Group Time | April 23

Not My Jesus: The Case for Christ
April 23, 2017
Dr. Lee Strobel

Open:

Few things intrigue those of any age more than a good story! Books, movies, and personal adventures all lure us to listen attentively. Can a couple of you share a short story, perhaps one you’ve told a number of times because it is so interesting?

So often in Group Time we are encouraged to do nothing more as a witness than just “tell our story.” The world is anxious to hear of a true change of character that comes when someone turns their life over to Jesus Christ. This week we heard a story of a life completely changed by the word of God: Dr. Lee Strobel, a man who acknowledged himself to be an immoral, depraved individual, a lawyer by trade, and an avowed atheist who was changed by the gospel.

Dr. Strobel’s story: While he was living a life of complete degradation, he saw his wife accept Jesus as her Savior. Desiring to divorce her, he chose to wait to see if she would soon leave the “cult.” Instead, he saw her change before his eyes into a someone he admired. It caused him to take all his skills as a lawyer and intellect, studying to find the fallacies in Christianity. This led him to the truth that it took more faith to believe there is no God, than to believe that Jesus, is, in truth, the Son of God. After two years of study, he gave his life to Christ, and became a believer.

Think About or Discuss:

Early Accounts

  1. Looking back 2000 years, what conclusion must you draw when there is no serious historian who denies the existence of a Man, Jesus Christ? He was, it was written, “a doer of wonderful works” (Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII,33)?

Execution

  1. Even the same historians (at least four, perhaps more, outside of the Bible) wrote of his execution, and the part Pontius Pilate and the Jewish religious leaders played in it. If there is no debate about this fact, again—what conclusion must be drawn?
  2. Strobel stressed the fact that in law (his profession), witnesses to a statement are everything: no statement is accepted for fact unless two could be found. What do you remember about the two witnesses used to testify against Jesus? 

Empty Tomb

  1. Who saw the tomb empty? (Matt. 28). Why would the ones guarding the tomb run to their superiors to tell them what happened, and make up a lie, if Jesus was still in the tomb? Their lives, according to the Bible, would be forfeit if he had been stolen.
  2. Why would the disciples steal His body (as was rumored), and then continue to preach in His name, and eventually be willing to die for preaching Christ?

Eyewitnesses

  1. This one fact sets Christianity apart from all other religions. No other effort to reach God depends on the object of worship being dead, then alive. In doing a computer search for those who wrote on the resurrection, there are at least 17 who wrote that Jesus was alive after the crucifixion, and seen by over five-hundred people. All agree that someone would live for a lie, but no one would die for a lie, and yet the followers of Jesus, like Stephen, were martyred beginning in the early days after His death. This became Dr. Strobel’s pivotal point: that no one in law could discount the enormous number of witnesses to His life after the cross.
  2. The gospels all clearly record the number of people who saw and interacted with Jesus after His resurrection. Who were some of these people, and how did He intermingle with them?
  3. Josephus, the secular historian, admits that after the resurrection, many of His disciples who claimed to have seen Him continued to preach in His name. He ended his writing with “accordingly, perhaps He was the Messiah, concerning Whom the prophets have recounted wonders.” (Antiquities). Who else has changed the world as Jesus has?

 

Close:

What a story! The greatest evidence that Jesus is alive is that those who believe that He is Who He claimed to be, ask Him to take control of their lives, forgive their sins, and are made into new creatures! They are given a new heart, new desires for life, and new eyes. One of the most heart-rending statements was Dr. Strobel saying his small daughter was so scared of him when she was young that she would grab her toys and run to her room when he came home. Was he drunk? Would he yell? Scream? Throw things? Yet after he gave his life to Christ she saw a new Daddy emerge from the ashes. He said about six months after he became a believer, she asked if she could invite Jesus into her life, so she could be changed like her daddy had been. Could you ask for a greater testimony than that—that the child you have raised in fear now wishes to become like you? Anyone reading this study can have the same experience if you desire! Often someone will say, “Well, I just don’t believe the Bible is true.” Ask them to name a specific reference, and then help them work through the evidence. Google. Get extra help. But do whatever you can to show others that Jesus is alive, sitting at the right hand of God the Father, waiting to come back for His children. Let that be the ending after you have told your story: that they not wait too long!

Dr. Strobel: Believe+Receive=Become

 

 

 

 

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