to have to find out you will find out whether you believe Jesus God raised him from the dead or not because when you watch somebody that you love being put in the ground you're either going to see him or you're not either you're saying goodbye forever or you're not either that is your end or it is not either that is the end of this entire planet and entire history or it is not and if you believe if you embrace the resurrection if the lasting truth for you is not that we are all dying and getting worse and worse and spiraling out of control into chaos and oblivion if the ultimate truth for you is that God is alive and he is making alive and he is bringing hope and he is redeeming and he is restoring and even those that we have laid in the ground we will see again and we will see forever and they will be healed and they will be better and they will be happier and they will be complete and I will be complete that is your hope if you're filled with that then you've been saved you've been saved from that death then the resurrection is real for you then it is alive in your heart then it shapes your physiology it shapes your reality the resurrection has changed everything has it changed you if it hasn't it can start today it can start today it's right there near you don't have to do anything but confess in your with your mouth and believe in your heart God saves everyone who calls out to him to be saved please pray with me Father in heaven we cry out with joy and hope we are so thankful that Jesus is not dead and that since he is alive we believe that we will live with him and that is a hope that matters today that is a hope that's changed everything about our culture and the hope that has changed us it is a hope that has changed us and we pray Lord that you give us stronger faith in it it's hard to believe some for some reason it seems to be easier to be angry with you than it is to believe in you I pray Lord you give us the faith to believe and give us the faith to joyfully receive the truth that you've raised Jesus from the dead