well good evening grace how many people were here last week or were somewhere else at the time all right how many of you are here now how many don't respond to surveys three out of ten don't respond to surveys pastor chip some of you may have heard me tell this true story before but it bears repeating right now let's go all the way back to september 29th 2006. that's when petty officer michael monsoor's united states navy seal operating in ramadi iraq monsoor is standing on a roof in ramadi and he's standing in front of a doorway to this roof he has two navy seal teammates lying in the sniper prone position next to him they've already taken ak-47 fire and a rocket-propelled grenade but they're not exactly sure where the enemy is there's a bit of a lull in the fighting insurgents have blocked off the streets in ramadi and there's someone on the loudspeaker in the town mosque yelling kill the americans as monsoor and his team are looking for the next attack an insurgent from an unknown location throws a grenade up on the roof it hits monsoor in the chest and it falls to his feet due to the length of the throw there's no opportunity to pick it up and throw it back he has only a split second to make a decision he can leap through the doorway behind him and save himself but if he does his two teammates lying on the roof at his feet will surely die monsoor yells grenade but instead of jumping backward to save himself he jumps forward chest first onto the grenade it detonates 30 minutes later 25 year old michael monsoor is dead his two teammates receive only minor injuries because monsaur's body muffled the blast one of the survivors at montfort at montsour's funeral said mikey looked death in the face that day and said you will not take my friends i will go in their stead i've never seen a united states president cry until april of 2008 that's when president george w bush invited monsaurus parents into the east room of the white house to give them their son's medal of honor posthumously the president couldn't even get through the citation without breaking down since then monsoor's high school in garden grove california built a new stadium they named it michael a monsoor memorial stadium the golden trident insignia that the seals wear dominates the 50-yard line [Applause] january 2019 san diego california north island to be specific the united states navy commissioned the uss michael monsoor the newest guided missile destroyer in the fleet zumwalt class this is mansour's mother sally being escorted onto the ship named in honor of her fallen son now why did they do this because michael monsoor literally sacrificed himself to save his friends there's no greater love than to sacrifice yourself to save your friends said jesus of nazareth before he went to the cross michael monsoor sacrificed himself to save his friends the question is would anyone sacrifice himself to save you and the answer is someone already has his name is jesus of nazareth but in today's culture a lot of people don't think the story's true they think it's invented after all these are religious people they embellished this didn't they and by the way it's got miracles in it like a resurrection how can you believe in such a thing like a resurrection we don't see miracles anymore well i actually think it's really easy to show that christianity is true you only need to answer four questions in the affirmative to show that it's true in other words if you investigate these four questions i think you'll realize that the answer to these four questions is yes and if the answer to these four questions is yes then christianity is true what are the four questions here are the four questions does truth exist does god exist are miracles possible and is the new testament true about the resurrection did jesus really rise from the dead now we don't have time to go through all these obviously here tonight we cover that in the book but yes last week we covered a little bit of 0. 2 and we talked about the moral argument for the existence of god tonight however i want to jump down here to the final point is the new testament true in fact in previous years here's a great here at grace we've gone through some of these other points but tonight i just want to point out that the evidence for the new testament being true is very good particularly being true about one event from the ancient world what's that event the resurrection because if jesus rose from the dead game over christianity is true of course if jesus didn't rise from the dead game over its faults you might as well sleep in on sunday well you guys are up at saturday it doesn't matter and do what you want the rest of the week because if god doesn't exist and jesus didn't rise from the dead christianity is false so what's the evidence we have that it's really true what is the evidence that the new testament writers are telling the truth about this there are several lines of evidence in fact in the book we have the top 10 reasons we know the new testament writers told the truth we're just going to briefly look tonight at two of them the first we're going to look at is something called embarrassing stories embarrassing stories what are embarrassing stories and why would we talk about embarrassing stories well historians know that if they're investigating a text and there's something embarrassing to the author or authors in the text it's probably true now why would it be true because you're never going to invent details or stories that make you look bad you might invent things that make you look good right but you're not going to invent things that make you look bad in fact let me ask you guys a question in here how many people in here have ever lied to make yourself look good look if you don't have your hand up right now you're lying to make yourself look good and it's not working we know you're lying all right how many people in here have ever lied to make yourself look bad you don't do that right you might lie to make yourself look good but you won't lie to embarrass yourself well the new testament writers this is true of the old testament as well but the new testament writers have filled the new testament with embarrassing stories they never would have invented that's why we're calling this the duff actor they're not making this up let me just give you a few of these notice the new testament writers depict themselves as jim as dimwitted i mean they don't even understand jesus's mission you're reading through the gospels you're going they're going we don't know what jesus was saying we didn't know what he was talking about it's not until he's already resurrected and ascended to heaven do they understand what jesus really his mission was it's only then that they go wow i could have had a v8 right up to that point they don't get it that's embarrassing also their leader peter is called satan by jesus do you think they invented this do you think peter or mark who wrote this down at one point said to peter hey pete i'm gonna make this a real interesting story i'm gonna have the lord call you satan what do you think peter would have said have him call you satan i mean why is he calling me satan i'm the leader here this is embarrassing and then peter says oh lord i'll never deny you what does he wind up doing he denies him three times and then at the crucifixion all the disciples maybe with the exception of one they all run away this is like a monty python movie run away they all run away and who are the brave ones the women the women are the brave ones now who wrote the new testament documents down men now what man is going to invent that he was hiding for fear of the jews why the women went down and discovered the empty tomb would any man in here invent that i mean if i was there and i was inventing it i'd make myself look good wouldn't you i mean i'd write something down like this let's see we marched right down there and we overpowered that elite roman guard yeah that sounds pretty good what do you think yep john said get out peter roundhouse kicked him thomas said we'll be back no doubt about it and then on sunday morning we march right down to the tomb and we saw jesus who congratulated us on our great faith and then we went and comforted the trembling women i would never say it was mr sissypants why the women went down to discover the empty tomb and oh by the way why would you never have the women be the first witnesses in that culture yes because a woman's testimony is not considered on par with that of a man so if you're making up the new testament story you'd only have the men be the first witnesses yet all four gospels say the women were the first witnesses which is telling us what they really were they never would have invented this it's embarrassing in fact one of the women was a formerly demon-possessed woman oh gee what a great witness yeah let's put her out there in fact i i actually know uh a woman once when i was doing a presentation like this she came up to me afterwards and she said frank i know why jesus appeared to the women first i said why and she said because he wanted to get the story out i said that is an excellent point i hadn't thought of that because ladies when your man comes home from work does he say much there could have been a nuclear explosion down at the plant he's not gonna tell you you'll see it on the news before you hear it from him you'll be watching the news going hey heart what oh yeah i forgot to tell you the nuke blew up i've been hot for three days what's for dinner he's not going to tell you i can't even believe this next verse is in the new testament but it is do you know the end of the gospel of matthew this is where jesus is giving the great commission this is the reason grace community church and all churches exist go therefore make disciples of all nations notice he doesn't say make believers he says make disciples there's a difference right and he says go therefore make disciples of all nations and lo and with you always even to the end of the age you know baptize the name of the father son holy spirit amen he's given them their marching orders and as he's doing this it says right in the text in verse 17 about the disciples it says some believed but some doubted what he's standing resurrected right in front of them and some of them appear to be doubting he says it right in the text it's like they're standing there going you see that guy over there yeah that guy over there is jesus oh no it can't be jesus he was just killed not long ago no i'm telling you tim look jesus is dead it can't be him it's him the romans killed him they put a spear in his side blood water came out after whipping him and nailing him to a cross that guy's dead i'm telling you it's him it can't be it is how do you know the women told me yeah they're not making this up there's even potentially embarrassing details about jesus in the text notice jesus is called a drunkard he's called demon possessed you think they invented this he has his feet wiped with the hair of a prostitute which easily could have been seen as a sexual advance and oh by the way there are two prostitutes in jesus's bloodline who are they rahab and tamar and she's playing a prostitute anyway do you think that they invented this this is embarrassing this is the messiah's bloodline you think when matthew and luke were recording the genealogies they went to one another and said you know what i really think we ought to spice up the messiah's bloodline a little bit let's put a couple of prostitutes in there rahab no in fact there's a lot of shady people in the bloodline judah from where we get the term jew from jesus from the tribe of judah not a good guy read about him in genesis david david a man after god's own heart yeah but he's a liar adulterer and a murderer yeah i guess there's hope for the rest of us then huh bathsheba's in there in the genealogy of the messiah and when matthew gets to her and his genealogy he won't even mention her name you know what he says instead uriah's wife [Music] he's telling the truth but it's islam who was uriah husband of bathsheba whom david had killed so he could have bathsheba he could cover up his sin this is all in there it's not whitewashed at all if you want the ultimate no spin zone read the bible it tells you warts and all all the evil that these so-called heroes have done they're not making it up even though it's embarrassing they're telling the truth that's number one the second reason we know the new testament writers are telling the truth that we're going to talk about tonight is the fact that they died excruciating deaths this is actually a painting of peter being crucified upside down we don't actually know if he was crucified upside down we do know he was martyred for his faith we know that paul was martyred for his faith james two james's were martyred for their faith we know of nobody from the ancient world that ever recanted and said did it happen so we've got good evidence they actually died for their faith now it's really important to understand that when you look at the new testament writers all of the new testament writers with the exception of luke all of the new testament writers were yahweh believing jews who thought they were god's chosen people they didn't think a man could claim to be god that would be blasphemy they didn't think someone would resurrect in the middle of time they thought someone would all resurrect at the end of time according to daniel 12 but they didn't think someone could claim to be god and resurrect in the middle of time this is completely against their worldview but somehow they change their 000 plus year old religion almost overnight why did they do this well let's take a look at the apostles beliefs and practices before and after the resurrection remember they're all jews except for luke the writers before they believed in animal sacrifice they've been slaying lambs for hundreds of years and then suddenly jesus comes along and they say we don't need to slay these lambs anymore because here's the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world all these lambs are just symbols of the lamb who is now arrived before they believed in a binding law of moses afterwards they say christ's life has fulfilled the binding law of moses before they believe in strict monotheism afterwards they're believing in a trinity three persons in one divine essence yes i know you can get the trinity from the old testament but it's much clearer in the new before they believed in the sabbath in fact they thought they could be stoned for not obeying the sabbath afterwards they're worshiping on sunday the day jesus rose and paul even says in colossians chapter 2 don't let anyone tell you you have to obey any sabbath or festival day why would he say such a thing because what did the sabbath represent the sabbath represented rest and the rest has arrived jesus is our rest we rest in his work not our own in fact out of the ten commandments nine of them are repeated in the new testament which is the only one not repeated in the new testament keep holy the sabbath before they believed in a conquering messiah afterwards they believed in a sacrificial messiah before they believed in circumcision afterwards they believed in baptism and communion now ladies and gentlemen what would cause these pious jews who thought they were god's chosen people and didn't think a man could claim to be god that would be blasphemy didn't think there'd be a resurrection in the middle of time but only at the end what would cause them to abandon everything on the left and adopt everything on the right virtually overnight the only thing i can think of is what psychologists call an impact event what's an impact event an impact event is an event that occurs in your life that is so impactful so dramatic that it can turn your world view around 180 degrees some impact events are so dramatic that you'll remember what happened at that event even if it was 10 30 40 50 even maybe even 60 years ago if you're old enough you might not remember what you had for breakfast this morning but you'll remember an impact event that occurred that long ago in fact let me give you an example of this there's probably only a few of you in this room that can answer this question but i'm going to ask it anyway if you can remember where you were on november 22nd 1963 raise your hand and hold it up high ladies and gentlemen look around these you see these hands up these people with their hands up these people are very old okay november 22nd 1963 is my earliest memory i was two years old and two days yes yes i i'm 60 years old now i know i know i don't look a day i don't look a day over 59.
in fact when when when i turned 50 my wife was very encouraging she said honey you're gonna live to be a hundred i said how do you know she said cause you look half dead already anyway i'm two years old and two days i'm standing in the living room at our home in one of master new jersey and my mother is sitting on an ottoman in front of a black and white tv weeping uncontrollably mommy what's the matter what's the matter they killed the president they killed the president president kennedy assassinated that day i can still see my mother right now in my mind when she was 26 years old i can see her sitting there right now she's 84 today in fact i just left her a few hours ago she lives down in fort myers she's 84. but i can see her when she was 26.
