The main idea today is this: unless you empty yourself, the empty tomb has nothing for you. We empty the power of Christ’s resurrection if we don’t empty ourselves. 

Has anyone ever played monopoly? I love monopoly, it is one of my favorite board games. Well, my wife hates it. It is her least favorite game to play… so that’s tough. Well, have you ever read the actual rules of monopoly? Yeah, there are a bunch of rules you’ve never heard of! Do you want to know why? Because you don’t play by the rules! We have all come up with house rules and make monopoly the long boring game that it shouldn’t be!

We do this with the gospel and God’s word. We come up with house rules. I just need to say a prayer and get baptized and that is the end of it. I can give God part of my life and not all of it and still call him Lord. I can do this on my own and not be a part of a church community and go deeper in my faith. I can pick and choose which rules I play the game of life with and create my own experience and salvation. Today, the tomb is empty. And that has big ramifications for us. But only if we empty ourselves and truly make Jesus Lord.

John 20:1-18

How do I know the tomb is really empty?

What do you believe about this story? Is it true or just a made up story? Let’s get into a few theories that claim the resurrection isn’t true. First of all, a man named Jesus definitely lived back then. Even atheist and secular scholars believe this. We have extra biblical proof of a man named Jesus being crucified around 33 AD from Josephus, Roman governors, and a plethora of sources outside of the Bible. Jesus was definitely a Jewish man who existed and started a movement. 

They just saw a vision or a hallucination. Well, that is a tough one because Jesus ate a fish right in front of them in John 21. Also, Thomas felt his physical nail holes in John 20 as well as Mary touching him in our passage today. And have you heard of over 500 people all having the same exact hallucination at the same time? Me neither. Jesus appeared to them all at once, how could they all hallucinate the same exact thing?

The swoon theory. Jesus just passed out but wasn’t dead. Some Muslims will claim this. When Jesus was stabbed in the side blood and water came out. First of all, John 19 says the author, John, was a personal eyewitness to this. Medically, water doesn’t separate from blood until circulation stops, at which point it accumulates in the lungs. The Romans perfected this execution and did it on a daily basis. Professional killers knew he was dead. 

The disciples took him? After a Roman Guard secured the tomb with the seal of the governor? Or did Jesus, the physically destroyed person, get magical strength to move the stone from the inside and then fought off the guards? Who would of course lose their lives if they didn’t guard the tomb with the utmost care. 

One big lie. Well, if this were one big lie you were creating, why would you use a woman as your star witness in Mary? Did you know women back then weren’t credible witnesses in court? And would you die for a lie? How can you explain these wimpy disciples who all ran away and abandoned Jesus (which is another proof, if you were making up a story you’d make yourself a hero not a coward) who all of a sudden grew courage and started the greatest movement the world has ever seen, that has withstood the test of time, to which they were beaten and tortured to denounce… but didn’t? Who would die for a lie? When they had nothing to gain! They didn’t gain houses, or money, or fortune. It lost them… everything!

This whole movement could have been destroyed if the religious leaders produced a body. That is all it would’ve taken. Over 500 witnesses saw him alive. Imagine having a court case today with over 500 witnesses. I have no doubt that Jesus is alive, that the tomb is empty.

Who do you really think Jesus is?

Is Jesus your Lord, or is Jesus your life coach? Are you a fan of Jesus for who he is as a person, or a follower of Jesus that dedicates your life and decisions to him? The tomb is certainly empty, but now we need to decide who Jesus is in our life. 

Here’s the problem friends, people disagree with the Bible because it disagrees with them. Not because it disagrees with the truth. What do you believe about all of this? Because as C.S. Lewis writes in his incredible book Mere Christianity: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

“Supposing him to be the gardener”. A lot of people believe Jesus is just the gardener of their life. Someone meant to clean up their life. You don’t have this deep relationship with a gardener. You don’t invite them into your home and allow them to speak into your life. They work outside your home, on the exterior, and help make your life look good. 

That isn’t Jesus. You aren’t believing in the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible demands your life. He is the Son of God. Not just a prophet or a good person… he is the way the truth and the life, and nobody comes to the Father except through him! He is the vine, we are the branches. And guess what, he is alive! His resurrection CONFIRMS that! If he didn’t get resurrected, he was just another rebel. But the tomb is empty, he isn’t the gardener, and this is real and all true! 

Have you truly emptied yourself to Christ?

The empty tomb is robbed of its power for us when we refuse to empty ourselves (repeat). God isn’t going to run you over and force you to serve him. I know some movements believe we don’t have any choice in the matter of salvation, but I’ll tell you I have read the Bible through more times than I can count and it is full of men and women who made choices to either serve God or not. From the very beginning of the Bible, Adam and Eve had a choice, our God is a God of free will. 

Have you emptied yourself to allow Christ to fully come in and rule over your life. Are there limits to what God can touch in your life? Have you limited your yes? For some of us we have limited our finances and we refuse to give God what is his and use it instead for frivolous things that give us temporary joy. 

For others we have created our own sexual ethics that fall in line with the ethics of our culture today and refused to accept God’s standards for sex only in the context of a loving marriage between a man and a woman. 

For others our time is meant only for us and our things. We refused to give God even an ounce of our focus and our attention. We binge Netflix and spend hours on our phone but can’t give God’s word 15 minutes of our attention. Our prayers don’t go beyond praying over our meals for goodness sake! 

Heck, for most of us it is simply rounded up to having God being our first desire and our first love. Our God, oftentimes, is ourselves! Our stuff, our things, our emotions, our wants… friends! I know this is a hard sermon today but pastors that love you and who refuse to bow to the soft sermons of our generation and refuse to itch your ears will say: There is more! Jesus is more! You are looking for a full life and a life after this one outside of Jesus and you won’t find it!

Matthew 7:22-23, 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Following Jesus might start with a prayer, but it can’t end there. I believe in that prayer, it is important to make. But it is more important to follow that prayer up with action. 

Do you want to know what makes me sad? Why are there over 500 witnesses that saw him alive but only 120 people in the upper room in Acts 2? They started good, but then what? 50 days after his resurrection, 120 were left. For those other 380 people, Jesus wasn’t Lord. Jesus was a cool guy they had interest in. But that was it. We have to go from a fan to a follower, a consumer to a disciple. Christ truly is the narrow path, and few find it. Are you one of those few?

Conclusion

The only path to life and life to the full and life forever, is Jesus! No gimmicks, no games, empty yourself. Start by lifting your hand, confessing with your mouth and believing with your heart, yes. But back that confession up with action and faith. Our salvation IS by faith alone, but our faith never stands alone! It is surrounded by fruit that confirms that confession. 

Romans 10:9-11, 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”