Did It Actually Happen?

It was Thanksgiving.Just picture this, if you will.Turkeys on the table.Everybody had a plate.And your sophomore son was home from college.He had a big new duffel bag, and he talked a different way than when you left him at school.And all of a sudden, he looked at his father and said this question.Hey, dad, can I ask you something?How do you actually know Jesus rose from the dead?And all of a sudden, the father just froze?And it wasn't because he was angry.He wasn't offended.But the honest truth was he didn't have an answer.And that bothered him because he had 40 years of Sundays.He had that Bible that so many of us have with his name stamped on the COVID in gold.And that feeling in his chest had carried him through a hospital waiting room in 2017 when his wife was in that car accident.But as his son asked that question at Thanksgiving, he didn't actually have an answer.So he said what most people say when they have nothing.You just have to have faith, son.And the boy looked down at his plate.I'm going to tell you, this is going to sound harsh at first, but stay with me.At that moment, the father didn't have a crisis of faith.That night.He actually had a homework problem.Hello, friend.My name is Ralph Estepp Jr. And I want to welcome you to Truth Unveiled.For more than 30 years, I've worked as a licensed public accountant.And in my work, I test whether what somebody handed me actually holds up.That's what I do every day in my work.Just picture this.A client hands me the books the last guy had prepared them, plus a number that they can't really explain.And because of the way my work works, I don't start by believing that person.I start by tracing it.I trace it by finding the source document with the goal of seeing if this number is real.I'm going to say something rather bold right now.You're allowed to bring that same posture to the tomb of Jesus.It's interesting if you think about it.Christianity is one is the one faith on earth that hands you the ledger and says, go ahead and open it.So today, what we're going to do on the show is we're actually going to go and open it.And we're not doing it from a place of defensiveness, not with our voices up, but we're going to do it the way an accountant would open a file.This is going to be a really interesting episode because here's where we live today.And I want to start with what the Apostle Paul was writing to the church of Corinth.And this is right from scripture.It's from First Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 3 to 8.If you want to follow along again, that's First Corinthians 15, 3, 8.And this is what it says.For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12.Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.Now just think about that a little bit.And a few verses later, Paul does something no religious founder in history has ever done.He tells you exactly how to destroy his entire religion.Let's continue on reading.This is in First Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 14 to 19.And if Christ had not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God, that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise.If it's true that the dead are not raised.For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.And if Christ hasn't been raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins, then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.If in Christ we have hope, in this life only we are all of people, most to be pitied.And as an auditor, as an accountant, what Paul did was he wrote the audit exception into his own financial statement.I've never seen another religious group ever do that.But let's get right into it.I want to start with the diagnosis.This is the claim that nobody examines.And I speak about me.When I was preparing for today's episode, I never really thought about it this deeply, but this is where we've got to go today.Because a lot of Christians have never examined the central claim of their own faith.You may be like, wait a minute, Ralph, I'm a Christian dude.I understand.But have you ever examined the central claim of your own faith?I'm not talking about the side claims.I'm not talking about the ethics.Ethics.I'm talking about the central claim of our faith.That one thing the whole thing hangs on, and that's this question right here.Did a man who was Dead on Friday, walk around on Sunday.Because that's the central question of Christianity.Because guess what?Paul said it himself.If that's not true, then Christianity at its very core is not true.And as we examine it, let's talk about how we get here.Most of us have inherited an answer instead of building one.It's what we've been told.I know I did for a long stretch of my life.Well, that's just the way it is.Everybody told me that.My grandfather told me that, my father told me that.The Sunday school teacher told me that.The pastor told me that.And you learn the songs before you learn the argument.You know that felt bored in Sunday school before the evidence.You think about Eastern set smell of grandmother's kitchen.It's the lilies in the field, that new shirt he just took out of the wrapper.You do all that before you learn to claim it.About a body in a borrowed grave.See, somebody has handed faith to you and never asked you to open the box and really examine it.Well, that's exactly what we're going to do next.Let's talk about the number that nobody traced.This is how it works in my world.Let me get back to accounting for a second.Clients carry a number on their books for years, sometimes 10, 15, 20 years.And when I asked them, they could never tell me exactly where it came from.Or the old guy put that out there.It just rolled forward.No one's ever questioned it.And the problem is with that.It can be what they call a load bearing.In construction, a load bearing is something that is fundamental to the foundation.But this fundamental foundation has never been completely unexamined.It's never been looked at.And all of a sudden they arrive in front of because a bank wants a real financial statement.They want to see if it's true.Or the IRS sends a letter and said, hey, justify this.And somebody finally says, what is this?And that answer, I don't know, isn't going to work anymore.But it's always been there.We just know it's been there.Well, let's think about how that looks in our Christian walk.That's how a lot of us think about the resurrection.And then the kid comes home from school and you don't know what to say.Or you sitting in an oncology waiting room wondering what the next step is.And something inside of you says so quietly and listen, I'm speaking to me now.What if none of this is true?What if everything you've been brought to believe or been taught or been exposed to doesn't have a strong foundation.That load bearing just doesn't work.Is that a crisis or is it more so a homework problem?And I gotta be gentle here because I can already hear people saying, wait a minute, Ralph, you're getting ready to talk about something that's pretty deep, dude.But this is where a lot of people fall apart.Because I know people are going to say, oh, Ralph, you're just losing your faith.You just got to be strong in your faith.You just got to believe.And sometimes that's true, but a lot of times that's not true.And a lot of times a person is running into that gap between what they feel and what they know.And those two things are a wide gap, but they've never done the work to close that gap.See, this is not apostasy.What I'm talking about today is actually a homework problem.And it's good that it's a homework problem.It's not a crisis at all.Homework problems are fixable crisis, they're a bit harder.And it matters enormously which one you have.But here's the other side of that.As believers, we get taught quietly by that tone or that eyebrow, that asking that question.Just picture if you ask that same question the son asked at the Thanksgiving table in your small group.You know, you raise your hand and say, hey, have we ever thought about, is the resurrection really true?And you get the side eye from people.People look like, what is this guy doing?Somebody might even pipe up and say, hey, we don't talk about that here.You know, we're Christians here.We believe this.So, so many of us have repressed those questions.We've learned to keep our questions in the glove box, out in the car.We don't even bring them into church.And I think really what we're talking about there is sentiment versus faith.Because a faith that can't survive an audit was never faith in the first place.It was just sentiment.It was just feelings.See, sentiment is a nice feeling that you maintain because it feels good.Well, just it feels.It seems like the right thing to believe.But faith is something completely different.Faith is trust placed in something you have reason to believe is there.Do you see the difference?It's not just a feeling.Faith is deeper than that.See, sentiment feels wonderful right up to it, till it has to hold weight, till it has to be that load bearing, and then it just collapses, it folds.I'll give you a great example.This a client I work with, a man found out at 58 years old that his retirement number that he was planning was completely wrong.It had been wrong for nine years.And he had built his whole plan around it.His whole life was built around this false bearing belief.And when I told him that I felt terrible.I crushed everything he believed in.And he got really quiet and he asked me to say it again.And what I had to tell him was he was standing on something that was not load bearing.Friend, I don't want that to be your Easter anymore.We got to have a reason.But we got to have a reason with gentleness.Think about Peter.Peter was there.Peter was there when Christ walked this earth.Peter was there when they nailed him to the cross.And he wrote this to scattered Christians getting questioned hard by their neighbors.Did this really happen?Let's go to scripture again.Let's look at First Peter, chapter three, verse 15.If you're following along again, that's First Peter, chapter three, verse fifteen.And this is what he says.He says, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.And then he ends it with this.And I think this is the thing we've got to focus on, he says, yet do it with gentleness and respect.What does he talk about?He talks about a reason.Not some feeling, not some goosebumps thing, not the volume level being up at church, not some bumper sticker that you see as you drive past a reason.But then the tone is important because he attaches a tone to it.He says with gentleness and respect.What is that telling us?It's telling us we're supposed to have an answer and to give it without your voice going up and getting nasty or getting cross, if you will.That's the whole assignment of the gospel.So here's the diagnosis, then we can move on.If somebody you love asked you tonight, why do you believe a dead man got up, could you answer that?I'm not talking about convincing them because you may not convince them.But could you answer that?If the answer is no, you don't have a crisis.You're not in trouble.You just have to do the work.And I'm going to do some of it right now with you.Right now we're going to get into what I call part two of this.The evidence.I'm an accountant.I like evidence.So let's open up the file.There are really four lines of evidence.Then the best alternative explanations and where each one strings.That's what I'm going to do.I'm not going to over claim.I'm not going to use the word proven.I can't use any of those words.Historical claims don't work that way because you and me, we weren't there.And any accountant will tell you that even a clean audit, the word audit is an opinion.It's not certainty.So let's get into those four things.Here's the number one thing.The creed is early.I mean, very early.Look at what Paul opened with.He said, for I delivered to you what I also received.And that is critical because what he's saying is he delivered it because he had received it.Those were technical words for handing down a fixed oral tradition.Paul is quoting a formula the church already recited.Some short parallel clauses built to be memorized.Most scholars, most believers, and even those skeptics date this material to within a handful of years of the crucifixion.So historically, scholars, believers and skeptics all point to something happened there.And these writings happened in the first two or three years of this.Now, I'm not going to tell you this is unanimous.There are serious scholars who push back on the earliest dates.But early dating is the mainstream position, and it's not held by people who want the resurrection to be true.That's the other interesting part.As I studied this, many of the people who would love this resurrection to not be true have said the dates line up.See, legends need Runway.Tell me a story that grew over 300 years, and I will grant you almost anything.It gets changed, it gets embellished.This one had almost none of those things.From the very beginning, the Church was reciting that Jesus died, that he was buried, that he was raised and he appeared from the beginning.That's what it was teaching.But think about who was there.These are the people who were in the room, who still walked around Jerusalem who could have contradicted it.You understand what I'm saying?So as the church was evolving, the people who were there could have said that didn't happen.There was no Jesus.I'm telling you right now, he died and he's in the grave still.Look at verse six, it says, most of whom are still alive.See, this is a man putting references on the page.And then he says something, says 500 saw him at once.And most of those people, he uses the term still breathing.What he's really telling you is, go ask them.They'll prove it to you.I've never met anybody that writes that unless they expect the references Checks to come back.Because people could have easily gone out and said, oh, oh, that's not true.That's a lie.Here's the second thing.The details are really embarrassing.And this is the part I find hardest to explain away.If you're inventing a story to sell in the first century of the Mediterranean world, you don't make a woman the first witness.But that's how they landed it.And we don't.We don't feel it anymore.See, this is what I'm going to say.The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in that first century to described the legal standard this way.Let not the testimony of women be admitted on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.Now, I'm going to be very clear.That's his line, that's not mine.And I don't really like it.But that was what was going on right then and there.That was the air the people breathed.But every single Gospel account puts a woman at the first tomb.At the tomb first.And think about what that looks like.Because this was a world at the time that would not take a woman's word in court.And your witness list is women.And if you were going to lie about this, if you were going to fabricate this story, you surely would have picked better witnesses because everyone around you would say, well, you can't trust the woman.Again, I'm not saying that.I want to be very clear.But at that time, they would have picked a better witness.An honest reporter writes down what happened because he does not get to change it.But then it keeps going.And think about what Jesus did.The founder of our faith dies as a criminal on a Roman cross.His chief disciple denies him three times in print forever.And what else happens?The disciples run away.His own brother didn't believe him.Look at John, chapter seven, verse five.It's very bold.It says, for not even his brothers believed in him.Now, one of the words we use in accounting is cooking the books.I'm not cooking the books here.I'm not going to put my failures into footnotes.When you invent records, the first thing I noticed are always too clean.When I go look at books and I'm like, these books are very clean.Something doesn't make sense here.There's no friction.But if you read the Gospels, the Gospels are full of friction.It doesn't paint a good picture for the early church to be blunt.And that's the fingerprint of testimony, not of construction.Let's talk about number three.This is the one that we really hang our faith on.The tomb was empty.Well, guess what, friend?That's the worst possible city for a lie.Because think about where this was preached first and to whom it was preached.It was preached in Jerusalem.The people of Jerusalem, within walking distance of the grave.They could get there within weeks of this being talked about in the center of Rome.And Rome wanted this movement dead.That's why they put Jesus to death.The temple leadership, the Jewish temple, wanted this to be put down.So right then, Rome, the leaders, they had the power, they had the motive, they had the jurisdiction and the simplest tool available to completely debunk all of this.All they had to do was produce the body.That's all they had to do.Just one cart, one corpse.And guess what?The movement would be over.Christianity would have been dead.But they never did.They've never done that.Now hear me carefully.The fact that the tomb was empty doesn't prove a resurrection.What it does prove is the tomb is empty.And those are different claims and I'm not going to blur them.They are two completely different things.But here's the thing.Most scholars who work seriously on this material accept that the tomb was found empty.And even those people, a good number of those who didn't believe a resurrection happened at all have said that, yes, the tomb was empty.Now they disagree sharply about why.See, that's the actual debate.Not whether it was empty, but why it was empty.And Paul before Roman official, years later made the same point.Let's look at the Acts of the apostles, chapter 26, verse 26.If you're following along again, Acts 26:26.For the king knows about these things and I had him.And to him I speak boldly.For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice.For this has not been done in a corner.And I think you've really got to think about what is being said here.None of this was done in the hiding.It wasn't done where people couldn't see it.They could go check this.There were people, as he said, still alive, who know who saw, who experienced this.So the authorities could have done that.They could have said, wait a minute, you put them in the wrong tomb.Well, go find the tomb.Go produce the body.Go produce the evidence.Here's number four.The people changed and they didn't change back.Let's set the documents aside for a minute.Let's talk about human behavior.People will die for something false.That happens constantly.But people don't generally die for something they know is false, not something that they personally manufactured.A modern martyr dies for a belief he received, and he could be sincerely wrong.But the first disciples, they were the source.So if all of them got together and said, we're going to create this grand fabrication, this grand lie that's going to go on for centuries, if they were the fabricators, if they knew what they were talking about was false, Human nature tells us something really interesting here, because these folks were beaten.These folks were jailed, they were run out of cities over decades in different places.Several of them died for it.Peter, Paul, James, the brother of John, killed with swords in the Acts 12.James, the brother of Jesus, even.So, I want to be careful here.These people faced death.If they had fabricated this, do you think they would have just said, oh, you know what?That's all a big lie?And these people died in range from probable to legendary.And I'm not going to pretend otherwise on a show about testing claims.But every one of them had an exit ramp the entire time.All they had to say was this, you know what?Don't put me to death.We made this up.It's all good.We're just.We're just joking.We want to see how many people would buy into this.Not a single one of them took that exit ramp.But there's also two conversions I can't get around.Let's talk about James.James was the brother of Jesus who didn't believe.See, James had watched Jesus grow up in the same house.And the scripture alludes to the fact that James thought Jesus was out of his mind.He's full of crap.But James ends up leading the church in Jerusalem and putting his life down for it.And Paul, Paul wrote the earliest document about all this.Paul was the professional opposition.He was building his career on stamping this out.And he's the one that ends up writing.Last of all, he appeared also to me.And as I read that, I thought, that's interesting if you think about it.He appeared to all these different people, and then he appeared to Paul.Human nature would tell you that men don't trade careers, they don't trade status, they don't trade their network, and they don't trade their own personal safety for beatings in prison over a nice feeling, friends.Something happened there.But now let's talk about the alternatives, because I want to give them a real hearing.When I look at people's books, I got to look at it from both sides because I want to be honest and I want to do it in the way That I would review.There are four standard alternatives and two of them are not serious anymore.Let's talk about the swoon theory and what this is.It's a really fascinating thing.What the swoon theory basically says that he was never actually dead and when they moved into the tomb, the cool tomb revived him.I'm going to tell you, the hardest hit on this came from skeptics themselves.Now it's been a fringe position for well over a century.Let's talk about why this probably isn't the case.Roman execution was not amateur work.And Tadicus, no friend of Christianity, records that Christus suffered the extreme penalty under Pontius Pilate.Extreme penalty.Hold that for a second.A man who crawls half dead out of a tomb needing a doctor, inspires a nurse, not a movement.So that's the first thing.I think we can debunk that one.Because think about it like this.People saw that sword pierce Jesus.People saw the life leave his body.There were witnesses that took him to the tomb and laid him in the tomb.He didn't wake up a couple minutes later and said, I'm out of here.How would he have removed the stone?Let's talk about the other one.That's the wrong tomb theory that they got confused in the dark.Well, just think about this for a second.If the women went to the wrong grave, that fix takes a couple minutes because all the graves are right there.Joseph of Arimathea knew which tomb it was.You know why?Because it was his tomb.So somebody could have easily walked across town and says, that's the tomb.So those two, I think, are easy to debunk.It wasn't the swoon, it wasn't the wrong tomb.But I want to spend some real time on two that deserve to be actual thoughts.Here's the first one.Hallucination.You might be like, what are you talking about, Ralph?Just think about the grief of the people around Jesus.That grief was overwhelming.So maybe they saw what they desperately wanted to see.And I got to be honest with you, I take that one seriously because I've seen grief do strange things to people.I've sat with widows that I know and they tell me about their husband came back to see them last night.And I get it.But I don't think that's the case here because here's where it strains.Hallucinations, as psychologists generally describe them, are private events inside of one mind.I truly believe that people hallucinate things.But here's the thing about this two people don't Share a dream and you certainly don't get 500 with the same internal experience at once.And grief hallucinations confirm what the grieving person expects.Nobody expected this.Think about this.The disciples were behind a locked door and income Jesus.And when the women came back with the report, the men didn't believe him either.And a hallucination doesn't empty a tomb.I'll grant the visions, but you still have to explain the missing body in that city in those weeks with those authorities, somebody would have said something.Here's the alternative number two, legend.It just grew over time.You think about this.The story started small and got embellished with each retelling until a teacher became a risen Lord.See, and I believe that's the strongest of these four, if you will, different opinions.So I want to give this some due because as you know, stories do grow.I've had a client tell me the same business deal story three or four times over five years.And by the time he told me the fifth time, he's the hero of the movie, the facts have completely escaped this.But here's where that doesn't work.Here's where that's strained.In Christianity, the bodily resurrection sits in the earliest layer that we can reach in the formula that predates the letter.And the letter predates the Gospels.See, what usually happens with legends, they grow outward from a core.And if you dig to the core here, the resurrection is already sitting there.And as Paul writes this, he's naming living names, he's naming people that you could say, oh, I'm going to go check with this person.Oh, Paul said this person.I'm going to go ask them what happens usually with legends, as you get farther back, they get a little vaguer.There's nobody around to talk about this.There's nobody that experienced that.It's kind of hazy, like this might have happened, this might have happened.This account gets more specific.All right, well, let me ask you now, where does that leave us?I wish I could tell you that I've proven this today.I can't prove it because I know what proof means and I know what a well supported conclusion means.And they're not the same word.If we're going to be honest here.The evidence is strong, the alternatives are weaker and everyone themselves a piece and breaks something else.And that counts for a great deal.And I want to use a funny term here, as I was studying this, I want to talk about broiled fish.You'll be like, where is this going, Ralph?I want to Talk about one moment from Luke, and then we'll move to your Tuesday because it tells you what kind of claim this always was.Let's look at the book of Luke, chapter 24, verses 36 to 43.If you're following along again, that's Luke 24, 36, 43.As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, peace be to you.But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.And he said to them, why are you troubled?And why do doubts arise in your hearts?See my hands and my feet, that is, I myself.Touch me and see.For the spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.And while they were still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said something to them.He said, have you anything here to eat?And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.What did Jesus do?He asked for lunch.If you were to invent a resurrection to teach a lesson about hope and renewal, you don't have a risen Lord.Ask for a piece of fish.Just think about that.You would have him glowing.He would be amazing.But what does Luke do?Luke gives him a piece of broiled fish.See, the claim was never that a beautiful idea survived.The claim was that a body survived.And what does Jesus say to them?Touch me and see?In my world, that's an invitation to an audit.But now let's talk about the life.Let's talk about, you've done the work now you've done the homework.You've walked along with me, and you come to the other side saying, I think this actually happened.What does that change for you?Because that's always my question.I didn't care about a conclusion that doesn't show up in the ledger of an ordinary week.Here's three things I want you to take away from this.If you believe this, and as a Christian, do the homework, get into the scriptures that I've read today.But when you do this, here's three things that come out.Number one, you stop maintaining a mood and you start standing on a fact.You understand the difference there?It's not just a mood anymore.These are facts.See, this is the version of the Christian life that is emotional maintenance.When you go to a Christian service that makes you feel good and you can play that song back and you get that feeling back, and then you start to look for the goosebumps and when those goosebumps stop coming, you assume God left the building.That's exhausting.It's fragile.Because every single mood has weather built into that.It kind of changes with the seasons.But if the resurrection is a fact that you have examined, February doesn't get a vote.See, the tomb was empty on the mornings that you still felt nothing.The tomb was empty when you were angry at God.And it was angry during the six months you didn't pray.See, friend, facts don't require your enthusiasm to stay true.They're just facts.I'm going to give you an example of this.I live on a farm road in Delaware.I raise Black Angus cattle on the ground behind my house in Delaware.In January, that ground is frozen so hard a dropped hammer would ring your ears.Now, I don't care how I feel about it, that truck's going to hold up because of that ground being frozen.Either way, that is a fact.And that's what an examined faith gives you.Ground that holds you when you're not feeling anything.Here's the second thing.When you really understand and you believe this as fact, you can talk to your doubting kid without panicking.In the story I started with, the father was panicking.Let's come back to that Thanksgiving table, because that same scene is playing out in a lot of houses today.And when your kid asked a question, so many of us are tempted to get scared and dress up fear as an authority, we just all of a sudden get authority in our sins.I want to tell you to stop doing it.Try this instead.Here's the better thing to say.You know what, son?That's a really good question.And I too thought about that.Let me tell you what I found, because that sentence kind of breaks down a little bit.It tells them the question is allowed.And we need to encourage our children to ask questions about their faith.And then the second thing you do is you provide reassurance that, listen, I did check this out.Because, see, here's what drives young people out of the church.Nine times out of 10, it starts at a kitchen table, years before any lecture hall.They watch a parent get defensive.And a kid can smell fear.My kids smelled fear.They knew from an early age when I. I didn't know something, dad doesn't know the answer.And for so many of us, when our kids ask us about the resurrection and we get loud, the kids don't conclude that you're right.They conclude something more sinister.They conclude that dad doesn't know either.And if Dad's scared.There must be nothing back there in evidence.See, you don't have to win the conversation.You just got to stay in it.And it's okay.It's allowed to say, I don't know.That's a fair question.I don't have an answer to that.Let me look into it.Let's talk about this more.Let's go talk to the pastor at church.Let's go read the Bible together, but then actually go do it together, actually talk about these things.That answer, that being willing to express it.You don't know the answer is worth more than a hundred rehearsed answers.Because what that shows your child is that that your faith has a house and honesty.And those two things are on the same team.Knowing that this happened as a fact also changes a funeral.And I got to be careful here because this one's holy ground.And I don't want to be glib about this because I've stood at gravesides in Delaware in February.The coat collars are up, the tent's flapping.That green carpet they roll out over dirt.Look, nobody believes that.That's really carpet.Really, Grace, it's carpet.Nobody's being fooled by that.And I've stood there and there's two ways to stand right there at that gravesite.One is hoping.And see, hoping is a candle.And I just talked about that wind at the grave straight.That wind at the gravesite is very strong.That candle is not going to last very long.That hope isn't going to last.The other way to stand there is knowing that this specific thing already happened once.It happened in history to a specific man outside a specific city on a specific morning.I took that stand a few years ago when we buried my mother.So I get it.That's the stand that I took.Now, that doesn't stop the crying.And don't trust any single person that says to you go to a funeral, you don't weep.It's okay to weep at a funeral.You have lost someone.You should weep.Just think about this.Jesus wept at a grave of his friend Lazarus.But he knew that afternoon he wasn't going to let him die.But he still wept.One of my favorite verses of the Bible is, jesus wept.Because what does that show us?It shows us that Jesus was a human being, just like you and I.But friend, there's a difference between weeping over a goodbye and weeping over an erasure.Paul says it in verse 19.He says, if in Christ we have hope, in this life, only we are all People most to be pitied.And I agree with them.Because if this didn't happen, we are the saddest people alive.And you should pity us.You know, I want to tell.I want to share a story here.There's a new baby in my family this year, my grandchild.And I want to talk for a minute about what a new baby does to a man in his 50s.And this is going to be hard for me, but it makes you do arithmetic you didn't used to do.You start counting forward, you start thinking about what years that kid is going to see, which years you're going to be with that person and which years you're not going to be with them.And every one of those calculations lands a little differently.And it lands differently depending upon whether that grave outside of Jerusalem stayed occupied.And when little Carson was born, that stopped being abstraction to me right now.It's a very practical question about a very small person.See, it has to mean something now.But I want to slow down right now and I want to ask you a few things.And you don't owe me an answer for any of them, but you owe yourself an answer.So I want you to hear your own answer.When was the last time you actually examined why you believe what you believe?I'm not talking about defending it.I'm talking about actually examining it.When's the last time you examined what you believe?Here's another question.Is there a question you've been carrying for years that you've never said out loud because you're afraid of what people would think of you if you asked it in the parking lot after church?Here's another question.Have you been running on sentiment?And you gotta be honest with this.Have you been going back to the same three songs and that same one memory of a good night at a conference in 2011?Because that feeling is the only load bearing thing you have.And what if that feeling stopped tomorrow?Would anything be left standing?And here's the hard one.Are you afraid to look because you're afraid of what you might find?Because I want to tell you something.If all of this is true, and I firmly believe in my heart that all of what we've talked about today is true.An examination is never going to hurt it.I've never once had a set of books get worse because somebody looked at them carefully.The books that were clean came out clean.On the other side, the examination was the best thing that ever happened to them.See, in my work, the only person afraid of an audit is the One who knows what's in the drawer, who knows what the receipts are, who knows what the evidence is.I got one more question for you.If Jesus walked into your kitchen tonight, the way he walked into that room in Luke and said the same thing that he said to them, why do doubts arise in your heart?What would you tell him?Friend, I think he can handle the answer.He asked the question first.He said, why do you have doubts in your hearts?Well, here's the truth to unveil for today.Every other faith on earth asks you to believe something that cannot be checked.But Paul handed the world a claim, a list of living witnesses, and the exact instructions for how to destroy his own religion.And then he said something.He said, go and look, friend, Christianity is not asking you to stop thinking.It's asking you to finish thinking.But now I want to talk to somebody who's listened to this whole time, and you're not a Christian.Or maybe you're not sure that you ever were a Christian.You just wonder, what do I need to do?What I've handed you today is a claim that you can examine.It's not some feeling that you have to keep up.Paul staked this entire whole thing on one fact, and that's this.Jesus died for your sin, the real sin, the one you don't tell people about.And he came out of the grave.Becoming a Christian is turning around and trusting that what he did there covers all the shortfalls.It's not earned, it's received.It's a free gift.And there's no magic formula.But if you want words, listen to this and pray this along with me right now.You can borrow my words, Jesus.I don't have all this figured out, but I truly believe you're real.And I do think you got up and I've been carrying my own weight and it's too heavy right now, Lord.So right now, I'm turning around.Forgive me, Lord.Take me.I'm yours.I give my life to you.And I ask this in the name of Jesus, friend.If you prayed that, I want you to tell somebody today either out loud, shout it from the rooftops.Talk to a real human being.You can talk to us by going to truth unveiled with Ralph.com decision.I would love to hear from you.I would love to pray with you.Go to truth unveiled with Ralph.com decision but here's what I want you to carry into this week.Paul laid out the worst case in verses 14 through 19.Because he said it.If Christ had not been raised Your faith is futile.You're still living in your sins and the dead are gone.And like he said, and we be the most pitiable people on the planet, he doesn't soften it.He lets it sit.But then comes the verse that turns the whole chapter.First Corinthians 15:20.But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.But in fact, first fruits is a farming work.Like I said, I live on a farming road.First fruits is the first load in from the field.It's carried up to the house.It's done that to show the rest that the harvest is coming.Friend, you don't get first fruits from a dead field.His resurrection is the first load in from a harvest that's on its way.I can promise you that.And look at where Paul lands the whole argument.We go to 1st Corinthians 15.Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.Resurrection, work the client you told the truth to, when a lie would have been easier and more profitable.That fence you fixed right at that 3am feeding with your baby, that casserole you took to a house where nobody thanked you, if the tomb is empty, none of that evaporates.He's seeing all of it.So here's three things this week.Number one thing, ask your question.Ask the real question.Say it out loud to somebody who will not flinch.Number two, do some homework.Go read a book about this.Go spend an honest hour in prayer.Trace one thing to its source.And number three, when that person you love asked you why you believe it, don't get loud with them.Get honest.That's the whole answer.That's the whole assignment.Let's pray together.Father, we come to you with our questions in our hands, and I thank you that you never once been threatened by them.So for that person carrying a doubt for 11 years, who has never told a soul, Lord, I ask you to go and be with them.For that person who's raised a hand once and got that look, how dare you question that They've never raised it again.Lord, show them it's okay to trace this.It's okay to go find the evidence.Give them one safe person this week.Somebody who's not going to panic, but somebody who's going to come alongside and sit down with them and talk this out together.And for those parents whose child came home changed, who's been lying awake doing the math of where they went wrong.Take that fear out of their chest, Lord.Let them be curious with their kid instead of afraid of their kid.And for those ones standing at a grave this week, whose person is gone and whose house is too quiet right now, Lord, don't give them slogans.Give them the empty tomb, Lord.Give them the first fruits.And for the person who's never believed any of this and who's listened all the way to where we are right now anyway, Lord, I just want to thank you for their honesty.Keep them looking, Lord.Keep them searching.And meet them when they do find and look for you.Jesus, you didn't scold Thomas.You showed him your hands.Do that for us as well.In your name, we pray this amen.Friend, thank you for spending this time with me.Somewhere in your life right now, there's a person sitting on a question they're afraid to say out loud at church.I just want you to do me a favor and do them a favor.Send them this episode.Don't send it with a lecture.Just send it and say, I was thinking of you.And make sure you subscribe to the show, wherever you get your show, so that this next one finds you.I want to leave you with this friend.Your faith is not too fragile to be examined.It's too important not to be.I'm Ralph v. Stepp Jr. And this has been Truth Unveiled.God bless you, and I'll see you next time.World falls apart I stand firm though the culture shifts like sand?Your truth, oh, Lord, is where I choose to stand.Truth unveiled.Truth unveil.