Is there more to life than this?

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Is there more to life than this?
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Life in 21st Century

• Increased pace of life
• Increased pressure to
• Buy latest gadget
• Try latest fad
• Increased stress
• Holding down a job
• Increased debt
• Increase in divorce rate
• Credit crunch
• Job losses, unemployment
• Uncertainty

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Life in 21st Century

• Suggestion that credit crunch caused by greed
• Bankers taking unnecessary risks
• Driven by lure of big profits and bonuses
• We may all have had some part to play

Seems that 21st century lifestyle fuelled by
greed
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Life in 21st Century

• Benefits
• Relative health
• Life expectancy
• Modern medicines treatments
• Potential for better diet
• Variety of foods
• More leisure time
• Time for families friends

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Stressful Lives

• There is stress in our lives
• Increased debt
• Pressure on relationships
• Increase in divorce rate
• If working may work all hours for
• Promotion or status
• More pay
• Simply to hold down the job!

Perhaps its time to take stock . . .
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Is this all there is?

• Is there more to life than
• Buying the latest?
• Socialising?
• Holding down a stressful job?

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Problems

• Life may be good
• We all have problems
• We are all getting older

We all face an uncertain future
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Uncertain Future

• I never think of the future. It comes soon
  enough.
• Albert Einstein
• The future is something which everyone reaches at
  the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he
  does, whoever he is.
  
• C.S. Lewis
• The future has a way of arriving unannounced.
• George Will
• Prediction is very difficult, especially of the
  future.
• Niels Bohr

We dont know what tomorrow will bring
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Lives in Danger

• We try to avoid danger
• But if our short term future is threatened
• illness
• accident
• We dont refuse help

Call an ambulance to get help ASAP
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Lives in Danger

• We trust paramedics and doctors
• To provide right help
• They have had sufficient
• Training
• Experience

Help has to come from a trustworthy source but
we dont ask for qualifications!
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Uncertain Future

• Our long term future is uncertain
• We need urgent help
• We suggest that trustworthy help is found in the
  Bible

We have the opportunity to test the
qualifications of the Bible
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Planning for the future

• Being prepared
• All sorts of insurance
• Car insurance
• Medical
• Home
• Life
• Insurance doesnt prevent bad things happening

Life insurance often called life assurance We
can be assured that we will all die!
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Planning for the future?

• Now listen, you who say, Today or tomorrow we
  will go to this or that city, spend a year there,
  carry on business and make money. Why, you do not
  even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your
  life? You are a mist that appears for a little
  while and then vanishes.
• James 413-14

We cant predict our future our lives are
fleeting
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Warning against greed

• Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of
  greed a man's life does not consist in the
  abundance of his possessions.
• And he told them this parable The ground of a
  certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought
  to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to
  store my crops. Then he said, 'This is what I'll
  do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger
  ones, and there I will store all my grain and my
  goods. And I'll say to myself, You have plenty of
  good things laid up for many years. Take life
  easy eat, drink and be merry . . .

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Jesus Teaching

• But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night
  your life will be demanded from you. Then who
  will get what you have prepared for yourself?
  This is how it will be with anyone who stores up
  things for himself but is not rich towards God.
• Luke 1215-21

Jesus says be rich towards God
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Be Content

• But godliness with contentment is great gain. For
  we brought nothing into the world, and we can
  take nothing out of it. . . People who want to
  get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into
  many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men
  into ruin and destruction. For the love of money
  is a root of all kinds of evil.
• 1 Timothy 66-10

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Bible Teaching For Life Now

• Be content
• Cant take anything with us
• Seeking wealth can be harmful
• The love of money causes all kinds of evil
• Be rich towards God

That is about life now what about long term?
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What about our long term future?

• The Bible tells us
• Our creator is concerned about people
• God has a rescue plan for us
• Gods son, Jesus Christ, is the central part of
  that plan

If we die before Jesus returns we can be raised
from the dead
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The Rescue Plan

• Gods will send his son Jesus Christ
• Who will tackle worldwide problems of
• injustice
• poverty
• illness
• ageing and death
• war and famine
• natural disasters

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The Guarantee

• For God he has set a day when he will judge
  the world with justice by the man he has
  appointed. He has given proof of this to all men
  by raising him from the dead.
• Acts 17 v
  31

God raised Jesus He can rescue our earth as
well!
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Resurrection of Jesus
Non Biblical evidence

• ...there arose about this time Jesus, a wise man,
  if indeed we should call him a man for he was a
  doer of marvellous deeds, a teacher of men who
  receive the truth with pleasure. He was the
  Christ. And when Pilate had condemned him to the
  cross those who had loved him at the first did
  not cease
• for he appeared to them on the third day alive
  again, the divine prophets having spoken these
  and thousands of other wonderful things about
  him and even now the tribe of Christians, so
  named after him, has not yet died out.
• Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, III.1

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Resurrection of Jesus
Biblical evidence

• Best documented event in history
• 24,000 manuscripts of New Testament
• 86,000 NT quotations by early church fathers
• Quotations written within 150 years support
  majority of NT

Most secular ancient works have handful of
manuscripts
Overwhelming support for reliability of NT text!
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Resurrection of Jesus
Biblical evidence from the Bible record

• His body was placed in a rock-cut tomb
• The tomb entrance was covered by large stone
• The stone was sealed
• Guards were posted by the authorities
• To prevent removal of Jesus body by his
  disciples
• To ensure that Jesus predictions of his
  resurrection would not be fulfilled

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Resurrection of Jesus
Biblical evidence from the Bible record

• The tomb was empty. The body could not be
  produced on third day
• If it had been, Christianity would never have
  started
• The fact was that the body was missing!
• Either Jesus was raised from the dead or there is
  some other explanation.

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Resurrection of Jesus
Alternative explanations

• The disciples stole the body
• Jesus did not really die
• The disciples went to the wrong tomb

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Resurrection of Jesus
The disciples stole the body?

• In AD30 Judea occupied by Romans
• No place for soldiers to sleep in the open, they
  would be killed by Jewish freedom fighters
• Tomb sealed as well as guarded
• Guards would be woken by the sound of the stone
  being moved
• Why would disciples perpetrate such a deception
• And then be prepared to suffer persecution for
  something they knew was a lie?

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Resurrection of Jesus
Jesus didnt die he revived?

• The Romans were expert in crucifixion
• Jesus given spear thrust to his side. If not
  already dead, that would have killed him
• If he survived spear thrust, would have died in
  tomb without medical attention
• Jesus had damaged hands and feet, and a pierced
  lung, yet he would need to
• Release himself from his grave clothes
• Roll aside the stone from wrong side
• Fight his way past the guards
• Walk seven miles to Emmaus for a resurrection
  appearance
• Fool his disciples into believing that his new
  condition was eternal life

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Resurrection of Jesus
Disciples went to wrong tomb?

• The tomb was in a private garden known to the
  disciples
• The Authorities would have pointed to the correct
  tomb. They didnt - invented the story of the
  stolen body
• Jews only had to point out correct tomb with body
  in it
• In the interests of the Jewish Authorities to
  discredit the story of the resurrection of Jesus.
  They were unable to do so.

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Resurrection of Jesus
The rise of Christianity

• The church grew rapidly in spite of
• Persecution
• Ostracism
• Social deprivation
• Message spread rapidly despite extremely
  difficult circumstances
• Evidence of the resurrection very compelling
• Early church members were prepared to die rather
  than deny their faith
• Christians were persecuted in Rome
• Many died in the Coliseum
• They remained steadfast because of their faith in
  the afterlife
• which the resurrection of Jesus guaranteed

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Resurrection of Jesus

• The Apostle Paul wrote
• If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we
  are to be pitied more than all men.
  
  1 Corinthians 15 v 19 (NIV)
• All the evidence supports the fact that Jesus
  Christ really did rise from the dead.

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Summary

• There is more to life
• We cant predict the future except that one day
  we will die
• Bible has a message for life now and long term
• We can be raised from dead
• Be involved in Gods rescue plan for our world
• Can be confident Jesus rose from the dead

We can be equally confident there is more to life
than this!