Key Life Network

Matthew: It really happened and it changed everything. Let's talk on Key Life. This is Key Life. We're here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Steve invited our friend Pete Alwinson to do the teaching this week. Pete is a former pastor, founder of forgestruth.com, and the author of Like Father, Like Son.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. Hi, Pete.

Pete Alwinson: Hey, I love that intro line.

Steve Brown: Yeah, it really does change everything. We're going to talk about that this week.

You know, you and I mostly sit down and answer questions, but you're going to teach. You know, for 20 years, every Easter, every year, I sat on the fourth pew back at Willow Creek Church where you were the pastor. And every Easter, you inspired me and you taught me, and you called me to follow Christ at Easter.

Do it again.

Pete Alwinson: Oh, man.

Steve Brown: This week.

Pete Alwinson: Oh, man.

Steve Brown: It makes, you know, those were good days. They really were. And I, and I miss you not being my pastor.

Pete Alwinson: Well, I, you know, I love seeing you there. Of course, you intimidated the socks off me when you first showed up.

Steve Brown: No, I did not.

Pete Alwinson: Scared me to death. But, but what a privilege that we both have to talk about the resurrection today.

Steve Brown: It really is. I love Easter. You know why? I mean, a lot, of course, because a dead man got up and walked around and said we could too. That's a big deal.

But the pagans haven't taken this one over. You know, they don't care about Easter because that's dangerous. I mean, that's too close to truth.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: So, we'll give them Christmas, but at Easter, it's ours.

Pete Alwinson: It's ours. Completely. I mean, the bunnies and Easter eggs, they don't do it.

Steve Brown: They haven't taken, no, they don't.

Pete Alwinson: Doesn't win.

Steve Brown: It's still ours. And so, this week, which is Holy Week, we're going to talk about the resurrection of Christ.

Then on Good Friday, we're going to bring in and talk about the death of Christ. And how that changes things too. And you and I both are going to love this time.

Pete Alwinson: Absolutely.

Steve Brown: When we do Q&A, you pray. When we do this, I pray. So let's pray and then we'll get into this.

Father, we come into your presence, absolutely blown away when we realize that it really happened. That a dead man said he was going to live after his death and he did it and called us to follow him and it changes everything.

Father, we praise you for that. We praise you that even though it's Friday, Sunday's coming. We praise you because there will be a time, someplace, sometime when he will return and we will rejoice and worship together.

Father, we thank you that you allow Pete and, and you allow me to talk about something so important. Make sure we do it right. Forgive our sins. We would see Jesus and him only. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Pete Alwinson: Amen. Amen.

Steve Brown: Pete, since this is a Bible study program, why don't you give us a text for the week?

Pete Alwinson: That's great. Let's start out by reading 1 Corinthians 15 and the first several verses. Of course, every gospel has the account of the resurrection. But this is the most systematic exposition of it. And the Apostle Paul is the man chosen to give it to us. First Corinthians 15.

Now, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand and by which you are saved if you hold fast to the word which I preached to you. Unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as a 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 Twelve. 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. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. What a great text.

Steve Brown: Then he says that we're to be pitied.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. If this didn't happen.

Steve Brown: Yeah, yeah. That that's why when your line, it really happened and it changed everything. If it didn't happen, Paul makes the the the intellectual bottom-line point. Christians are the most pitiable people on the planet. It's true. Did it change you?

Pete Alwinson: Oh, man. It did. And I thought and there's so much in this text that we're going to unpack over time. But I thought it'd be great to start by just hearing how the resurrection impacted you and then and then how it impacted me.

Steve Brown: Well, it was simple. You know, I thought I was an intellectual when I started doing this. I didn't believe much. You know, dead people didn't get up and walk.

And I, in some ways, similar to a lot of Christians, found this, the resurrection, the doorway into saying this is not a story. It's not a myth. It's not a spiritual thing. It's a flesh and blood thing that Jesus, a dead man, got up. Well, I began to investigate the evidence.

I had the help of some Christian brothers who loved me enough to begin to lead me in that. And I remember the first Easter, I was the pastor of a little church down on Cape Cod. And it dawned on me as people, I was seeing people drive up into the parking lot for Easter. It dawned on me, you know, the ushers need to count one more person. Jesus is here this morning and alive.

And that's something you say in a pulpit, but it's something I said to myself. And man, I remember walking into that pulpit and everything being changed about the ministry God had given me because of the resurrection.

Pete Alwinson: Wow. So, up to that point, you'd been through, you know, a liberal seminary.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: And you believed it but had but sort of kind of.

Steve Brown: Well, sort of kind of.

Pete Alwinson: Like you said, it was sort of a spiritual thing, you know, that your professors were trying to say, it's a spiritual application, not a real thing.

Steve Brown: Yeah, you don't. Dead people don't get up and walk.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. That's right.

Steve Brown: And you know, I bought into that somewhat. And I was an intellectual, I thought. I was an idiot. But I thought I was an intellectual. And I was following the party line.

And I was beginning to sense, this isn't working. You know, lives aren't changed with a spiritual resurrection. Lives aren't changed if the Bible's not true.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: Lives are not changed if I'm not really forgiven. Lives are not changed if I'm not going to live forever. And it was a dead. I talk good. I always have been able to talk.

Pete Alwinson: Of course. You I mean, you have the gift of gab, man, you know.

Steve Brown: Yeah, I know. And I didn't, so I thought this is a great job. I talk for 15 minutes and play golf all week. And then Jesus came in and messed it up. What about you?

Pete Alwinson: Well, yeah, but I love that story. When you said that, that when you walked into the pulpit it was different, I got goosebumps because the resurrection is that bottom line thing.

It's bottom line for me too. I remember Philosophy 101, first year junior college. The professor says, how many of you are Christians? And I was not thinking, I raised my hand. This is a secular junior college. And he says, in six weeks, I'll prove to you God doesn't exist.

And I said, you know, this is exactly what I needed because because I I believed in the gospel and I was beginning to follow Jesus, but I didn't have the intellectual underpinnings and foundation of it all.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: And so I began to study. It was the resurrection that really really did it for me. And in another class, I a speech class, I did a message on the resurrection. And I had to defend it in front of a bunch of pagans.

And and so in my study for that, I realized, yeah, this exactly what you said, this is absolutely true and I couldn't, I couldn't defeat it. And so what Paul says here, I couldn't deny that it was that it was true. And a lot of people say, you know, you Christians don't understand that all things are are are are relative, you know.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: It's it's all relative. There's no such thing as absolute truth. And of course that statement is is.

Steve Brown: Except the statement.

Pete Alwinson: The statement's self-defeating, right?

Steve Brown: I know it is.

Pete Alwinson: This this is ridiculous. It doesn't work. So as an intellectual you say all things are relative. That doesn't apply in any area of life other than what some intellectuals try to apply to religion and ethics.

But it it doesn't apply in math, it doesn't apply in science.

Steve Brown: Right.

Pete Alwinson: And and so why should it apply in religion? Well, it resurrection became that reality that I couldn't deny and is that firm foundation and Paul saying the same thing here in this text.

Steve Brown: I noticed you brought the Morris book, Who Moved the Stone.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: I and it's I it's obviously read. I mean, you have a rubber band around it to hold it together. Tell us the story of that book.

Pete Alwinson: I love this book and.

Steve Brown: Well, I'll tell you, we we're running out of time.

Pete Alwinson: Okay. Yeah, we are.

Steve Brown: So maybe tomorrow. Yeah, we really are. I mean, we both don't have any trouble talking. So but what we're talking about is something that's real.

And I think we Christians need to tell each other and remind each other that the evidence is incredible. And if you start looking into it at the end, you just got to say, okay.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: I get it.

Pete Alwinson: That's what we'll do. We'll talk about that tomorrow and we'll talk more about how that that Jesus was dead on the cross. He was.

Steve Brown: And as a teaser tomorrow, I want you to tell us the story of that book.

Pete Alwinson: Absolutely.

Steve Brown: Because that's a really good story.

Pete Alwinson: That's great.

Steve Brown: So, you think we're going to run? We are we going to walk away or we going to after all these years decide to do something else?

Pete Alwinson: No way. Absolutely not.

Steve Brown: And that's because a dead man got up and walked and he said we could too.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: Guys, try to remember that this week and we're going to talk about it. Look at the evidence and together worship the dead man who got up and walked. You think about that. Amen.