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Nobleton Community Church
29084 Sentinel Street PO Box 224
Nobleton, Florida 34661
Rev. Paul V. Lehmann, Pastor
813-389-8683
Nobletoncommunitychurch.org
info@nobletoncommunitychurch.org
OUR VISION IS:
To experience SPIRIT-FILLED WORSHIP AND PRAYER
To be involved in EVANGELISM, DISCIPLINING AND TRAINING PEOPLE
To use our SPIRITUAL GIFTS
To SERVE AND REACH PEOPLE FOR CHRIST, BOTH
“ACROSS THE STREET AND ACROSS THE WORLD”
Nobleton Community Church
Date Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026
Text Matthew 28:6-7
Pastor Paul Lehmann
In these uncertain days, people need to make some kind of divine connection. If they don’t know Jesus Christ and have him in their lives, there is always something missing, and this becomes more and more evident in a time of crisis like we have experienced the past month. We are spiritual beings, so we have an innate desire for spiritual things. Unfortunately, this doesn’t automatically mean a person has a desire to know Jesus. Sometimes they don’t even know that he is the one who is missing in their life.
Of all the top-grossing films, the majority have a supernatural or faith-based theme of some kind. Also, most of the literature’s great epic stories deal with the human quest for God.
In their hit song, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” the rock band U2 expressed the search for answers in their lyrics. “I have climbed the highest mountains…But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” Then at the end they sing, “I believe in the kingdom come. Then all the colors will blend into one.—Well, yes, I’m still running, you broke the bonds and you, loosed the chains, carried the cross, and my shame, all my shame. You know I believe it—but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
Maybe that’s you. You say I believe in Jesus. I believe he died for my sins. I believe he rose again from the grave, but I still haven’t found what I am looking for. Perhaps there is that elusive peace that you hear Christians talk about. The problem is that perhaps you only have “intellectual faith.” Your belief isn’t any different than believing something about someone else in literature. Like George Washington was our first president, and you believe the facts surrounding the Revolutionary War.
Perhaps there is that little shred of doubt about life after death. The question is in the back of your mind: Will I really go to heaven after I die? Will I live into eternity with Jesus? You lack assurance of salvation.
In every corner of today’s popular culture, people are asking questions about the hereafter. During the coronavirus pandemic, some were asking if this was the beginning of the end times. Will we ever recover from what went on worldwide? Here in Nobleton, as perhaps where you live, it wasn’t as bad as, say, in New York City; nevertheless, we have never seen such a widespread pandemic in our time.
When it comes to God, if they believe at all, he is a God who is out of touch with us. He has nothing to do with this world, or he wouldn’t allow something like this to happen. It may not even be the COVID-19 virus for you, but something else in your life. If he is powerful, he is maybe too powerful, and we can’t have anything to do with him personally. This thinking has kept us from knowing God and having the relationship with us that he longs for. When we try to be “spiritual,” we look in all the wrong places for answers. Who would ever think you could find any answers in a Cemetery, but the title of my message is;
GOOD NEWS FROM A CEMETERY!
The message of Christianity is just that: “Good News from a cemetery.”
Graveyards have always been melancholy places because they are associated with grief, sadness, and separation from our loved ones. The cemetery is the last place from which one would expect to receive good news.
When Jeannene and I lived in Paris, our great niece came to visit us. She wanted to see the grave of Jim Morrison, the singer who died in Paris on July 7, 1971. We had never heard of him, since we were in the Congo at that time, but we agreed to take her to the cemetery. He is buried in the largest cemetery in Paris. All of the tombstones are huge. Some are cement structures that are locked, but it is possible to go into them. His tombstone is quite large and very elaborate. Morrison is an American who apparently was in France for a concert. His girlfriend was addicted to heroin, but Jim didn’t like heroin because it made him sick. He tried to make her quit taking it too. He preferred cocaine. His girl knew that, so when he came home and saw a pile of white powder on the table, she told him it was cocaine. He then put some up his nose. This caused him to die almost immediately. It’s astonishing to me that his grave is the fourth-largest tourist attraction in Paris. Young people still come to his grave, and while we were there, some youth were smoking pot and taking drugs while they sat on his tombstone. There certainly was no good news there, but there are people who are looking for something and trying somehow to identify with this guy Jim Morrison. It is really rather pathetic, no matter how great a poet and singer he was. People are looking for answers on how to live, and to have the assurance that life isn’t in vain, that there is life after death.
From the beginning of time, people have raised the question which was posed by Job; “If a man dies, will he live again?” (Job 14:14). Century after century the small and the great, the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, the young and the old marched into the silent, clammy chambers of death. Men stood in fear of death and the tomb. Job had faith, but It remained for Jesus Christ, the God/man, to come with an authentic answer to Job’s painful, perplexing question. After listening to all the babbling of his so-called “friends,” Job declares in faith in 19:25: “I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand on the earth.”
It would be a long time before this actually came to pass. The basic truth of Christianity, and the central core of the Gospel, is the resurrection of Christ. This is announced by the angels in Luke 24:6. The explanation was, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? A very logical question, but they hadn’t realized that he was living. They saw him dead, so they went to the cemetery.
Many people today are in that category of belief. They know the facts of orthodox Christianity are that he rose from the dead, but they wear crucifixes to remind them of the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross. Now, there is nothing wrong with wearing a cross, but when we live like he was buried in that tomb, and that he is still dead (even though his body was never found), then we are missing out on what the meaning of his resurrection is. Victory over sin, death, and the grave.
It is my understanding that when there is a homicide investigation, if there is no body, there is no case, except maybe under rare circumstances. How people think they have a case against the resurrection is hard for me to understand. ( See, “A Case for Christ” written by a former atheist Lee Strobel.) He was a lawyer and a legal journalist for the Chicago Tribune when he wrote that book. He did research to determine that the resurrection never happened. He ended up declaring that, “there is more evidence for the resurrection than all the homicide cases that he had seen.” It is astonishing that intelligent people can so harden their hearts against the idea of a living Savior that they invent explanations that do not make sense and that they themselves would never accept if it were applied to any other research. There is more evidence for the resurrection than for any other historical event in recorded history.
When the women arrived at the tomb, the angel said, “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.” Basically, he was saying, “Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee, ‘the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again?” They probably thought, yeah, we remember, but we didn’t think he really meant that; we never really did understand what he was talking about. The scripture says only that, “Then they remembered his words.”
In our text, Matthew 28:6-7, we read, “Go quickly and tell his disciples; He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Now I have told you.” This is the truth of Christianity. The only explanation why millions of people since that time have risked their lives, and have been willing to die for this truth. You cannot convince people of this truth through arguing. The Easter message is not an argument. It is a divine proclamation! The angels declared that Jesus Christ had conquered death and had risen to life. The apostles experienced his living presence to the extent that they died martyrs’ deaths rather than surrender or recant their faith and deny their relationship with him.
Would we be willing to die for our faith? For some, I don’t think so. If you have only agreed to accept a creed, or doctrinal statement of what you believe, but have never experienced the life-changing power of the resurrection in your life, then it would not be any big deal to change your mind, or be convinced that it would be in your best interests to deny Christ. You might be in the same category as Peter was when he said he never knew Jesus, because he was afraid of what the Romans might do to him if they knew he was a follower of Jesus. You must understand, though, that his denial was before the cross, before the resurrection, before Jesus breathed into his disciples the Holy Spirit, that is before he was born again by the Spirit of God. It is the Holy Spirit that empowers people with Holy boldness, the kind that made it possible for Peter and the other disciples to preach with power after the Holy Spirit had come upon them on the Day of Pentecost. The boldness that gave Peter and the others no concern about what people thought of them, or what they might do to them.
The Scriptures record at least eleven appearances of the living Christ to the disciples. The empty tomb spoke with a shout to declare that he was no longer dead. The present-day strength of Christianity and the Church is a dramatic testimony to the presence of the living Christ who has walked through the corridors of time in the lives of people who have had their lives completely changed.
There are two declarations found in the Good News of the resurrection.
The first is: THE DECLARATION OF THE EMPTY TOMB
During the last six months of our Lord’s earthly ministry, he sought repeatedly to instruct his disciples concerning the necessity and nature of his forthcoming death upon the cross. They found these teachings impossible to understand and they sought by every means at their command to prevent Christ from going to the cross. Jesus told them in parables that this had to happen. In John 2:19, he told the Pharisees, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” The Jews thought he was talking about the temple building, which took 46 years to build. In John 12:23-24, he explained that unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies, it produces many seeds. Then he spoke directly in John 10:17-18: “I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down and the authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” This was the boldest of his claims. It was this truth that authenticated his teaching and declared him once and for all to be both God and man. He was the eternal God with a human body. It is just this part that some people have trouble with.
- The empty tomb declared to their minds and hearts that Jesus Christ was really the divine Son of God (Rom. 1:4) who, through the Spirit of holiness, was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead; Jesus Christ our Lord.
- The empty tomb declares that his death upon the cross made atonement for our sins (Rom. 3:25); God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—and in-(Rom. 4:25) he was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
- The empty tomb was for the apostles and for us, a promise of victory over death and the grave. (John 14:19) “Because I live, you also will live.” This was Good News. It is Good News to all of us who are his disciples now living, who will one day find ourselves in a cemetery, as our Lord delays his return.
Many people think that the gospel is good advice. Let us never forget, as someone has said that: “the gospel is not good advice but good news. It does not just tell us what we ought to do for God, it tells us what God has done for us. It does not only offer us “lessons from the life of Christ, it offers us life by the death of Christ.”
Imagine a battlefield with troops advancing under heavy fire. They flatten themselves to the ground and hold their prone position until the enemy artillery is silenced. Imagine further that all of the soldiers are either dead or alive and unwounded. He who gets up and walks has life. Does that mean that life is given to the soldiers who get up and walk, or that the soldiers who possess life manifest it by getting up and walking? Obviously, the latter is true. This meaning is illustrated in John 5:24, where hearing and believing are the marks of the existence of the new life of God implanted in the individual. Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”
Then this leads us to proclaim, a second declaration:
THE DECLARATION OF A LIVING SAVIOR
Christianity must be defined in terms of a relationship to a living Lord. His living presence is a fact more solid than the mountains, more firmly established than the stars. Jesus was the only leader/teacher of a religion that rose from the dead. Confucius is dead, Buda is dead, Mohamed is dead. Jesus is alive. This truth should revitalize our worship, for we come together, not in memory of a dead Christ but in fellowship with a living Lord who desires a relationship with us.
The fact that He is alive makes prayer more meaningful. For when we pray in his name, we requisition the needed resources from the bank of heaven (so to speak), for the carrying on of his Kingdom’s work.
The fact that he is alive makes sacrificial service more meaningful and worthwhile because the resurrection proves that God will bring every good work to fruition. (I Cor. 15:58)
By his living presence, he gives us a full life. (John 10:10); “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”(NIV) The KJV says, “abundant life” or life in all of its fullness. It is a life with purpose, a life that gives us the assurance of Christ’s intervention in our lives, his protection, his healing power, his comfort, his compassion, his help in so many different ways. Because he is alive and is with us, and is in us, we should be encouraged to abstain from that which is evil. We should be bolder in attempting that which is difficult. We can receive comfort from him in times of sorrow through the Holy Spirit. Because he said he would never leave us comfortless.
So we see that he offers us life in all of its fullness, and eternal life after death. We have the assurance of Great News and something to praise him for.
There was a storm that passed through a rural area, and the hail had beaten the garden and truck patch into the ground. The house was partially unroofed, the henhouse had blown away, and dead chickens were scattered about. Destruction and devastation were everywhere. The farmer, while standing dazed, evaluating the mess and wondering about the future, heard a stirring in the lumber pile that was the remains of the henhouse. A rooster was climbing up through the debris, and he didn’t stop climbing until he had mounted the highest board in the pile. That old rooster was dripping wet, and most of his feathers were blown away. But as the sun came over the eastern horizon, he flapped his bony wings and proudly crowed. That old wet bare rooster could still crow when he saw the morning sun. And like that rooster, our world may be falling apart, we may have lost something or someone, but if we trust in God, we’ll be able to see the light of God’s goodness, pick ourselves out of the rubble, and sing the Lord’s praise for what he has given us.
Make sure that you know him personally today. Put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. He will forgive your sins. Not just “the sins of the world” —but you personally, he is waiting for you to experience this Good news from a graveyard. HE IS RISEN INDEED. If you know Christ as your savior, then make him known, especially in these uncertain days, when so many don’t have any hope, or they are trying to trust in the government and health workers, rather than putting their HOPE IN JESUS.