How Does The Empty Tomb Affect Me Today?

The Empty Tomb and how it affects me today

Pastor Glenn Newton

April 3, 2005

Text: Philippians 3:10-14

10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

PHP 3:12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6: 5-8 “If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

RO 6:8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

I’ve read stories about men who have fought together in battle, literally saved each other’s lives many times, who now years later, still have a bond, a friendship that endures the test of time. How many of our vets this morning, men or women could attest to this being true? Something happens to us and others when we share common hardships, common suffering… we seem to have a stronger understanding, a stronger fellowship with one another than can otherwise be reached.

I believe it was this kind of Bond that the apostle Paul is writing about in his letter to the Philippians… listen to Paul’s desire to be bound to Christ through this kind of kinship….

10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

This morning I want to talk to you about the reality of the Empty Tomb, and what it means for you and I today, in our everyday life. When you come to the Word, don’t you want to know how God’s Word is relevant to your life, right now?

What I want you to know today is that His Word is always relevant, it always has meaning for your life, as time passes it doesn’t lose one speck of meaning and power for our lives today… Why is that do you know? Because God’s Word is alive… God’s Word is truth and will be truth for all time, it will never pass away…. It’s alive because He’s alive… you can trust it, you can know it will always be right.

So how does the empty tomb of over 2,000 years ago affect my life today?

This morning I want to share a couple of words that describe how the empty tomb brings new life, new hope into our life, even today.

The first word that comes to my mind is this word that the Apostle Paul uses, Power. “10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection”

Let me ask you a question…. What is more powerful than resurrection power? I mean if you can take something that is dead and bring it back to life… is there anything more powerful than that? I can’t really think of anything.

Do you realize that if you’re a Christian this morning that you have experienced resurrection power? The Bible teaches us that before knowing Christ as your personal savior, while you were still living in sin, you were dead spiritually. The wages of sin is death, right? So a person who is knowingly living in a lifestyle of sin is going to reap the consequences of that life… death, for all eternity. And this is where all of us have been at some point in our life… dead in our sins…. Lost in our transgressions…. But then something awesome happened.

Easter morning came for us. Because Christ arose from His grave, He know raises us from our grave of sin, when we come to Him and ask Him for forgiveness and we put our faith in Him, He gives us new life, a new power to live…. Resurrection power.

My friends that’s something to get excited about!

This power is not just like a battery operated power that will run out!

This power is not like the kind of power that you get when you eat a good meal.