Happy Resurrection Day to Cross Church! Maybe you grew up thinking miracles happened a long time ago, if at all. Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll introduce you to both ancient miracles and modern ones. But if you’re looking for a miracle, you need not look any further than the empty tomb. If you’re looking for a miracle, look no further than Jesus rising from the grave. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a miracle of the highest order. The resurrection changes everything. And it’s through Jesus’ resurrection that you can experience real, deep, meaningful, and permanent change. That’s what empty tomb promises. So this morning I want to ask: What does the resurrection of Jesus mean to you? The empty tomb of Jesus is significant for three noteworthy reasons.
1. Death Isn’t Final
Every follower of Christ, every believer of Jesus, will be raised from their cemetery graves. Incinerated remains for those believers in Christ who have been cremated will form back together one day.
“Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” (John 5:28-29)
There have been three historic opinions that have formed in history as to the resurrection of the dead and they remain to this day. Pagans expected nothing to happen after a person dies. Jews expected the faithful to be resurrected at the end of time. And Christians have felt that not only has Christ risen from the grave but His resurrection guarantees His follower's resurrection. The empty tomb promises you can live forever because Jesus rose from the grave.
2. Your Status is Insured
“…Jesus our Lord … was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:24b-25) When God raised Jesus from the dead, He approved of Jesus’ work of suffering and dying for our sins. The resurrection of God was confirmation that God accepts Jesus’ work on your behalf. The penalty for sin was paid. Now if you’re the kind of person who says, “Lord Jesus, I’m a Christian, and please answer this prayer because I’m trying my very best to live a life like you’ve asked me. I’m trying my very best to ask you to forgive my sins. I’m really trying my best,” you haven’t gotten it. No more payments needed to be made. Think of the resurrection as a gift God has purchased you. The empty tomb says you can know your sins are forgiven.
3. The Power to Change
The power of Jesus’ resurrection is made available to you today. The power to raise dead people to life is made available to make broken people… whole. It’s this power that is offered to aimless, listless people to make them purposeful and peaceful. A fresh start – that’s what many of us hunger for. The false hope of pharmaceutical drugs, whether they are legal or illegal. The false hope of a name change and a new identity – fleeing your old life for the promise of a fresh, new start. It’s the brilliant college graduate who takes an immoral turn to make a quick buck. Thinking she can outsmart the FEDS, she uses insider information to make millions. After betraying her friends for the sake of a reduced prison sentence, she relocates and tries to cabbage together a new life.
Brokenness comes in many forms. Let me share with you the story of Louie Zamperini. Louie grew up going to church but was often bored by the pastor’s sermons. He was a troublemaker as a child of Italian immigrants. It was Louie’s older brother than discovered his ability to outrun nearly everyone. And in time, he rose to fame as an Olympic runner, finishing 8th in the 1936 Olympics and catching the attention of Adolf Hitler. It was then that he entered WW II. After a plane crash in the ocean, he was trapped in a raft for 47 days. It’s in this tiny raft boat that Louie survived sharks, starvation, dehydration, and Japanese fighter planes. But his 47 days in the ocean were nothing compared to the torture he endured as a POW in Japan. At the hands of an evil man nicknamed “The Bird,” a Japanese military officer and an awful, sadistic criminal, Louie experienced pain and a hatred that few have known. He was left with real scars, emotional and physical.
I’ll continue this story in a few minutes but let me ask you: Would you like to make a fresh start? And how does the gospel make you change? Real profound change?
Today’s Scripture
You can follow along on page 1199 in the black pew Bible in front of you. Take a moment to explain YouVersion.
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:5-11)
Buried in these verses, it a tremendous, life-giving promise the empty tomb of Jesus makes to you today. You can be free from your addictions and your brokenness.
1. Your Life Becomes His Life
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5)
A commercial on television appears with someone crying: “When I was diagnosed with cancer…” Silence ensues as the graying man weeps on your screen. A few seconds go by, the camera pans back to show the medical office complete with health personnel, and the sounds return. And he completes his sentence, “Today I was told I have my life back again.” As he pauses between phrases, you can easily imagine what it would be like to hear, “You have cancer.” Your death becomes real. When you place your faith in Christ, it isn’t just a throw-away prayer as you head onto more important matters. He becomes your identity. The trunk of your life is intertwined with the very life of Christ.
And when you come to faith in Christ and turn over the “steering wheel” of your life into His hands, your inner sinful ways lose their power and attraction. To become a believer in Christ isn’t a light thing… anymore than being crucified is a light thing. Following Christ isn’t joining the gym. Placing your trust in Christ isn’t like the decision to get a season pass at your favorite theme park. No, your life and Christ’s life become one. In a very real sense, part of you dies when you turn your life over to Christ. And it’s part of you that you never wanted.
Your Life Becomes His Life
2. Power for Radical Change
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5)
“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” (Romans 6:8)
If you are a Christian, you have everything you need to change. A Christ-follower is someone who has plugged into an electrical outlet power… Only, it’s a moral and spiritual outlet. You are not free not to sin. The chains of addiction and brokenness are broken inside you – all because of Christ’s death and resurrection. The empty tomb promises a fresh start. If God’s power is able to raise His Son, do you think He can break your chains of addiction?
Christ is an indestructible power: “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” (Romans 6:9)
Jesus will never die again; He’ll live forever. This is the power that’s inside a true follower of Christ. It’s a real power to change your life.
“The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him…” (2 Timothy 2:11).
Here are Three Points to Remember…
2.1 Say This Often, “I used to be a…”
Remind yourself often of what you USED to be. Preach to yourself when temptation comes!
There’s a legendary tale about Augustine. Approximately 1,500 years ago, there lived a man named Augustine in Northern Africa. And before Augustine was a Christian, had a problem with sexual self-control. One day he was walking along, and one of his old mistresses showed up. She wanted to pull him off into a fling. So she starts to try to invite him up to her place and attack, attract, and attach to him. He says, very kindly and very nicely and very courteously, “Thank you but no thank you.” He starts to walk away. Suddenly it occurs to her, “Maybe he didn’t really recognize me.” She turned to him and said, “Augustine, it is I!” Augustine turned around and smiled and said, “Yes, I know. But it is not I.”
Jesus didn’t die so you could say a prayer and return to do what you used to do! Your life has radically changed – changed at the very root of you.
2.2 Change is Often Slow
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5) There’s an idea that the word “unite” in verse 5 is connected to botanical growth. Christian change is as gradual as a flower growing. It’s gradual. Botanical growth is something you can never really see happen. You can know it’s happening, yet you look at it … Actually, any kind of growth, not just botanical growth.
G. Campbell Morgan was a British minister. He said he was in a graveyard in Italy, and he saw there was a huge marble slab over some man’s grave. An acorn had gotten into the grave about 600 years ago. Out of that acorn came a shoot. Out of the shoot came a tree. Out of the acorn had come a tree that had grown up so big and so tall, it had split the marble slab in half. Change that is slow can be powerful.
2.3 Change is Painstakingly Hard
Broken lives made whole again. Burnt-up lives receive healing. You’re not free from the struggle of temptation in this life. While Jesus cuts the chains of addiction at your baptism… at your conversion, don’t say, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:11)
The Story of Louie Zamperini, Part Two
Although Louie was no longer a prisoner of war, he was still a slave to his sin. Louie Zamperini was horribly broken by sin, but then He was sweetly broken by God. In many respects, what Louie faced on American soil was so much more difficult than anything he faced overseas. Four years after returning from the war, Louie couldn’t sleep. He would have a recurring nightmare of “The Bird” where he felt the buckle of the belt on his head. In his sleep, his crushed “The Bird’s” throat and startled his body. But he awoke in a sweat to discover his pregnant wife, Cynthia. All he wanted was revenge and nothing could release him from the torment of the pain he felt. In the daytime, he was sober but at the thought of going to sleep and facing his tormenters, his addiction to the bottle soon consumed him. His drinking and his bitterness made his marriage terrible – Cynthia and Louie fought. She would throw dishes at him and he grabbed her neck so hard that it left a bruise. She filed for divorce. But an unusual thing happened in September 1949, a young Billy Graham came to Los Angeles in a rented circus tent… Cynthia came to faith in Christ first as she begged her 32-year-old husband to join her. It was a lie by his wife that actually got him to the meeting. And there Louie Zamperini heard Graham say these words: “Here tonight, there’s a drowning man, a drowning woman, a drowning man, a drowning boy, a drowning girl that is out lost in the sea of life.” It was the next night that Louie came to receive Christ as His Lord and Savior. “That night when I got home from the Crusade, it was unbelievable. I didn’t have a nightmare, and I haven’t had one since,” he says. His alcoholism was also gone that night as well. He had experienced Jesus’ love for Him and he wasn’t the broken man any longer. In a single moment, Louie Zamperini was a new creation. And because of His conversion, Louis was able to go back to Japan to the very guards and inside the very prison walls where he experienced two years of torture. He forgave them with a radiant smile and told them about Jesus Christ. He later wrote a letter to “The Bird” where he said, “Love replaced the hate I had for you.”
The determining factor in my relationship to God is not my past or my present, but Christ’s past and His present. What a Difference the Resurrection Makes! It’s through Jesus’ resurrection that you can experience real, deep, meaningful, and permanent change.
