Paul's History Lesson
Tom Shrader walks through Acts 13:16-41, the first sermon of Paul's that Luke records, in which Paul surveys Israel's history to demonstrate that God has been sovereignly at work from the patriarchs through David and ultimately to Jesus Christ. Paul proclaims that forgiveness of sin is found only through Christ, not through the law of Moses, and grounds that claim in the historical fact of the resurrection. Shrader applies this to his congregation by insisting that Christianity is not a malleable ethic or a feeling-based system, but a faith built on verifiable facts — that Christ died for sin, was buried, and rose from the dead.
“If you destroy the resurrection, you destroy Christianity. Our faith, our Christian faith, is a faith that's based in fact.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Acts
Recorded: 2000 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 41 min
Themes: gospel, resurrection, forgiveness, history, salvation, faith, preaching, israel, new believer, doubting faith, seeking salvation, questioning christianity, young adult, skeptic, searching for truth, struggling with legalism
Scripture: Acts 13:14-41, Acts 9:20, Romans 1:16, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, Deuteronomy 7:1, 1 Samuel 8, Psalm 51, Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 40, John 1:19-23, John 5, Psalm 2:7, 2 Corinthians 11:26, Romans 9, 1 Corinthians 15, Job 9
Theological Themes: soteriology, justification by faith, resurrection of christ, biblical inerrancy, historical reliability, law and grace, sovereignty of god, redemptive history
Full Transcript
Introduction to Paul's First Recorded Sermon
We are in Acts chapter 13, picking up where we left off last week at the completion of verse 13. What we are going to look at today is the first sermon of Paul's that Luke has recorded for us. It is clearly not the first sermon he ever delivered. Back in Acts chapter 9, Paul was converted — he came to Christ in repentance and faith — and verse 20 of that chapter tells us that immediately he began to proclaim the gospel. But this is the first one of Paul's sermons for which Luke has provided us a record to review and to study. It is the first sermon we have to listen to the apostle deliver.
When Paul wrote to the church at Rome in Romans chapter 1, verse 16, he said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." When Paul wrote back to the church at Corinth and began thinking about the time he had come to them and taught them, he said this: "When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, in fear, and much trembling. My message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of Spirit and power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God."
I believe that the model Paul used in Corinth and the power he talked about in the book of Romans would drive us to conclude that this was pretty much the message everywhere he went. Everywhere he went, Paul talked about the gospel — what the gospel meant, what it was, and what you should do in response to it. He says to the church at Corinth, "I preach Christ and Christ crucified. There is the power." He said he did not come with some clever gimmick, not with five points beginning with P and a power action point as you leave. He came with the gospel — here is what God has to say — and that was the preeminent issue for Paul as he began to teach and evangelize.
The Journey to Pisidian Antioch
We saw last week in verse 13 that Paul and his group were on the move. John had left them. Verse 14 tells us they were going from Perga and arrived at Pisidian Antioch, and on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue. Many of you have a map of Paul's missionary journeys in the back of your Bibles, and that would be very helpful here. Paul starts over on the land near Tarsus and those areas, moves out to the island of Cyprus — where we saw him stop and preach — and then moves north and northwest, back inland into Asia Minor, into a region known as Galatia. When Paul writes to the Galatians, he is really writing to these churches at Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe.
It is important to understand, because we can get confused, that there are two different Antiochs being referenced. One is inland in Syria, where Paul had already been and taught. That is not the Antioch we are talking about now. Paul is moving inland into Asia Minor to Pisidian Antioch. The journey from Perga on the coast to Antioch is about a hundred miles, and it is a tough journey. Antioch sits at 3,600 feet above sea level.
One commentator writes: "The road from Perga to Pisidian Antioch, some hundred miles away, was difficult and dangerous — rugged mountains clinging to cliffs, ascending to dizzying heights, crossing turbulent and flood-prone rivers. Additionally, the Taurus Mountains were notorious for robbers who banded together, infested them, and preyed on people as they traveled through." When Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 26, "I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers," it could well be that he had this portion of the journey in mind.
It is also worth noting — though this is speculation and only a few scholars hold to it — that Paul may have been suffering from malaria at this time and was seeking refuge in a cooler, more comfortable climate. Regardless, Paul arrives at Antioch. It is the Sabbath, and on the Sabbath day his group went into the synagogue and sat down.
Paul's Invitation to Speak
Luke tells us in verses 15 and 16: "After the reading of the Law and of the Prophets, the synagogue officials sent to them and said, 'Brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it.' And Paul stood up and motioned with his hand and said, 'Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen.'"
We know Paul developed a pattern of going to the synagogues, and we can see here why. For one, the people gathered there were interested in spiritual and religious things. Granted, many of them had ears that were deaf, eyes that were blind, and hearts that were dead to what Paul was going to say — but nonetheless, that is where the spiritual discourse was taking place. Paul also had in his heart a deep passion for the Jews. He tells us that in Romans 9, saying he would give up his own salvation if he could for his countrymen, the Jews. He understood he could not do that, but he also understood that his mission was to preach to the Jew first and then to the Gentile.
You can see both groups gathered here in his salutation: "Men of Israel" — the Jews — "and you who fear God" — the Gentiles, the God-fearing Gentiles who were part of this assembly. One more significant factor is that it was the custom in the synagogue to invite visiting rabbis to speak, especially a prominent and highly educated visitor, which Paul certainly was. It makes a great deal of sense, then, that the apostle would go to the synagogue where both Jew and Gentile were gathered and where he would be given the opportunity to address them.
Paul Addresses the Synagogue
The Gentiles who were concerned about spiritual things gathered together, knowing that Paul would be given an opportunity to speak. Paul goes to this group, and in verse 16 he stands and speaks. Let me read to you verses 16 through 23 from the New Living Bible.
"People of Israel and you devout Gentiles who fear God, listen to me." He gives them a history lesson. "The God of this nation of Israel chose our ancestors and made them prosper in Egypt. Then he powerfully led them out of their slavery. He put up with them through 40 years of wandering around in the wilderness. Then he destroyed seven nations in Canaan and gave their land to Israel as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years. After that, judges ruled until the time of Samuel the prophet. Then the people begged for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned for 40 years. But God removed him from his kingship and replaced him with David, a man about whom God said, 'David, son of Jesse, is a man after my own heart, for he will do everything I want him to do.' And it is one of King David's descendants, Jesus, who is God's promised Savior to Israel."
History as God's Story
Paul stands among these Jews and these God-fearing Gentiles and gives them a history lesson. But it is a history lesson different from the history lessons we might give or talk about. When we study history, we study specific events, but our focus is most often on the men and women who influenced those events — on human beings and their influence, good or bad, and how it relates to the story of men. For many in our culture, we even see history as a series of random events that string together and carry political, economic, or sociological ramifications, and we study them in that context. We see survival of the fittest, or whatever framework we bring, as we look at history.
A sinful man loves that idea. He loves the notion that there is no God controlling and moving history, because that grants him the freedom to do whatever he wants. He begins to think he is not accountable to anyone or anything. If there is no God, then everything is permitted. Ironically, that freedom produces exactly the opposite — it produces hopelessness and despair. But sinful man wants that.
That option, however, is not available to those who listen to Paul, for Paul gives them a history lesson not about men and their events, but about God. He says we look at history and it is all about God. God chose their fathers — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. God led them out of Egypt. He made them great while they were there, increasing their numbers and their influence. He acted with arms uplifted, a picture of His power. He put up with them, cared for them in the wilderness — and not just cared for them, but endured their sin and their rebellion.
God's Hand Through Israel's History
God is at work throughout all of it. In Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 1, He tells us that seven nations were destroyed and their land was given to the nation of Israel as part of its inheritance. The lesson continues: He gave them judges. Then they said, as recorded in 1 Samuel 8, we want to be like everybody else — we want a king. So He gave them Saul, a self-absorbed, disobedient, self-willed, proud man. God demonstrated great mercy and let Saul reign for 40 years. But then He raised up David.
Luke tells us something about David that we learn from the words of God Himself. God said, "David is a man after my own heart." I remember the first time I ever read that. I was fairly new to the faith, and I read that here was a man after God's own heart — by God's own description, this was His kind of man. I thought I ought to study this, that this must be a great example. Then I began to read about David, and I said, here is a coward, here is a man who is afraid, here is a man who commits adultery, here is a man who commits murder. That is my role model?
A Heart Broken Over Sin
What is it that God finds so compelling about David? David was willing to do whatever God asked him to do. And most importantly, when David sinned, he was broken over that sin. Read Psalm 51. Read the words of the psalmist David as he comes face to face with his sin. We say this frequently: one of the great revealers of where you are spiritually is not how you do in good times, but what your response is to sin in your life. Can you simply sin and say, well, that's no big deal — boys will be boys, the devil made me do it? David was broken over his sin, and God raised him up and made him king.
And not only that — God promised that from David's lineage would come the Savior. That Savior is indeed Jesus Christ. The Old Testament is filled with prophecies about the coming of Christ. Isaiah 7:14 declares, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call him Emmanuel, God with us." We read so many of these prophecies just a month or so ago at Christmas.
The Promise Fulfilled
But it is not only the prophecies about His birth. Paul says the promises have now come. Before the Savior came, John the Baptist preached the need for everyone in Israel to turn from sin, turn to God, and be baptized. As John was finishing his ministry, he was asked whether he was the Messiah. He answered that he was not, but that the Messiah was coming soon — and that he was not even worthy to be His slave.
Paul then declares to his listeners — brothers, sons of Abraham, and all devout Gentiles who fear God — that this salvation is for them. The people in Jerusalem and their leaders fulfilled prophecy by condemning Him.
The Rejection They Should Have Seen Coming
They didn't recognize Him or realize that He is the one the prophets had written about, though they heard the prophets' words every Sabbath. They hear these words every Sabbath, and yet they don't recognize it as it works itself out before them. As verse 28 tells us, they found no just cause to execute Him, but they asked Pilate to have Him killed anyway.
There was John the Baptist, of whom Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen none greater than John the Baptist." In Isaiah 40, the prophet writes, "There is a voice calling, clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness, make smooth in the desert a highway for God." Early on in his ministry, as people went out and began to talk to John the Baptist, they asked him, "Who are you?" This exchange is recorded in John chapter 1, verse 19. Are you the Christ? He said, I am not the Christ. Are you Elijah? No. Are you a prophet? No. Well, who are you? And he said, "I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord."
Paul is saying to the Jews: you should have understood all of this. You should have figured all of this out, but you rejected Him. You failed to realize who He was. They had the Scripture. In fact, in John chapter 5, Jesus says to the Pharisees, "You search the Scripture because you think in them you have life, but there is no life in them. They point to me." They had all the privilege. They had the opportunity to sit and listen to the teaching week after week after week. It was part of many of their family heritage. And yet they rejected Christ and condemned Christ, even though He was innocent.
When we studied the Gospel of John, the trial of Christ — especially before Pilate — was one of those fascinating studies. The Jews bring Jesus to Pilate, and Pilate says He is not guilty of anything. Why would you bring Him in here? And they said, we would not bring Him in here if He were not guilty. That was their charge: take our word for it, He is guilty. Pilate finds Him innocent, innocent, innocent, but finally succumbs to the political pressure and the powers against him. But Paul is not talking about Pilate. He is talking to these Jews. He said, you are the ones who were involved in this. You are the ones who rejected Him.
The Death, Burial, and Resurrection
Verse 29 says that when they had fulfilled all the prophecies concerning His death, they took Him down from the cross and placed Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead, and He appeared over a period of many days to those who had gone with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. These witnesses are His people — His Jewish people.
Paul is saying: here is the good news. Jesus Christ was crucified. He was buried, just as the Scripture said it would be, and just as these people would be involved in this process. Just as all of those messianic prophecies spoke of a suffering Messiah, that was Jesus Christ. And then God raised Him from the dead.
As I have been studying and preparing since we started the book of Acts, we come back to this point over and over again. In Peter's first sermon in Acts chapter 2, he said, "God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, for it was impossible for Him to be held by its power." A few verses later he says it again: God raised Jesus up again. We see this message all through the book of Acts, again and again and again. God raised Him from the dead.
This is an important truth. In fact, it is so important that Paul says if God did not raise Him from the dead, then all of our faith is in vain and we are just wasting our time. He notes that Jesus appeared to Mary and to others. Paul is saying: listen, I want to talk to you about your history. I want you to see how God was actively involved in every aspect of this. I want you to understand how God worked. I want you to understand how your forefathers — you Jews — participated in all of this, so that all the Scripture might be fulfilled.
The Promise Fulfilled
Now Paul drives them to a conclusion. He says: we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus. He is not talking here about the resurrection. He is talking about the incarnation. He quotes from Psalm chapter 2, verse 7: "Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee." Then in verse 34 he says, "As for the fact that He raised Him from the dead, no more to return to decay, He has said this to you, I will give you the holy and sure blessing of David."
The word that caught my attention is the word "fact." I happened to be working through some channels the other night, and I landed on TV Land right in the middle of Dragnet, just as Joe Friday was saying: give me the facts, ma'am, just the facts. It is interesting to read what people say about the culture and the time in which we live. We are told that what young people are looking for today is authenticity — that is the buzzword — genuineness. Some of you here are my kind of people. You say: I do not need a lot of fluff. Just give me the facts. That is all I want. I will figure it out from here. Just give me the facts.
Paul seemed to love that approach. He said: here is the fact. The fact is God raised Him from the dead, and that becomes the cornerstone of our faith. If you destroy the resurrection, you destroy Christianity.
Faith Rooted in Fact
James Montgomery Boyce writes these words: essentially, Christianity is the proclamation of facts that concern what God has done. That is why Christianity is not malleable. Sometimes people try to remake Christianity, thinking a new version might be more acceptable to our contemporaries at this time.
I see this all the time. Earnest, sincere people try to reach into the culture, and as they begin to do that, what happens is they retool the Christian faith. Our job, our mission, is to reach into the culture. We want to be sensitive to that. We want to use methods and language that people understand.
I am an advocate of that. That is what I do during the week. Wednesday morning I teach in a restaurant. Thursday morning I teach in a bar. Thursday noon I teach a large group in a church setting, continually reaching out to men and women who do not know Christ. I try to do it in a way that the language and style communicates to them in a way they can understand.
But here is what is essential: not the method, but the message. What so many are doing today is beginning to retool the message. I can understand that, because this message is a hard message. It is pretty hard to sit down with somebody and begin to share your faith and have them say, "That really works for you, and that is neat that you found something that works for you, but that just does not work for me."
Well, it is not a matter of whether it works for you or not. The issue is: what is true?
Truth Over Feeling
I was listening to Dr. Laura this week — I was doing it for you, so you do not have to. A lady called in who was unhappy. She was being disciplined by her church, and she disagreed with that discipline. She said, "What do I do when I don't believe what my church is teaching?" When asked why she did not believe it, she said, "I don't think it's right. I don't feel it's right." I have those conversations all day long. The issue is: what is true?
Our faith is based in fact, not in myth. I find many people who reject Christianity categorically, and I ask them why. When I press them, it comes down to: "I don't feel like it's right." Then I ask what they do believe, and they have this concoction where they have cut and pasted from all over — a little from here, a little from there — and often mutually contradictory beliefs. You stop and say, "Do you see how this does not make any sense?" But they are so comfortable there.
Here is something we have to be able to say in love: if you do not believe this, you are — and it is hard to say — wrong. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through Me." It is not a matter of sincerity. It is a matter of truth.
There are spiritual laws, the laws of God, and whether you believe them or not is irrelevant. It is like the law of science. You may not believe in the law of gravity, but if you are in a plane at 17,000 feet and you lose power, with no stabilizer and no thrust from your jet, the law of gravity is going to take effect whether you believe in it or not. The same is true in your life. You may say, "I just do not think this is true." There is a day coming when you will discover that it is.
There was a great tragedy this week — that plane crash. I cannot imagine that. But let me tell you what the real tragedy is. There were 88 people on that plane, and I have to presume that some of them are in hell. They probably sat through messages like this and said, "It doesn't really matter, not really for me. He's just a zealot, or he has gotten carried away with this stuff."
The Facts We Cannot Escape
Boyce goes on to say that remaking Christianity does not work, and the reason is that whether we like it or not, Christianity constantly brings us up against the facts. We cannot get away from them.
This is really important, because people will say, "Well, that is not the way a Christian acts," and they begin to develop a Christian ethic, a Christian behavior. But our faith is not based on an ethic or on behavior. It is based on the truths of Christ. The root word of "Christian" is Christ.
What makes you a Christian is what you believe, not how you behave. Now, what you believe ultimately affects how you behave — we are not separating those two things. But a person does not act in a Christian way and thereby become a Christian. A Christian is one who understands the gospel as Paul is laying it out here.
Boyce says: rather than try to change these things, we have to learn to conform our thinking and our conduct to them, and to proclaim not our own ideas, but the facts.
In Paul's heart, I think he would love to give these people a gospel that somehow says they are all going to heaven. But he cannot do that, because that is not true. Paul gives them the gospel. He tells them that they are sinful. Job asked this question in Job 9: how can a man be right before God? How can a man be just with God? How can a sinful man be reconciled to God?
The Conclusion of the Gospel
Here is what Paul says — and he is driving toward a conclusion. "Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sin is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses."
The Bombshell in the Room
This explodes in that room, as Paul speaks, like a bomb. They are sitting there and listening, and all of a sudden Paul says something that shatters everything they assumed. This heaven that they thought they could attain through the law of Moses, through the Ten Commandments, through the laws they had added to it — they cannot be freed from sin that way. They cannot be freed from guilt apart from Christ. Christ comes along, and in Him alone you find forgiveness of sin and salvation.
This was earth-shattering to these men, and perhaps to some of you as well, in a different way. Maybe you believe what I believed for a long time. I was born and raised in a religious environment, and here is what I thought you had to do to go to heaven: you had to be good. No one ever really told me exactly what that meant. They just said you had to be good.
How good? More good than bad. That is how I saw it, and I never really understood how that began to play itself out. Somehow I got it into my mind, even as a kid and into young adulthood, that God kept track of everything every person did — though I never really understood how He recorded all that. When I died, He would hit a grand total button: more good than bad, I went to heaven; more bad than good, I went to hell.
Though you may laugh at that, every faith on this planet other than Christianity has some version of it. That is what all of religion is. It has some way by which you merit God's acceptance through what you do. Paul said that is not it at all.
The Gospel in a Nutshell
In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the resurrection chapter, Paul writes what has been called the gospel in a nutshell. He said he told his readers what he first heard, and there were four points to it. First, that Christ died for our sins. Second, that this was according to the Scripture. Third, that He was buried. Fourth, that He was raised from the dead.
That is the gospel. When we talk about Christianity, we are talking about whether you believe or do not believe that basic set of facts. Christ died, and the purpose of His death was to pay the price for our sin — exactly what Scripture had told us would happen. When Christ died on the cross, He died with a specific purpose.
I was once invited to meet a friend's pastor. The purpose of the meeting, although it was not stated outright, was clearly to stage some kind of debate. This man would tell you he is a Christian, and his church would call itself Christian, but he would not accept these facts. We were not making much headway, but we were approaching Easter, and I asked him: why did Christ die on the cross?
He said Christ was a political prisoner, and that was simply how they killed political prisoners in that day. I asked whether there was any purpose or reason beyond that. He said no — it was a great example of love and sacrifice, but that is why He was killed. That answer misses everything. Christ died on the cross so that a sacred transaction could take place. The penalty of our sin was thrust onto Him at that moment, and we traded our sin, our guilt, and our spiritual death for His righteousness. That, Paul is saying, is the gospel.
The Resurrection Changes Everything
And then they did with Him what they do with dead people — they buried Him. And then, here it is again: He was raised from the dead. I keep coming back to this because, at this time of year, two things happen reliably. The Mormons begin running advertisements saying you have the Bible but now you need another testament, building toward Easter as an outreach. And liberal theologians begin debating the physical resurrection of Christ, culminating in the religion section of the newspapers the Saturday or Sunday before Easter with a grand discussion of whether Christ actually rose from the dead.
Some say it does not really matter. It is everything. If He did not rise from the dead, then He is still in the tomb, and at that point we might as well die on the cross for each other. But Paul declares that God raised Him from the dead.
God did a magnificent work in establishing the fact of the resurrection, and history itself screams it. When they buried Him, historians tell us the tomb was sealed with the authority of Rome — meaning anyone who disturbed that seal was subject to the death penalty. As if that were not enough, sixteen trained guards were posted there. These were not careless sentinels; they worked in rotating teams of four, with one team always vigilantly watching. The preparation of the body, the stabbing in the side, the separation of blood and water — all of it was meant to confirm beyond doubt that He was dead.
And yet there is an empty tomb. So what happened? The claim that the disciples stole the body falls apart immediately. The disciples were confused and searching. Peter and John ran to the tomb on Easter morning saying, what in the world happened? The soldiers were certainly not part of any plot, because all sixteen of them were killed on account of it. The simple fact is that Christ rose from the dead.
Have You Come to That Realization?
If you do not believe that and do not deal with it, the Scripture says you are a fool. You cannot honestly deny it. You can come up with excuses and alternative explanations, but what the resurrection declares is that Jesus was who He said He was, and did and will do what He said He was going to do.
Have you come to that realization in your life? Can you understand the truth of that yet? That is what makes you a Christian.
What It Means to Be a Christian
A Christian isn't just a good person. A Christian is a man or woman, student, boy or girl, who comes to the point in their life where they accept these facts: Christ died. He died for our sin. They buried Him, and He rose again. That resurrection is, in a sense, the exclamation point that says to all: this was God come in the flesh. Not just a good man. Not just a great teacher. Not just somebody who was involved in a movement that somehow went astray and so they had to kill the leaders.
This was God's provision — and God's only provision — for our salvation. I don't say this in any way to manipulate you or to frighten you, because I don't think I'm smart enough or sharp enough to do that. I say it because it's fact. If you don't believe this, when you die, you will spend eternity in a place called hell.
Eternal Life Begins Today
Although this gospel provides us eternal life in heaven, we need to remember that eternal life begins today. At the baptism in the second hour, the lady being baptized gave her testimony about coming to Christ and believing this. Then Mark asked her, "What difference has it made in your life?" And she talked about her kids and her friends and her husband. All of a sudden, life begins to change.
Somebody came up after the first service, excited to share that they have friends who have been asking to meet with them. They have been going through a Bible study together, and these friends just seem to have questions and can't get enough of it. Last night, those friends prayed to receive Christ. I'll be honest — I found myself wondering whether it was real. But the very next words answered that question. Two things happened: these people looked at each other and recognized deep sin in their lives, and they realized right then they had to deal with it. Then they said, "When can we get together again? We can't get enough of this."
Don't Forget the Pit You Were In
You may come to this and think, "Who didn't know that?" But in doing so, you have forgotten the pit you were in when He saved you. This is the message for the world. It's not about campaign finance reform or any of the other things being debated. That isn't going to change anything, because the problem is the human heart. You come up with campaign finance reform, and people find a new way around it. That's what the law does — all the law does is show us how guilty we are.
The minute we see a rule, all we want to do is break it. Wet paint — really? We can't stand it. I could walk by a wall a thousand times, but the minute a "wet paint" sign goes up, everybody wants to touch it. Why? Because nobody is going to tell us what to do. Why? Because at our core, we are sinful people.
The Nature of Sin
How many sins does it take to make you a sinner? None. You came into this world that way. In your natural state, you hate God. You may love spiritual things, and you may love a God made in your own image, but the God of the Bible — you want nothing to do with Him. I used to know a man who, whenever I came in with my Bible, would say, "Get that thing away from me. I don't even want to look at it. I don't care. It's just a book." But it's not just a book, is it? It is the power to cut to our very heart.
Closing Prayer
Father, we pray to You today that You would encourage those of us who know Your Son Jesus. I pray especially for those who are here and who may be pretty good people by the world's standards, but who have suddenly heard that the standard is not to be good — it is to be perfect. And they realize they haven't met it.
Maybe they are here and have thought about these things, but never quite like this. They have assumed that everyone is on their own spiritual journey and that it all works itself out somehow. But God, what do they do with an empty tomb? Once they are confronted with an empty tomb, they must reckon with the fact that Your Son is God. And once He is God, then His words are true — and He says, "No one comes to the Father but through Me."
Father, I pray that You would take these facts — that Your Son Jesus died for our sin, according to the Scripture, that He was buried, and that He was raised again — and that You would place them into our hearts and our minds. Today we may have raised more questions than we answered. Rather than let the person who is right now thinking and struggling walk away and say, "It doesn't matter anymore, I'll come back to it later," would You have them talk to the person who invited them today, or call the church, or sit down with someone to discuss the most important question in our lives: Who is Jesus? God, I thank You that I can say He is my Lord and my Savior. I pray to You in His name. Amen.