So there comes a point in everyone's life where Christianity can no longer just become an idea or something that we consider in our minds, but instead it has to become a reality that we actually respond to. You can only stay in the realm of theories and worldviews for so long. Christianity is not just built on these abstract ideals or mystical feelings. It's built on real historical events. We are not just people of faith. We are people of facts, of blood, of wood, real thorns, stone, and an empty tomb. And at the center of our belief is not just a philosophy, it's a person. Not a myth, but a moment grounded in history that changed everything. And this is why we're going through the Apostles' Creed, one of the earliest and most trusted summaries of what Christians believe. It's not scripture, but it flows from scripture. And it doesn't invent new doctrine, but it was meant to protect doctrine. And today, what we'll consider is at the very heart of our faith, The statement, I believe in Jesus Christ. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. And on the third day, he rose again. So these are not just ideas. They're not just myths or metaphors. But it's the heartbeat of the gospel. And the main thing I want us to try to wrap our minds around today is that Jesus really suffered. He really died. He really descended to the dead and rose again. And because of these realities, we have hope in our own suffering. We have victory over death and opportunity for new life with him now and forever. So one by one, we'll work through each of these realities in these creeds, with the first being, Jesus really suffered. So you're in 1 Corinthians 15, but you can flip to Luke chapter 23 in your Bibles. Luke chapter 23. So read with me, Luke chapter 23, starting in verse 13. Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people and said to them, you brought me this man as one who is misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him. But they all cried out together, away with this man. Release to us Barabbas, a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus. But they kept shouting, crucify, crucify him. A third time he said to them, why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him. But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked. But he delivered Jesus over to their will. I don't know if you've ever asked yourself, why are there four different gospels? So we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but Jesus only lived one life. Why not just give one account of his life? And if you think, picture this, holding a diamond up in the light, or maybe you could even look at the ring on your finger. And as you turn that, the light reflects the brilliance in many different ways as you turn it. And that's what the four Gospels do. Each tells us the story of Jesus with its own emphasis and detail, and together they give us a fuller picture of his glory and his beauty. The canon, the collection of the books that we call the Bible, would be incomplete without the four gospels all together. So when it comes to the Apostles' Creed, Luke's gospel is especially helpful, because Luke's gospel contains very fine details into the accounts of Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection. You see, Luke was a follower of Jesus, and he was a physician who carefully compiled eyewitness testimonies. He wrote this account to a man named Theophilus, Theophilus is also translated to mean lover of God. So we read this account written by Luke to a man named Theophilus, and though it was written to him, Luke clearly had a broader audience in mind. So as we read it today, we receive it as a word written to us, to all who long to know and follow the risen Christ, lovers of God. So going back to the Apostles' Creed, If you think about how it starts, God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ, his only son, born of the Virgin Mary, these glorious truths are building up like going up to the top of a roller coaster. As you get higher and higher, you get to see the vastness all around you. But then suddenly, there's a drop. He suffered. This turn is jarring, but it's intentional because Christianity doesn't skip over the pain of Jesus. It moves straight through it. The suffering of Jesus is essential to what we believe. The hope we proclaim is not some sanitized spirituality that just makes everything roses and cupcakes. It's hope born in suffering for real sinners in a real world. And this story that starts with God the Father Almighty takes this sharp turn, and this is not accidental. It's central. Even if we look at the early Christians and how they described Jesus's life, we see that there's one word, suffering. In Luke 24, 26, it says, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? And in Acts 17.3, when they were proclaiming the gospel, they said it was necessary for the Christ to suffer. And this had been long proclaimed about the coming Messiah, the Savior of Israel. In Isaiah 53, verse 3, it says, talking about this Messiah, he was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. So we often want a life that we can call triumphant or victorious. We want everything to go perfectly. We want to be on top. But the reality is, as Christians, we follow a suffering Savior. Romans 8 says that we are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. And then it says, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. It's Romans 8, 17. So like Christ, we will receive glory, but only after suffering. Joy comes after denial, hope after surrender, resurrection after the cross. The creed, the Apostles' Creed, roots that suffering in history because it says it was under Pontius Pilate. So why mention a minor Roman governor in our Christian creed? It might come as a surprise. But they do this because the gospel is news, not just advice, not just simple beliefs, but it grounds it in history. It happened in a real time, at a real place, with real people. And we saw in Luke's account that Pilate declared Jesus innocent three different times, and yet he still hands him over. So we recognize that our Savior, Jesus, was put to death and suffered unjustly. But Jesus stood unjustly condemned on our behalf so that we could be declared righteous. The Apostle Paul, reflecting on his own life, wrote in Philippians chapter 3, verses 7 through 11, right after talking about all the things he had accomplished throughout his life up to this point, before he was a believer, before he was a follower of Christ, After this, he says, starting in verse seven, but whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus as my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. This law exposes Paul's own guilt. In that previous section, he talks about if anyone could proclaim righteousness of their own, it would have been him. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees, the best Jew you could ever ask for. But he recognizes that he still fell far short of the law. And that brought about guilt. It brings about condemnation or death. But Jesus stands in our place. But I must ask us, knowing that Jesus bore all of our sin, does that lead us to treat sin lightly? Oh, Jesus already paid for it, so it's not that big of a deal. But the reality is we need to see the weight that Jesus bore for us. And then ask ourselves, am I willing to follow my suffering Savior into denial, or will I preserve my own life and put myself first? And we don't do these things to fulfill the law, but as a response of faith to the one who fulfilled it for us. So Jesus really suffered. That is the first reality that we see in this creed. The second reality is that Jesus really died and was buried. If we go down now to verse 50 of Luke 23, we read, now there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man who had not consented to their decision in action. He was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. If you've been around long enough, you've probably received one of the calls that a loved one or somebody you cared for has passed away. And when you hear that, there's kind of a shock that sets in. It's like your mind doesn't want to fully accept the reality of what took place. Maybe even it's our own brains trying to cope with it. But then, when you come to the funeral, maybe you see them in the casket, and you go to the burial site, and they're lowered into the ground for the one and only last time, and you hear the dirt falling on the casket, that moment hits you. They're really gone. These fine details that Luke includes of Jesus' burial being laid to rest trying to accomplish that reality. Jesus really died. He gives us names, Joseph of Arimathea, places, a new tomb given to him, witnesses, women who were there preparing for his burial who saw him laid to rest. So why all this detail? It's because it wasn't just this symbolic act, it was a true physical act that took place. This wasn't metaphor, it was mortal. And Isaiah 53 verse 9 prophesied this. It said the Messiah would die with the wicked, but be buried with the rich. And this came true, as he was given a rich man's tomb. First Corinthians 15, as we read, says that his burial is essential to the gospel. So why? Why is this burial, why is this death so important? Why did Jesus actually have to die? Without a real death, there would have been no real resurrection. And even more, in the book of Hebrews, we see that Jesus had to become fully like us in every way, truly human in every way. And this required him to enter even death itself. So Hebrews 2, verse 17 and 18, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death. So we see Jesus didn't just dip into our humanity and then leave. He drank the whole cup. He didn't avoid death. He embraced it so that he could break its grip on us. As I've said, the Old Covenant pointed towards this, not just with prophecies, but with the actual sacrificial system itself. All those animal sacrifices all throughout the Old Testament were pointing towards one final sacrifice, the Lamb of God, who was sinless, unjustly put to death as a sacrifice for all who would come to him. And his burial marks the end of the old covenant and the beginning of this new covenant, this new promise for relationship with God. These are realities we need because if Jesus was truly buried, we don't have to fear death. And because he entered it and came out the other side, We too get to become like him in his death and become like him in his resurrection. So Jesus really died and was buried. The next reality we come to, the third reality, is that he really descended to the dead. So this phrase, descended to the dead, might be confusing. I know in our own life group, we spent some time talking about this. And even in a lot of the creeds, how we recite this, it can also be translated as, he descended to hell. So you can see why this might be confusing. But we need to understand this because it's deeply biblical. The phrase reminds us that Jesus entered death. So if we look at the Old Testament and how it talks about the afterlife, there's this word sheol in Hebrew. And in the New Testament, the same word for this, just translated in Greek, is Hades. And this word is known as the realm of the dead. It doesn't separate where people go, whether they're righteous or wicked in the Old Testament. They all go to the realm of the dead called Sheol. And this is the word that's used in the Creed. So Jesus went to this realm of the dead. And we don't get a ton of details about what this place looked like, but in Luke 16, Jesus tells a parable, a story, about two men who have passed away. And they're in this afterlife, and there's a rich man who built his whole life around riches, who's experiencing God's judgment and is in torment. And there's another man in this story named Lazarus, who says he's in a place of paradise, of Abraham's bosom. And both are in Hades, but their experiences are very different. So you can almost think about it like one location, but there's different neighborhoods. So this is where Jesus went. But in Acts 2 verse 31, we see that Jesus was not abandoned to Hades. Nor did his flesh see corruption. So Jesus entered this place, but he was not left there. He conquered it from the inside out. So according to the law, the soul who sins shall die. And Jesus fulfilled that sentence. He descended to the place of the dead so that we don't have to fear it anymore. So that's one purpose Jesus went there, but there's another purpose, a victorious declaration, because his entrance into this place of the dead wasn't just passive, but it was powerful. So in 1 Peter 3, verse 18 and 19, we read that for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. And then he says this, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. In other words, Jesus didn't descend in defeat, he descended in triumph. He went to proclaim to the spirits in prison the victory that he won for us. It's like a victorious king riding through enemy territory proclaiming victory, that the battle has been won. Jesus descended to the realm of the dead to declare victory to all who were there. His descent wasn't about him suffering further. This wasn't an extension of God's wrath of hell being poured out on Jesus. He said on the cross, it is finished. But he went there to proclaim final victory. So going further, we see in Colossians 2, Paul explains that Jesus didn't just die, he canceled the record of our sins, forgiving us fully. And then he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame by his victory on the cross and resurrection. This means Jesus's descent to the dead was a triumphant declaration, not defeat. So this line in the creed reminds us that Jesus didn't avoid death, but he embraced it to defeat it. So for us today, when we are walking through trials, when we feel like just everything in our lives is a mess, just every turn we take, every effort we put in is failure, nothing seems to be going right, things can get really dark. They can get really hard. But the reality is, Jesus knows what that's like, because he's really suffered. Not only that, he really went to the place of the dead. He saw the deepest darkness you could ever see, and he declared it defeated. He doesn't just walk out of the tomb. He walks through death itself, proclaiming victory all the way. So Jesus really descended to the dead. The fourth and final reality we'll look at this morning is that Jesus really rose again. So flip over a chapter to Luke 24, look at verse 36 through 43 with me. Luke 24, starting in verse 36. As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, peace to you. But they were startled and frightened and thought they had saw a spirit or a ghost. And he said to them, why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that is I myself. Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, have you anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them. Don't you love that about Jesus, our Savior? One of his first acts after coming back from the dead is sharing a meal with his friends. This resurrection, this bodily, physical resurrection is the hinge of our hope. So just imagine that you're a detective and you're investigating a mysterious case. You come across a crime scene, you see items everywhere, and there is a level of suspicion of who committed this crime. So you're searching and searching, and then all of a sudden you find something undeniable. A clear fingerprint. That fingerprint proves somebody was actually there. It's no longer just a guess or a theory in your mind of who did it. It's solid proof. Now think about Jesus's resurrection. It's not just a ghost story or a legend. Jesus doesn't just appear as a spirit or a memory. And if you think about it, how much easier would it have been for the disciples to claim, if this was false, how much easier would it have been for the disciples to just claim he came back as a spirit? That would have been easy for people to believe at the time. But to claim that he physically rose, that there is an empty tomb they can go and see, that is a whole other level. He shows his scars, the very marks of his crucifixion. He eats fish with his friends to prove his body is real, tangible, and transformed. That's the fingerprint of the resurrection, a clear physical proof that Jesus truly conquered death. All of us, like I said, all of our hope hinges on this. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 17, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. It's worthless. Paul knew this firsthand. He had given his whole life to Jesus, but he says to the church, if all of this isn't real, we're wasting our time. That's the reality of the importance of the resurrection. If Christ did not actually raise, all of this is pointless. But because he is raised, our faith isn't based on myths or wishes. It's based on a real historical victory. And that changes everything. So God had promised David, a king who would not see decay. He promised Abraham that his seed, his offspring, would bless the nations. And he promised Israel this Messiah who would rise and reign as king for all eternity. And now it's fulfilled through Jesus Christ, not symbolically, but historically. There is a man named Dr. Gary Habermas who summarized five historical facts most scholars, even skeptical, non-believing scholars, agree on. And this is known as the minimal facts approach. These five facts are this. One, Jesus died by crucifixion. Two, his followers believed he rose and appeared to them. Three, the tomb was found empty. Three, or four, can't count. Four, Paul, a persecutor of the church, was converted. Five, James, his skeptical brother, Jesus's skeptical brother, was converted to Christianity. If you think about the Gospel of Luke, Luke could have just told us Jesus rose from the dead, but instead he shares that Jesus ate fish. Why? Such a minor detail. It's because this isn't myth or metaphor, but it's a story. It's history. Jesus had a real stomach, a real body, a body that still bore the scars of crucifixion, but now was gloriously alive. And these details matter. So I hope this morning that the testimony of God's Word and Scripture is enough to convince you. But if you're not there yet, even skeptics have to be able to explain these things. The empty tomb, the radical transformation of Jesus's followers, the explosion of the early church, These facts, they can't force you to believe, but they do make the resurrection a historically serious claim, one worth your honest consideration. We believe by faith, but not blind faith. Our faith is grounded in facts because God has left his fingerprints all over. from the rolled away stone to the pierced hands that he used to eat fish with. Christianity is not just built on wishful thinking. It's built on a moment in history that changed everything. So if Jesus really rose, it means that we no longer have to be stuck in our guilt, in our shame, our condemnation brought about by falling short of the law. because he brings new life now and for all eternity, forever. This life is shared with us, and that changes everything. So let me just ask you this morning, will you keep continuing to see Christianity as just a theory or an idea, or will you recognize the reality of it? Because the resurrection isn't just something for us to believe in, but it's something to build our lives on. And it's worth it. So the Apostles' Creed is what we believe, and that matters. It proclaims, I believe in Jesus Christ. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. And on the third day, he rose again. And the Apostles' Creed isn't just a dead tradition that we recite, but it's a living testimony to a living Savior. If Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile. It's worthless. But he has been raised. And because of that, our sin has been paid for. The law is completely satisfied. Death has been defeated. The gospel is secure. New life is available for all of us. The spirit is given. This gospel, this good news needs to be shared. So believe and live. So if you're here this morning, I don't know everyone in this room, and if you haven't trusted in this Jesus who suffered, who really suffered, who really died and descended to the dead and rose again on the third day, today is the day to believe and live And for those of us who are here, who we do believe we have made this proclamation, isn't it so easy to just fall back into understanding it as mere beliefs, things we recite. And we need the reminder that we should proclaim this, but not just proclaim it, but actually live it and walk in it.