[SERMON] Rise Up: The Power of the Empty Tomb | Easter 2026

In this Easter message, Pastor Cyle declares that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not merely a historical event but a present-day power available to every person. Anchored in Matthew 28 and Romans 8:11, the sermon reveals that the stone wasn't rolled away to let Jesus out — it was moved so we could see in. The central application calls every listener to stop revisiting the shame, guilt, and sin that Jesus has already conquered, and to boldly rise up into new life in him.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

He is risen. Now, if you didn't grow up in church, it's okay. A lot of our people did not grow up in church or link. So we'll teach you some things. Like when people say he is risen, the re the call and response is he is risen. Okay, let's try that again. He is risen. There we go. Here's another one, and I think I got it wrong in the first service, but um, you guys weren't here, so you don't know. Um so God is good and all the time. There you go. See, now you're learning. So I just said both parts the last time. So it's Easter, it's uh Easter Sunday, and we're excited. So we're gonna just jump right in the Bible and we're gonna talk about uh the story of Jesus coming out of the tomb. Because that's what we're celebrating on Friday as Good Friday, where we we really remember and we um think about and we ponder Jesus being on the cross and dying and taking the penalty of sin upon himself for us, which means we can have life everlasting through his sacrifice and him conquering sin and paying our penalty. That's Friday, then Saturday we reflect, and then Sunday we come here because Jesus is risen, because he is risen indeed. See, see, no, he is risen indeed. Oh, we'll get there. All right. So ultimately, uh I want to pick up the story of Matthew 28, and we're gonna read a lot of the Bible. And at Heart of Lakes, when we read the Bible and there's a yellow word, that's yours. You read that out loud and proud. So here we go, Matthew 28, verse 1. Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the woman, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen. As he said, Come see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, Greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me. Now this is important. While they were going, behold, some of the guards who who passed out and were knocked out, whatever, they were dead, like like they were dead. They woke up and they recognized the tomb's empty. Jesus is gone. And so they went into the town. And they went in the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave us sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, Tell people, his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. And here's the powerful and profound thing that maybe sometimes we miss in the story, because we focus so much on the cross, we focus so much on the tomb. We missed this part in Matthew 28, 11 through 15. The chief priest who wanted Jesus dead, the Romans who put him to the cross, put him in the tomb, they didn't deny the tomb was empty. They tried to explain it away. Now, this is a historical fact. This isn't like a Christian thing. This is a historical fact. If you look at ancient Roman sources, the Romans record that Jesus' tomb was empty. If you look at ancient Jewish sources outside of Christianity, they also say the tomb was empty. No scholars will really deny the fact that the tomb was empty. What we're seeing in the book of Matthew is that ultimately they tried to explain it away by using money, the same way they got Jesus to the cross. With money, getting Judas to betray Jesus. They paid the guards and said, Hey, we got your back. If you get in trouble with Rome, we'll cover you. You'll be okay. We know you you kind of failed at your job. Jesus' body's gone, but just say that you were overwhelmed and they robbed you the grave and they took his body. So we know from history the tomb was empty. There's just a disagreement about who believes what. Like Christians, we know Jesus rose from the grave. He conquered death, gives us life everlasting. The Jews had a problem. Where's the body? And so ultimately they tried to explain it away. And then we see, it continues on in Matthew 28, a couple more verses. And if this comes to the governor's ears, Pilate, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So the chief priests are telling the guards who just failed, hey, if you're gonna get in trouble, we got you. Like we will, we're the ones that wanted Pilate to do this. We'll make sure you don't get in too much trouble. So they took him, uh they took the money and did as they were directed. And the story has been spread among the Jews to this day. There's an important thing that's happened here in Matthew 28, right there in the end of 15. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the four Gospels. There are four different accounts of Jesus' life, his ministry, his death, his burial, his resurrection. Matthew is written to the Jews. The audience for that was people who were already Jewish. Mark is written to Gentiles, people who were not Jewish. Luke is a story, uh, it's a history of all the things put together. Luke was trying to create an account, the best history he could, of all the things that happened in the timeline. And then you've got John, which is kind of telling the theology as they learned about who Jesus was and who, how he was God. And so there's four different really purposes of why we have four different gospels. Matthew is writing to the Jews. So he's telling the Jews in the story when they're reading this, just so you know, the rumors that you heard, they're not true. They were, these guards were paid to tell that this happened. What really happened is Jesus rose from the dead, and I just want you to know. That's why we have ancient Jewish sources that say Jesus' body was stolen because that was the story of the day. And the first critics, they didn't argue if Jesus rose from the dead. They argued how, right? They was like, how is the tomb empty? We don't, this is how we think that it was empty, or how they wanted people to believe that it was empty. And here's the profound thing. If there was a body to be found, Christianity would have died in week one. All the chief priests had to do, all the Romans had to do was take Jesus' body and just kind of stroll through town with it and say, look, these rumors that you're hearing about this guy who came into town on the donkey, who who we see you guys celebrated, and then we we had, you know, the whole thing with Barabbas and crucify him, we put him on the cross, all that. Here's his body. He didn't actually rise from the dead. We can prove it. The problem is they couldn't prove it. And so that's how Christianity spread like wildfire. There was no body because Jesus is rose from the dead. We also know that Jesus appeared to over 500 people when he came, when he rose from the dead. So all these people had seen Jesus. Now, there's also a really fantastic thing if you want to read the story. When the earthquake happened, other gospels will tell you that saints rose from their tombs, dead people who had already died, who were related to people in town, got out of the graves and went and told them about Jesus and rising from the dead. That's profound as well. If you want to know why Christianity spread like wildfire in Jerusalem when Jesus rose from the dead, because if you're if your your uncle or your aunt came out of the grave who you'd buried five years ago and told you that Jesus came from the grave, you're probably gonna believe it. And so it and then you're gonna probably tell everyone else about it. That's the amazing thing that happened. There was all this power and miracle, miraculous things that were happening at the time. And that's why they couldn't deny what was happening. Even their story didn't stick with history because there was there was real truth that people saw and experienced to Jesus rising from the tomb. See, the resurrection, it wasn't preached in secret. It was preached in the very same city that Jesus was crucified. This wasn't like it was some other town, and they're like, well, that you know, that might have happened that way in Jerusalem. No, it was in Jerusalem. They could have shut this thing down, they couldn't, because Jesus rose from the grave. I want to go back to Matthew 28, 5 through 6, because I want to call your attention to this one thing. But the angel uh said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who is crucified. He is not here, he has risen, as he said, come see the place where he lay. This is important. Christianity doesn't start with a philosophy, it starts with an empty place. It starts with this a powerful absence. He is not here is the most powerful absence in history. Some of you have been absent from school before, some of you have been absent from work before, some of you have been absent from life before, right? You have. But he is not here. It's a statement about the most powerful absence in history. Jesus is not here in the tomb. And the stone, here's what I think is so profound. The stone wasn't moved so Jesus could get out. It was moved so we could see in. Come see the place where he lay. It's for us. The stone didn't release Jesus, it revealed the miracle of Jesus rising from the grave. Because resurrection didn't remove uh Jesus' body, it transformed it into a risen state. And we know this from John 20, 19, another gospel. It says, on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews. So the disciples are gathering because Jesus has been crucified, he's been put in the tomb. They're in hiding, because what are they going to do to us? They're going to find us, they're going to arrest us, they're going to kill us, maybe crucify us. The Romans love to crucify people. So they're hiding. They've locked the doors, they're having a secret, private meeting, and all of a sudden, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. Jesus can appear through locked doors. He can just show up. That means he doesn't need a stone to be moved for him to get out of a grave. He rose from the grave. The stone was moved back so we could see it. That's powerful. That's powerful. When you go by all these designs and decorations of Easter, you see all these images of the stone being rolled away. That's for you. That's for me. That's so we could see the miracle. We could see the real power. Because locked doors didn't stop him then, and they don't stop him now. The same power that raised Jesus, it's meant to change you. It's meant to change Kyle Young. It's meant to change Caleb Baird. It's meant to change us. That's why we look in the tomb. That's why we see the empty grave. That's why we see Jesus gone. So we can understand and see his power. And it's for us. Romans 8, 11 says, and the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ. Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. If you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, if you understand that he died on the cross for your sins to pay the penalty of your sin, to bring you life everlasting, and you believe that he conquered death and rose from the grave, that same power also gives life to you, to me. See, Easter isn't just proof, it's power. It's power. That stone being rolled away, it's not just proof, it's power. That God is powerful over life, over death, over everything. And that power, though, it's not automatic. It's invited. You have to accept the power. You have to ask Jesus to come into your heart and have a relationship with you. You have to invite him into your life. You have to believe in him. And you're invited, just like Jesus, to step out of your grave. Because when we when we accept Jesus Christ as Lord, we die to our old life. That's why we have baptism. But baptism, it symbolizes our death. We go under the water, we're buried just like Jesus Christ was in the tomb, and we rise out of the water into new life. We actually call it being born again. So when you accept Jesus as Lord of your life, you die to the old you and you're born new, born again in Jesus. When you're born again, you step out of the grave. You rise up out of the grave. That old you is dead. That old you is gone. That tomb of your old life, that shell's empty. You're now new in Jesus. But some of you keep going back to that place God already left. Some of you like the tomb. Some of you revisit the same guilt, the same failure, and the same shame over and over again. You like having the tomb so you can go see it every once in a while. Let me just go peek back in there. Some of you like to go hang out in the tomb, right? I'll just go hang out in there again. I love that drama. I love that brokenness. I love that sin. I love all that shame. It makes me feel comfortable. So I'll just go hang out in the tomb. Like it's you're going on a cruise ship for a week, right? Like just go hang out in there, right? But it's not a cruise ship. It destroys your life. And some people believe in Jesus, they call him Lord, but yet they still keep revisiting that place that God already conquered in their life. And we do it over and over again. And you're looking for life in a place that God has already moved on from. There isn't life in the tomb, there's life with Jesus. And some of us keep looking life in that same old broken place, and then wondering why we're miserable. We're dead. We're frustrated. We're broken. It's because that's not where we're supposed to focus on. We're supposed to focus on ahead with him. See, you keep visiting what Jesus already defeated, and that's the problem. And some of you here, maybe you don't have a relationship with Jesus, and and you're kind of still in that grave, like you're there. You need to die to your old ways and your old life, your old shame, your old failure, your old sin, and you need something new. Awesome. That's what our church is here for to help you figure that out. But some of you, you've been following Jesus, but you keep going back and revisiting that tomb over and over and over again. Never once in scripture does Jesus tell the disciples to go back to the tomb and check it out again. Never read that in scripture. He tells them to go and tell everybody what they know and what they've seen and what they've heard. Tell them about Jesus. Tell them about life everlasting. That's we're supposed to go forward. So I'm gonna just challenge you today. Stop visiting what Jesus has already defeated in your life. Just stop. Quit going back to the past. I mean, I do counseling all the time. What a counseling is for me is just telling people and reminding them to stop going back to their tomb and revisiting the shame, the guilt, the failure, the brokenness, all that stuff, the sin. And just keep your eyes focused on Jesus. And when you do, life gets better. It does. I've seen people take I've seen people completely transformed by Jesus Christ. People that were the world has said there's no hope for that person. But you know what? Through Jesus, there's hope. There's hope because Jesus can change anyone. And so what does it mean for you? Why are we taking time on a Sunday to talk about this? I think it's important. I'll just say this. Listen, here, this is where Easter becomes personal for you. It's not just this good story, all right? It's not just this miraculous story. It's real power. It's real power. He is risen. So catch it, catch you sleeping, right? Jesus just didn't rise for the world. He rose for you. He rose for the Ryan Kral, who was up here on stage. He rose for me. He rose for Brian Ferguson. He rose for you. That is why he came. It's for me and for you. And his grace, his grace is reaching for you now. Right now. But you have to respond. Easter isn't just about coming to church on Sunday, getting dressed up. You know, I picked up my nice outfit for my wife. I got my nice Italian shoes on, so I got dressed up. I did. But it's way more than all of that. And listen, I know some of you, Easter's one of the few times that you're gonna go to church this year. I get it. I know it. I'm a pastor, I understand. But Easter, this Easter is a time that you gotta respond. You gotta make a choice. Do I want life in the tomb full of all the brokenness, all the sorrow, all the guilt, all the grief, all the shame, all the failure, all the sin, or do I have something better? Do I want something better? Do I want to respond today and do something different moving forward? And if you're here today and you know that you've been living in something that Jesus already came out of and came to bring you out of, it's time. Or if you're looking for life in a place that God has already moved on from, it's time to do something different. So my challenge is this I want you to respond today. Not tomorrow. I don't want you to think about, oh, that was good, sir. Man, I want to think about it, I'll think about Jesus. I'll make a decision later. Maybe when I'm in my 20s, maybe when my 30s, I hear this all the time. In my 30s, you know, after I have time to enjoy my 20s, I really get serious about Jesus when I have kids because I want my kids to grow up in church. I hear this all the time. Some of you have said this, right? You have said this to your friends, like, how does he know, right? Uh they told me. No, I'm just kidding. So but but I want you to respond right now, today. Be bold, be brave, and make a decision to say, I'm done with that old broken me. I want to be born again in Jesus. And you can start, we're gonna have the band come up in just a moment and they're gonna sing a song. And during that song, you can respond to Jesus just by standing up in your in your chair. Just rise up during that song and say, I'm ready. I'm ready to choose Jesus. I'm ready to rise up out of my grave, out of my tomb. I'm ready to seek him and follow him. I'm tired of being in there. And some of you, that may be the first time you've ever decided to do that. Maybe this first time you ever feel like Jesus is real and I'm gonna make this real in my life. But for some of you, you've been following Jesus for a long time, but you've never left the tomb. Sometimes you peek out, sometimes you step out, and it's scary, and you go back in like a groundhog day. It's but you're tired of the old brokenness. Really, truly be born again in Jesus and watch what he'll do in your life. And so you've got to leave your tomb because he's calling you out of it. He's calling you out of it. That stone was rolled away for you to see the power of Jesus. That's that's what Easter's about. And the stone was rolled away so you don't have to stay in your tomb either. That's the thing. So as the band sings, they're gonna sing Amazing Grace, and I'm gonna come back up afterwards. During this song, I just want you to stand up when you really truly mean I'm gonna rise out of my tomb for Jesus. I'm gonna make this real this Easter. I'm gonna live for Him. Doesn't matter if you've been following Jesus for four minutes or 40 years. If you're ready to rise up for Jesus this Easter, then do it. And rise up and sing with us in the song when you when you feel that that's the decision you want to make this Easter.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Like me, I was lost now, and grace my feet I first.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

If you really mean that this morning, I'm gonna challenge you to grab your connection card on the back. Just write the word stand. We believe that people that pray together stay together. I believe that with couples, I believe that with families, I believe that with friends, I believe that with our church. That if you pray together, you stay together. So we pray for each other as a church. How we do that is every week after the sermon, we we read these connection cards and we pray for them. We won't we won't hassle you. We just pray for your prayer requests. And so if you write the word stand on the back, what that means, we're just gonna pray that God knows what it means in your life. That you can rise up out of your tomb, you can stand and focus and move forward with Jesus Christ. So if you do that, we'll pray for you. Just make sure you put your name in the front so we know who we're praying for. And we'll pray for you this week. That God speaks to your heart, speaks to your life, and motivates you to get up out of that grave and go with his power into new life everlasting. Also, we want to make a challenge. We did this last year. I kind of sprung on Cody on the middle of a service last year on Easter. This year he knows. But if you if you're one of those people that you're gonna come to Easter and maybe no other service till Christmas, it's it's okay. But we'd like to make a challenge. If you're tired of the same old, sick and tired life and you want something better, let me just tell you that as a church, we try to do life together well. We try to have fun, love each other, support each other, and watch how God changes each of us. So we made a challenge last year and it was awesome. We challenge you to come the next four Sundays, just come every Sunday, show up, and here's what we'll do for you. We'll have a cookout. If you come, Cody and I will make you on April 29th, we'll make you a meal. It's gonna be awesome. Best meal you've had all year. Uh and so we'll reward you for it. But just we want you to know that if you just show up, God will show up too. God will show up in your life, He'll speak to you, He'll change your life. We had people come last year off four Sundays and come to the meal, and they they keep coming because God has done a work in their lives, and it's awesome to see how God has transformed them. So if you want to accept that challenge, all you gotta do is write challenge on the back, write challenge on the back every week the next four weeks. We're gonna invite those people to the meal. If you come the next four weeks, we got you, we got a meal. And you get to know some people at church, but we'll also help be on a journey of seeing how God and his power can change your life and your eternity. So if you accept that challenge, we'd love to do life together with you. I know I didn't give you time to write a lot stuff, but you can do that after we rip these off. So on the count of three, we're gonna rip these off. You can put them in the buckets in the lobby or the black boxes, the doors, and you can fill these out afterwards. But here we go. Ready? One, two, three. Uh let's let's pray. Let's pray together, and then uh we'll continue to sing one last song. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we we thank you. We thank you for your son Jesus. We thank you that, Lord, he didn't only just go to the cross and and just suffer all that pain and torment to allow us to be forgiven for sin. Lord, he gives us life everlasting by proving that he is over all life and all death. He can conquer death and bring life. And we pray this morning we can respond by just acknowledging Jesus as Lord and Lord acknowledging as King of our hearts and our lives, recognizing that his His power and through His power alone, that we can defeat sin and be forgiven through His grace, and that we can have life everlasting through Him. Lord, we just pray as a church we acknowledge this, as individuals, we accept and believe this. And Lord, we just pray that anyone here, if they're just beginning that journey with you today, Lord, you just you encourage them, you make yourself real in their life, and let us join them in the journey of getting to know and discover more about Jesus here through Heart of the Lakes. Lord, if there's anyone here that just needs to stop visiting their tomb and all the brokenness and all the sin and all the sorrow and all the guilt and all the shame and move forward, Lord, I pray that you empower them through your Holy Spirit to do things different, to see things different through the power of Jesus Christ and the transformation that can only come through you and your Son. Lord, we just pray this in his name. Amen.