Easter Sunday: No More Empty Promises

Speaker: Pastor Steve Byrens

John 20:1-10 (NLT), “Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance."

LIFEPOINT: Because the cross, the grave clothes, and the tomb are all empty, we can trust that God's promises are not!

I read a joke recently about a boy who promised his younger brother that he would give him ten dollars if he could break three eggs over his head. The younger brother was excited about the money so he agreed. After the first two eggs, the boy waited for the third, but nothing happened. After a few moments, he asked his older brother why he didn’t break the third egg. He replied, because then I’d owe you ten dollars.

Unfortunately, we often encounter empty promises in this life. Usually, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It’s not just people we know who don’t keep their promises. Companies run commercials full of claims, many of which they can’t back up. Government officials promise us that if we help them get elected and support their bills, we’ll have everything we need to be happy and prosperous. It doesn’t take long before we have been fooled enough to know that the world’s promises are often empty. If this happens frequently enough in our lives, we can begin to wonder if maybe the same thing is true about God.

Today as we celebrate Easter, we are reminded that our God is a God of promises. We may live in a world that is full of broken promises, but that is not how God operates. He keeps His promises. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead reminds us of an important spiritual truth: Because the cross, the grave clothes, and the tomb were all empty, we can trust that God's promises are not!

In His Service,

Pastor Steve