Amazement at the Empty Tomb

1st Corinthians 15:3-4, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures...

1st Corinthians 15:17, And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

1st Corinthians 15:19, If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Mark 16:1-8

Big Idea:  Because Jesus lives, we also will live.

John 14:19, ...Because I live, you also will live.

1.  The empty tomb displays that God has absolute power.

1st Peter 1:3-4, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in Heaven for you...

Ephesians 3:20, Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us...

John 11:25-26, Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

2.  The empty tomb validates that Jesus is the Messiah.

Matthew 13:14-15, Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.

Matthew 16:16-17, Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in Heaven.

3.  The empty tomb declares our victory over death.

Acts 2:24, God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.

Romans 8:37, ...we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

1st Corinthians 15:54-57, When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Next Step:  Respond with wonder, awe, and worship of our Lord Jesus Christ...  He lives!

Romans 6:4, We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Revelation 21:4, He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.