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Beyond The Message is a weekly podcast that dives deeper into the weekend’s teaching. Released after each Sunday service, it offers thoughtful conversation, added insight, and practical reflection to help our community process and apply what they heard. Whether you're revisiting the message or catching up, this podcast is designed to help you go deeper throughout the week.
Welcome to Beyond the Message, the podcast where we take the weekly teaching at Christ Community Chapel and we bring it into your week. This week is a little bit special, so I'm going to stop right there with our typical intro to say that we are able to film this live this Easter week here with an audience, which is awesome. Um, Right. That's right. That's right. After our. Do this more often. I know. I love this. I love the feedback after the 7:30 service where we typically have a Q and A. So if you're just listening and haven't checked out this Thursday 7:30 service, you should do that too. Uh, but my name is Stacey and I'm joined today with Pastor Zach and Pastor Jimmy. Hello. Who are both. Pastor Zach just preached. He is preaching this Easter weekend and, uh, he's drinking coffee at 8:30pm which is hilarious. Yeah. How do you do that? Um, but in typical Beyond the Message format, I thought it would be good for us just to kind of break the ice a little bit. But what I'd like to do, I'm pivoting from my initial plan because we've gotten some really interesting questions and comments coming in. And the first one, I just. I wanted to throw this. Zach, this isn't a question, but you matched your outfit very well and are, uh, very in style with the sandwich method, which. There we go. For those of you listening, that means that there are like. I think the sandwich method must mean, like. Yeah, yeah, Blue. It's. Well, why don't we let Zach explain it? Zach, explain the sandwich method. Since you're so in. I will just say, uh, two shout outs. Shout out. Number one is to one of our elders, Stan Milovonceff, who teaches me how to dress, is trying to teach me how to dress. And then second, uh, my. My wife and kids, there was actually a vote on what shoes to wear, and my teenagers won the vote, which is why I look cooler probably than I should. So. Well, there you go. Shout out to the yrock teenagers. Just take a moment to point out that I too, followed the sandwich method unintentionally, but although the difference is you just learned what it is. Yeah, well, it doesn't matter. You know, you're just. I'm an innovator. I'm an innovator. I. Okay. And then last thing, this is another one that came in and just, uh, asking what your favorite ice cream flavor is and then also referencing that probably Pastor Jimmy's favorite ice cream flavor is something to do with cottage Cheese. So no ice cream. Well, you go ahead. All right. Well, my two favorite ice cream flavors. I'm passionate about all topics, but I'm also passionate about this one. So, uh, my favorite local ice cream is Mitchell's ice cream. Uh, best ice cream. And, uh, in the summer, I get strawberry. Well, not the summer. If the weather's hot, I get strawberry. And if it's cold, I get coffee. Chocolate chunk. Now, uh, the best ice cream in Northeast Ohio is a place in Sandusky called Toffs. Okay. And they have. And they have a flavor called brown butter Bourbon truffle, which is the best ice cream in the history of the world. You can get it at Heinen's here in Hudson. It's in the upper left corner of the freezer section. And if you. Let me just tell you this. If you go and it's out my bed. That's it. That's good. What about you? Cottage cheese flavored? No, not cottage. Come on, guys. Uh, I made my own brown butter ice cream once. You made your own? Of course. Yes. But you did once say that cottage cheese with pineapple. No, no, Banana. First of all, it was banana. And second of all, I stand by that statement. True. He said that it tast. Cheesecake. Cheesecake. It tastes like cheesecake. It is not like cheesecake. When's the last time you had a cheesecake? A long time ago. It's been a while. Okay. Actually, just last week when I had cottage cheese, bananas, and honey all mixed together. Okay. We should probably start talking about the sermon a little bit. So just to. I know the people here. You guys just heard it. But for those listening, just a reminder that the teaching this week is from John 20, verses 24 through 29, where Thomas, 1 of the disciples, he doubts that Jesus resurrected. He wasn't there when Jesus appeared to some of the other disciples. So he ends up saying something that's pretty famous that says, hey, unless I see and touch his hands inside, that the nails pierce, that the spear pierced, I will never believe, um, Thomas's doubt in this sermon. It kind of reinforces, though, the reality that the resurrection is central to Christianity, and if it is proven and trustworthy, then the whole of Christianity can be, too. Um, we had, again, a few points that were the reality of doubt, the response to doubt, the rebuttal to doubt. I feel like with you being here, Zach, I should at least ask you, like, is that sufficient, or do we want to. I will just say in some of our Easter services, Pastor Joe. That's right. Yep. So if you're listening to this and you're like, wait a minute. Zach didn't even preach in my service. That's right. It's the same outline. Yep. Using the same outline. Yeah. Similar sermon. Very close, but different to each one of us, right? Absolutely. So to jump in on that, I will hit a question that came in, uh, just in the last little bit, and it says, what would you say to someone today who, like Thomas, says they need to physically see Jesus to believe? Yeah, I mean, I think I'd say, uh, a couple of things. One is, uh, that there are stories of that happening. So you read the book of Acts. For example, the apostle Paul, who at the time is Saul, is on a, uh, trip to a city named Damascus to actually persecute Christians, and he meets Jesus. And this is long after Jesus has ascended into heaven. I think there are incredible stories from the mission field in places like, uh, the Middle east or Southeast Asia, where Jesus is appearing to people in dreams, uh, and then telling them, like, go three houses down and knock on the door, and it happens to be the missionary's door that they knock on. So, I mean, if you feel as though you need to see Jesus, I would just start by asking him, because, I mean, he does that. Uh, but the second thing I would say is, uh, obviously there are all kinds of things we believe that we don't ever see. Um, you know, there are a lot of things we believe that we don't ever see, but we have evidence or reasons to believe. And what I'm trying to do with the wheel, uh, and in all of our services or the resources we're giving at the Guest Experience desk, is to say, uh, absent seeing it for yourself. There are a ton of really strong historical reasons to believe that it happened. Like, for example, Tacitus and Josephus, which I mentioned at the 7:30 service. So, uh, I do encourage you to investigate right now. And you say I have to see it. What I would say is, until you investigate what you can know, you don't know if you need to see it. So investigate what you can know and then decide if that's enough or not. Yeah, that just, uh, to add onto that reminds me of, uh, what I call the rock and the pond argument. And what I mean by that is, you know, Zach just referenced there's a ton of evidences for the resurrection. The way I think one of the ways I thought about this that helps me is if we were standing next to, uh, like, a really calm pond, and I had a rock in my hand and you turned your back and I chucked that rock into the pond. And now this, this water has ripples coming out from it. And then you turn back around and you said, you said, hey, did you chuck that rock in the pond? And I'm like, no, it wasn't me that nobody threw a rock in the pond. Then I would have, it would be incumbent on me to explain those ripples. They would make no sense any other way. I'd be like, well, something flew by and it fell out of the sky, or like a bird landed, but it flew away really quick. And it's the same thing with this. Uh, there are so many arguments and evidences of the resurrection of Jesus. It actually is really difficult to explain an alternate explanation for those things. The resurrection of Jesus is the simplest and most compelling explanation for a lot of those things. Which I feel like the question you spun the wheel at 6, 30, kind of was even. Every service gets a different question every service. And on that point, that's going to lead me into my next question. I have a couple people that said, hey, can you spin the wheel again? Or I would even just say, is there one of these arguments that you feel or even for you personally has been one that has been a hinge point for you in your faith and then maybe unpack that for a minute. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of arguments on here that I personally am very excited about. I'll give you a couple. I mean, one is that the first eyewitnesses according to all the gospels, again, because the gospels are different perspectives on the same story. And so they, they focus on different aspects. Every one of them notes that the first witnesses to the resurrected Jesus were women. And the reason why that's so fascinating is because of course in the first century, women were not held in high regard. They were not witnesses that could testify in a courtroom, for example. So if you were making it up, you would never choose women as the first witnesses. Now understand, I'm not siding with the first century ladies. I'm just saying that's how they view it. That's the kind of, um, non helpful detail that gets put into a story. That's true, right, because it just doesn't serve any purpose other than that. Uh, another one is the explosion of the early church because Christianity goes From, you know, 100 people in a room in the book of acts to 3,000 people, two in three centuries taking over the Roman Empire. Right. And it does that not through political might not. I mean, they had none, they had no political power. They had no social power. It does that simply by preaching the message that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. There is no other world religion like that that has spread in that way. You study, for example, the rise of Islam. It rises. As Muhammad's power rises, the religion gets more popular. Well, of course, because it's, you know, bow the knee or suffer the consequences. Christianity has none of that, nothing going for them except for this idea that Jesus died and rose from the dead. And that idea alone shapes the world. And if you're listening to this, watching this, or you're in the room, and even if you're an atheist, an agnostic, not a Christian, whether you realize it or not, the world you live in, especially in the west, has been shaped by Christianity. In 2000 years, your ideas of justice, equality, you wouldn't have those ideas. Hospitals, schools, science, these things wouldn't exist if not for Christianity. Christianity gave rise to all these things in 2000 years from a hundred people in a room. The other one is. And again, uh, I'm excited about all of them. But the other one is a change to Judaism. So you have these followers of Jesus who are Jewish guys who start to follow Jesus. He raises from the dead. And their Judaism goes from monotheism to the idea of the Trinity. They give up the sacrificial system, they give up the temple, synagogue. I mean, they just shift. How do you explain the radical shift from historical Judaism, which was thousands of years old at this point, to this new thing? Well, it's because they said, well, he's risen from the dead. And that means because he died, we don't need to sacrifice animals because there's no other way of explaining the ripples in the pond. Yeah, I would also add to that those guys you're talking about. One of the more compelling arguments is that a lot of the disciples and the people who were previous Jewish were previously Jewish. They were killed or tortured or, you know, they faced brutal punishment because they would not recant their belief in Jesus resurrection, which just if it's false, that just seems bonkers. Yeah, there's a great quote about that reference to that Charles Colson, who was a Christian, uh, writer and speaker, but was initially part of the Watergate scandal. If you remember Nixon and the, the COVID up. He talks about how there were only 12 of them in Watergate. And he's like lying literally would keep us out of prison, keep us in. And we couldn't, we couldn't even keep our stories straight. And he was like, I cannot believe that this many people could have stuck to a lie, even to the point of death. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Each one of those arguments could probably merit its own podcast. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Uh, another question. So what if I'm a Christian that has never felt like I doubted you talked about this in your sermon, and is there something that I should do, or what does that mean for me and my faith? Absolutely. I think you should also investigate the historicity of the Resurrection because it's going to bolster your faith. Uh, some great resources. I mean, of course, a lot of people know Case for Christ. Lee Strobel was an atheist journalist whose wife converts to Christianity. It freaks him out. He says, I'm going to disprove it. Ends up converting himself. That's an easy read. I think they made it into a movie. It's a Christian movie, so it's probably not great. So, I don't know. You can try it. The book. But the book is good. But, uh, N.T. wright, if you're a Christian, N.T. wright wrote a book, it's massive, called the Resurrection of the Son of God. And that book will change your life if you read it. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, it's a read. I mean, it's a. But it'll. And he goes. I mean, he covers it from so many angles. And so what I would say is, if you've never doubted it, maybe because you've just never allowed yourself to the idea that it might not be true, don't. Don't let fear, fear of that keep you from investigating. Because when you investigate, it's only going to strengthen your faith. I'd also add to that that, uh, it's important to do that. It's great to do that at a neutral time because, you know, every once in a while we're going to come across situations in our lives, whether it's a difficult thing that happens or whatever the case may be that will force us into a place of doubt. That's right. And that's a much harder time to investigate. Well, the other thing I would just say to challenge. To challenge a little bit is behind every sin is doubt. You have to understand that. Right. So you may say, well, I've never thought Jesus didn't raise from the dead, but if you're not, if you're struggling to trust him with your sexuality, you're doubting. Do you know what I mean? Because if he's the resurrected son of God, of course he understands your sexuality. Right. So my point is, nobody should think of themselves as doubt free. Because when I sin I am mistrusting God and replacing him with something else that I'm trusting in his place, and that is doubt. But I want you to hear we sing about this all the time as a Christian. Don't be afraid to say that because he died for all your sin, including your doubt. Okay? So. So don't be afraid to acknowledge that because it isn't going to cause you to lose status or lose your place with God. Your place and status with God is secure in the finished work of Christ. I think that was one of the things you said in the message that was most impactful for me was, uh, you know, you talked about how sometimes we don't bring our doubt to God because of fear of him being upset, angry, rejecting us. I feel like that resonated with me because I grew up in a background where you didn't ask questions like that. And I don't know, maybe somebody in the audience or listening grew up in that background as well. And so I think that created this sense that to doubt or to ask questions of faith, uh, was a negative thing. It was a problematic thing. Questions were kind of like, hey, don't ask those questions. When in reality, what I found as I've grown older is that that only serves to strengthen my faith. And so if you're sitting here saying, hey, I need to do some investigating, but I'm afraid that I'm going to find something that I didn't want to find, I would just say what you're more likely to find is that the answers only serve to drive you deeper into your love for and stronger faith in Jesus. Well, and I loved what you said about the world isn't divided between those that doubted and those that didn't. It's those that doubted and those that had their doubts answered or those that. And so I think that's used to doubt or used to doubt. Yeah. Um, so, yeah, absolutely. I mean, what you said resonate. If that was your upbringing and you're like, man, I never thought I was allowed to question like man. Then this is opportunity for you. Yeah. And I will say you have to separate the expressions of Christianity you've been around from the person of Jesus Christ. You can reject the expressions of Christianity you've been around without rejecting Christ. Right. So don't let you say all my parents religion or my grandparents religion or the church. It's like we could tell stories like that. It's who is Jesus? That is the question. Uh, it's entirely possible that you've been around some awful people who called Themselves, Christians. Uh, that has nothing to do with whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead. Yeah, yeah. And just to answer your question, a question came in asking if does based on what we just said. So I just want to clarify if that wasn't clear. Is doubting in and of itself seeming sin? And I mean, I would say, no, Jesus invites us. Or. Yeah, I mean, uh, the problem with that question, I think. Not that I'm glad you sent it in. That's not what I mean, is just that you can't think about sin like violating a rule in the rule book. You know, I did it. Yeah. You look it up and you go, there are 700 rules. Is that one of them? The essence? I teach a class called Deep, uh, dive on the Bible. I think we'll put it out on video. I'd encourage you to watch it because one of the things I talk about is that the whole Bible is about trust. God wants you to trust him. And sin is really just failing to trust God. But it's not a violation of a rule. It's the breaking of a relationship, if that makes sense. So doubting is evidence of a broken relationship. Uh, right. Um, but it isn't like God's up in heaven going, oh, that's rule 17. You broke it. Right. That's a misunderstanding of sin. So I think there is sinfulness probably shot through almost everything that I do. Yeah. You know, and same for you. So in that way, it's like it's impossible for me to get up on stage and preach and be completely sure. I don't care what you think. I'm not. You know what I mean? Like, I can never be completely without sin on this side of heaven. So I don't want you to think about sin like violating a rule. That would be a misunderstanding. Yeah, absolutely. Here's, uh, one more question that came on in is someone asked me, how do you know Christianity is the right religion out of all of them? So how would you respond to that? Couple of answers to that. One answer is, let's just start with this. All religions can't possibly be true. Right. Because I think Joe talked about this last week. The law of non contradiction. Right. They make opposite claims. So for example, uh, Christianity says there's one God in three persons. Judaism says that's not true. Islam says that's not true. Buddhism says there is no God. Hinduism says there's millions of gods. Those can't all be true. And I would add to that even the secular worldview that would say, well, they're all kind of true and kind of not. That also fails the law of non contradiction because it's a truth claim in and of itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, just, uh, start with that. They can't all be true. Now, they can all be false, but they can't all be true. All right? So that means then we have to stack up their claims against each other and examine which. And this is what I would say. I said this in the sermon. Uh, the only one that offers you. I mean, Muhammad says he went into a cave and received the Quran and came out and said, you'll just have to take my word for it. Okay? That is very different than the historical claim that Jesus Christ, a man who we know lived and we know died at the hands of the Roman Empire, rose from the dead and appeared. Those are very different things, which is why I always tell. Tell people this way. And I'm partisan, obviously, but I always tell people this way. If you want to investigate the religions, you should start with Christianity. And here's why. If all the religions in the world were true, they can't all be true. But if they were all true, the one that would be the best news for you is Christianity because it says that God himself did everything necessary for you to be forgiven. So great is his love for you, so great is his mercy. That is the best possible news of, uh, all the religions. So you start with that one, because if that one ends up being true, boy, that's really good. Some of them get pretty dark. Doesn't mean they're not true, but I just wouldn't start with them. Yeah, yeah. Just, uh, a couple things, a couple more questions for us. First of all, um, I just want to make sure that the gospel is clear for even those of us in this room. Does believing that Jesus died for my sins get me into heaven? Or is there more that I need? Yeah, yeah, I, I love to quote an old hymn on this, uh, called Rock of Ages. Maybe you know it, but it says this. Nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross. I cling naked, come to thee for dress. Right. The idea of the hymn is that we come to God with nothing. Nothing except rebellion and, and shame and guilt. Jesus Christ lived an absolutely perfect life, willingly, joyfully, lovingly obeying the Father. And on the cross. What the apostle Paul says is happening is Paul says God made him who knew no sin. That's Jesus to become sin. He takes the sin of all of God's people and he places it on Jesus on the cross. And Jesus becomes The embodiment of that and God again, you remember that God is one, one and yet three. Father, Son and Spirit. So they're working together. This is not antagonistic. God working within himself, pours out all his anger and wrath and judgment on Jesus, who willingly, lovingly accepts it in order that it might be paid. Jesus's dying words are, uh, it is finished. Okay? It is finished. And so Jesus dies for that. And three days later, when he raised from the dead, someone asked me before service, why do we call Good Friday good? Mhm. Is it because of the resurrection? And I said, no, absolutely not. It's because his death is good Jesus. Death is simultaneously the most evil thing that's ever happened as the innocent son of God is brutally murdered. And yet also simultaneously the greatest thing that has ever happened. Because our sins are being paid for. The payment is on Friday. The receipt is Sunday. The validation, the proof that the bill has been paid. Let me just say this, and I know we're watching the time, let me just say this, this is gonna sound weird, but just stay with me for a second because if you're here and you're asking that question, this is for you. Do you remember the movie Hitch? The Will Smith movie? I did Kevin James and, uh, Will Smith helps ugly guys get dates. Okay. All right, so there's a scene where Will Smith is teaching Kevin James how to kiss. He's teaching him, you drop the girl off and then he says this. He says, you go 90, you let her come 10. And there's a funny scene where they're practicing and Kevin James kisses him M. And Will Smith hits him and says, you never go the full 100. Uh, that's what a misunderstanding of Christianity that I want to clear up is because what some people teach is that Jesus Christ goes 90. And then he waits for you to go the 10. And your 10 is church attendance. It's serving, it's giving, it's being a good person. And so he does 90. That's most of the work. But I want you to know, Jesus dying words were not. My part is finished. It was. It is finished today. If on the basis of Jesus Christ's life, death and resurrection, you say to God, I have nothing, there's no reason you should love me. There's no reason you should accept me, there's no reason you should include me. Except for I've heard this crazy idea that the son of God lived in my place and died in my place and rose from the dead. And that's evidence that on the basis of him. You will forgive me and accept me and include me. You will, right this moment, be accepted and forgiven by God. You add nothing, you bring nothing. And if you pay attention when you come every week, that's what we sing. That's what we sing. We are celebrating that all the work has been done by Jesus. And I just want you to hear that, because people who grew up in religious homes, you're so tired. But Jesus did not come to lay another burden on you. He came to free you from the burden of performance. So let him. Well, I think that's a great landing spot. Thank you, guys. Also, thanks for saying my outfit looks good. Yeah. There you go. Thanks so much for joining us, uh, for this week. Thanks so much to everybody that came and stayed to be a part of this with us. So we'll see you next time. Go get some cake. Get some cake. Thanks so much for tuning in to beyond the Message. Before you head out, make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss next week's content. And all week long, we want to provide you opportunities to grow right where you are. So check out our YouTube channel, our app, for more opportunities to catch content from Christ Community Chapel. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.