Man, what a privilege it is to experience the stories of our church. What a genuine privilege it is to know that God is moving not just here on Sundays, but he is moving on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and where God enters in the story. Amen. Something happens something shifts. I want you to look at somebody and Stone County and in Jones County right now in this room.

Look at somebody around you and say he's just getting started. He's just getting started. And you know, I'm just getting started and my voice is already going out. You're gonna have to deal with me today. My voice decided not to work with me this week.

And so we're going to be here together. I need I'm gonna need you guys to be participants in today's experience. Can you help me? By praying with me that about 10 minutes before this message goes out that my voice doesn't start first. But we're gonna be in this together in the Lord's going to be with us.

I want to welcome you to the week. After Easter you made it. This is a special Sunday. Why you ask? Because it's Sunday.

Well, you say the chocolate was last week. That's true. The candy bag up there. We had a photo in the grace wanted to put the her Easter basket right at the front door. So she put it on our welcome map.

So we have a son named Hatcher. He is five months old and he got a basket this year as well in the grace wasn't too thrilled by that and so she decided that the best way to put them out together was to put Hatcher's basket under hers. And so there was Hatcher's basket underneath Henley Grace is so that she would get all the candy this year last week at Easter. She was so excited about Easter and what a powerful weekend we had last weekend, huh? Just seeing how God has been moving in the midst of our church to see and how he's taken and he's doing things.

But here's the thing for so often. I have thought to myself. Okay Easter is a really good day. It's a really good moment. It is our Super Bowl.

I've said it myself. Maybe you've thought the same way right like Easter is a day on the calendar that we experience the resurrection of Christ and it's amazing and we have fun and we eat crawfish afterwards at least in my family. That's what we do. Amen. And so, you know Easter is just that moment where it's just everything is so good, but then we move on.

Then we move on to the week after Easter the week after the week after Easter and we move on to the next thing. What's the next thing? Well on the calendar, it's Pentecost are on the calendar. It's right. It's Mother's Day or Father's day where we grill out and don't come to church.

Like it's all of these different things like was so many things that happened that come out this summer is travel ball. It's all this really cool fun stuff that we do but here's the thing. What if Easter wasn't just a day? What if Easter wasn't just something we celebrated once a year, but the week after Easter we get just as excited and empowered and living in Victory as we did on Easter Sunday. I believe that that's the whole reality of when the tomb opened up and Jesus stepped out that as soon as that took place.

That Easter was forevermore. That we get to live in the power in the Victory and as we wrap up our Victory Series today. This is going to be a short message that challenges you and challenges myself to live in the victory of Easter. Not just celebrate. It not just be Spectators towards it but to be participants in the power and victory of Christ through the Resurrection Sunday.

In fact, I'm so excited about this message that I'm just gonna go ahead and give you the main point up front. I'm just gonna go ahead and give you the whole kit and caboodle right here. It is still day one. It's still day one. That's what we're going to be looking at today all of the victory that flowed out of the Tomb when Jesus left that grave.

It's the same power that lives in you. If you have received Christ in your life and you have made him the Lord and savior of your soul the same power that race Jesus from the dead lives in you now. It's easy not to believe that because life gets in the way. And in fact on that very first day there were two Knuckleheads named John and Peter that didn't get it either. And we're going to look at their story because something happened to John into Peter something changed in their life.

That helped him to experience resurrection power and Victory. So let's go to John chapter 20. If you have your scriptures go ahead and open up pull it up on the app The Venture Church app is available as well. We're gonna start in John chapter 20 starting in verse 1, we're gonna see the story of John and Peter as they go to the tomb. I think it's just fascinating that they've lived three years with Jesus and this is their response to the resurrection.

Let's go to verse 1 It says early on the first day of the week. I want you to Circle that phrase first day of the week Circle it and ride out there they won. You got a pen. Just day one. While it was still dark Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and she saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance and so she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple the one Jesus loved.

That was John and said they've taken the Lord out of the Tomb and and we don't know where they put him. And so Peter and the other disciples started for the tomb both were running but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He'd been over and he kind of peeked in. He looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in. Then Simon Peter ran along behind him and went straight into the tomb.

He saw the strips of linen line there as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus's head and the cloth was still lying in his place. It was separate from the linen and finally the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went inside. He saw and believed in verse 9 says they still did not understand from Scripture. What Jesus that Jesus had to rise from the dead and then verse 10. She's probably the most heartbreaking verse of this whole section.

It says and then the disciples went back to where they were staying. My prayer for each and every one of us today. Is that as we experience Easter in the story of Jesus Christ and we hear in our hearts that God has raised him from the dead that it would impact us at such a level. That we wouldn't just go back to where we were staying. That it would change us that it would do something in our lives.

This was Peter and John they had been hearing the story. Jesus had been telling them Hey, listen, I'm gonna have to go I'm gonna have to die, but don't hold on. Don't freak out. I'm gonna be raised from the dead and I'm gonna have Victory like I'm going you're going to experience this power and the moment that it happened the moment that John and Peter ran to the tomb they peeked in. And they're wondering and I wonder what's going on.

That's that's really cool. I guess he's not here. So Peter what you want to do? Yeah, you know going back. All right, let's go back.

You want Burger King? Okay, let's do it and just kind of head and on back into their lives back to the disciples like as if nothing had ever happened. So often we do the same thing Easter comes around and we celebrate it and we get excited, but we are spectators to it. Not participants in it. There's a difference.

It's not just about watching the tomb Row the stone be rolled away from the tomb. It's not just about looking in. It's about experiencing. This is what Jesus came to give us a several years ago had the opportunity to go up to Washington DC. It's one of my favorite cities.

I'm a history nerd. So like I love going to the National Mall. I love going to the smithsonians right seeing all the spaceships and everything and going to the National Monument going up to the Washington. It's just so much fun, but I've been several times. And so this time I was with a group of friends we were hanging out.

And we wanted to do something different right? We didn't want to just like go to the National Mall hang out and you know, go eat somewhere that was known we wanted to go to this like Niche spot, you know, when you've been to a city a few times you just want to go to the place. So like yo tell us where the place is. We don't want to just eat at Union Station again. So they took it they told us about this place.

We we head over there and we're eating dinner in an uptown place of of DC and they told us whenever we went. Hey keep your eyes out, you might you know see some Paparazzi. There's for some people like to go and hang out some famous people. I'm like famous people. I don't know a lot of famous people.

So I'm really excited about this. So we're going we're eating dinner and I'm just hanging out doing my thing, you know, and my friends are there. I was like, this is such a cool place. Let's get a picture and so some of friends come on, let's get a picture and we didn't have anybody to take the picture. So I just randomly very nicely tap this man on the shoulder who was sitting right at the restaurant.

Excuse me, sir. Would you mind taking this picture of my friends and I while we're here we want to you know Comm At the moment. Here's a yeah, man. Sure. That's no problem really down.

I don't know why but he was like sure I'll take your picture and I turn back to my friends and they're both over here standing like this. And I'm like, what? Is it something I said, was it something I did like did my breath smell bad like what's going on? Then? They was like they were just like Stone and so the guy gets up and I come over here and I'm like and they're just and he takes the picture as a man.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You know have a good one. Have a great night tonight. It's like it will be it tonight and I was like, okay good.

He walks off and I'm like man awesome. Let's go. Let's go get some ice cream or something and he says my friends look at me like Blake. Do you know who that was? Like no, I don't have a clue what that was.

It was a random redheaded dude, like just took our picture photographer. I don't know. It's Conan O'Brien. Like what? So shows how culturally inept I am.

I don't didn't know who called Conan O'Brien was but he was there and I get to say forever more the Conan took our picture. I wish I had the picture to show you today, but he seemed really down. I think it was in between jobs. I think it's one of those moments but How crazy was it that I was this close? I was in this much proximity to what culture describes his greatness, but I miss the moment.

I was a spectator to it, but it wasn't a participant in it. How many times for us ourselves can we be Spectators to the power of God? And not participants in it. This is what John and Peter experienced. But it's the same thing that changed the life something in their life changed.

We're gonna read a story in a moment where they were tapped in they were connected in to the power of God something shifted. What was it? Park is it to us and Ephesians chapter 1 I wants to go there for just a few minutes. As we continue to look at the effects of the empty tomb. What is it about the tomb that changes our lives and gives us victory?

Paul is experiencing the same thing at the church of Ephesus. The church is in this place where they had fallen in love with Christ. They were giving their lives for Jesus, but over time the effects of time started to started to make Headway against the power of the Gospel. A little bit of time had gone through they had experienced the fire of Jesus up front. But as time went on that began to diminish.

And so Paul was encouraging them once again to tap back into that day one power. Because the power of the Gospel the power of the empty tomb it never loses its luster. We just get separated from it. And so this is what he says and in verse 18 of chapter 1. I want to start here.

Paul is praying for the church at Ephesus. He says this he says I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened like I want you to wake up. I want you to experience this goodness. I want you to be enlightened to this in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you. I love that the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power.

For us who believe? That power same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the Heavenly realms I don't know about you. But when I read that verse it's almost unbelievable. It's almost too good to be true. Peter Paul is saying here that the very power that raised Christ from the dead is the one that lives in so what does the empty tomb give to us?

What perspective do we take out? How do we live our lives on this side of the empty tomb? He gives us three things. The first one is the hope of his calling. The hope of his calling.

There's few things in life. That give us more consistency. Than confidence. There's very few things in life that allow us to live at the highest level with the most confidence. Then the hope that we have that we're not going to fall.

Yesterday actually hindley went to this little arcade and Biloxi we took her for the first time and she's excited. It has a ropes course very similar to the one in Harrisburg at the zoo. Where they put a harness on and she gets to walk around with the little rope and she gets to walk to all the different places. Well when we first got her on there she was excited to do it, but she was very nervous. She didn't want to kind of move from side.

I said, she only wanted to stay on the perimeter on this little Bridge or on this little rope swing or something like that. She didn't want to go to the inside. The inside was harder. It was also a more distant from Lauren and myself. She couldn't get to us as quickly and so she didn't want to go around.

She just wanted to go around the perimeter. And so I looked at her I looked at her and I said baby you can do this. That rope that you're tethered into that rope that's harnessed into you. It's not going to let you fall. It's not going to let you hit the ground.

In fact, you can lean back and I showed her how to lean back and all this kind of good stuff. I said as long as you're Tethered to this rope, you're never going to fall and you can always put yourself back on the path. And what's more I'm gonna be right here the whole time and I'm gonna help you walk across and so the first time that she did she was a little hesitant, but she watched she kind of slipped a little bit. She caught the ropes saw that the Rope wasn't gonna let her fall and she kept moving about two minutes later. She was zooming around this thing just going she looked like an aunt on an ant hill man.

It was just it was just crazy and then she paused she turned back and looked at me and just with the most sass that you could ever imagine. She said Daddy it's okay if you go sit over there. Yes, ma'am. Head on over there the hope of his calling is this is that as long as we are tethered in to the Gospel as long as we are tethered into the empty tune as long as we are tethered in to Jesus Christ Our Hope Our Savior our King our Lord there is nothing in this world. There is no circumstance.

No path that you will take that will ever cause you to stumble and fall. Because you were locked in. To the goodness of the empty tomb. This is the hope of his calling. We can take confidence in this you should like you don't know my story.

You don't know what I've been through. You don't know what's happening in this season right now. I just relapse I just had a divorce. I just experienced paying that you cannot imagine and hear me. I know the pain is there but the confidence is this that as long as we are on this side of the Resurrection this empty tomb tells us that when God's in it your story is never over.

Your story is never finished. The disciples they thought it was done. They thought when Jesus went into the tomb. Of the story was over. But the confidence of the Resurrection that we live in every single day from here on out the day one mentality is this as I'm going to pursue the calling that he has placed on my life with such fervor and excitement and confidence because I know as long as I'm pursuing him and I'm pursuing the path that he is set out for me that there is nothing that's going to cause my feet to come off of this path.

May stumble I may try to slip I may even fall off but as long as I'm Tethered to the king, I ain't going anywhere. It's the hope of his calling. The resurrection proves that our story is never done. The second thing that Paul tells us is not only do we have a hope in his calling but we also have the riches of his glorious inheritance. Now that is a very tongue twisty phrase.

It's heavy. It's not something that we say in everyday conversation Paul. Thanks a lot. How are you doing today? Oh, you know, I'm just living in the riches of his glorious inheritance.

What? What does that even mean? Like bro, you could have used some different words, but he was inspired by God. So we're gonna just go with him. And so like The Riches of his glorious inheritance.

We have to unpack this to truly understand what it means for us today. Think about this word riches. Something that's valuable right? It's something that you want to hold on to it's something that you want to keep you want to put it up on a shelf you want to display and say this is something valuable. This is something worth living for this is something worth giving my life towards it's riches.

Exciting But what are those riches the riches are this is his glorious inheritance in his Saints. What was given to Christ? At the moment that the tomb opened up was dominion and power and authority. He stepped out a king. Everything was put underneath his feet.

Everything was now in his power everything that as soon as he stepped out. He said it's mine. That's his inheritance. What he gains as a result of being the savior he stepped out in power with the keys and we live in a new creation. Day one mentality is this is that that same inheritance has been placed inside of us?

We are now the Agents of Jesus believe it or not y'all. He chose us. To go and to tell his good news. He chose us. Now to you that may not sound like the best plan and quite honestly when I look at my life that doesn't always seem like the best plan either.

But he chose us. He put his inheritance inside of us and said now this new creation if it's gonna go out into the world, it's gonna go out through you. You are invited the empty tomb the cross and the empty tomb is an invitation to live a rich and fulfilled life. Now that richness that fulfillment isn't what you think it probably is like blank. Are you telling me that if I just pray I'm gonna get all the money I need right on everything's gonna be perfect and I'm gonna be rolling, you know, no that's not what I'm saying.

The rich and fulfilled life is a life that is pursuing the calling of Jesus on Your Life. Living in such a way where you say every breath that I take Lord everything that I have is for you. Every breath that I breathe every movement that I make every meeting that I attend every chance I get to teach my kids about you. Everything is this inheritance and the rich and fulfilled life is the confidence of knowing that we're living in the way that he set out for us. We're tethered in.

To an inheritance. That is glorious. And is put on display. It's the challenge then to live in that light. But then we go to the third thing Paul tells us and this is the one that blows my mind the most honestly the incomparably great power.

This same power that raised Christ from the dead. Is the same power that lives in you? I want you to pause on that for just a second. There really isn't anything that I need to say about that. Just let it rest on you for a minute.

As we think and contemplate power That raised our Lord Christ. From the dead is actively residing inside of you now for every excuse the enemy is now placing in your mind. I want you to tell him. That the power is here. Because I know that there's a lot of excuses there's a lot of thoughts and mentalities in my own mind as well or say man.

I'm I'm too broken. Like you don't you don't know what I'm experiencing. There's no way that power the power could be here because I have two broken of a story. Or I'm too young. I don't have what it takes.

I don't have the voice. I don't have the look. I don't have the way I can't do it. The power has lost its luster. That was 2,000 years ago Blake.

There's no way that I could experience that same power now, but the beauty of the empty tomb is is that when Victory stepped out it stepped out once and for all and there is no story. That's too broken. There was no person that is too lost. There's no person. That's too far from God.

There is no generation. That is to Wayward. There is no country. That is too far gone. There is nothing that cannot be conquered by the power of Christ.

When he stepped out. He stepped out for good. And now he is living actively in our lives. We have hope. We have an inheritance.

And we have a power. That's the day one mentality. So my challenge to you today is this. To go out of fear and live in that power. To live in that inheritance to step forward into the calling that God has placed for far too long.

So many of us have been living Half Lives. Where we've been walking around saying God, it's been great seeing you from a distance God. I love the empty tomb. I'll see it next year. I'll see you next year Lord.

I can't wait to celebrate you next Easter, but would we be participants? In the power of God, we would see our cities changed. You want to know why we see so many stories taking place in our church is because the power of God is resting on his people. And it's just getting started. That's the challenge that each one of us.

Would we live in that power in that inheritance and in that hope Because that's what happened to Peter and John too something changed in them. They they move from being Spectators to being participants. And so we see in Acts 3 One More Story. Of what happened to these two men? Who merely went and looked in at the tomb something shifted and now they were living in the hope and inheritance and in the power of Christ?

In Acts 3 starting in verse 1 That's what it says. It says one day. I want you to Circle that Circle that one day. Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer at three in the afternoon. Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the Temple Gate called Beautiful where he's put every day to beg from those going into the simple courts, and when he saw Peter and John about to enter he asked them for money and Peter looks straight at him as the John and they said look at us.

So the man gave them his attention expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said hey silver or gold I don't have but what I do. Have I give to you freely in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth walk. Taking him by the right hand. He helped him up and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong.

He jumped to his feet and began to walk and then he went with them into the temple courts walking and jumping and praising God and when all the people saw him walking and praising God they recognized them as the same man who used to sit begging at the Temple Gate called Beautiful. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. This man's life was changed because Peter and John were living in day one victory in day one power. Did you see this at the very top of the story? Did you see how the story began?

It said one day one day. One random day this man had been sitting there for years. He was probably even sitting there when Jesus was on the earth doing Miracles every day day after day after day begging for the same thing silver or gold. Do you have it? Do you have it?

Do you have it? It was just one day. When John and when Peter living in day one victory of the Resurrection step foot to this man as they said, hey man, the thing that you're wanting silver or gold we don't have it. But the very thing that we do have we're gonna give to you freely in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth the name of the power and the Victory and all of the confidence and The Inheritance that we are living in we are now freely passing it over to you rise up and walk and that man's life was forever changed. You want to know why we live in day one mentality and day one Victory is so that other people can experience their one day.

We live in day one. So that other people experience a one day. God is good and he is using us to go out into the highways into the Bible is in our city ways into our work places and into our friend groups to say I am broken. I don't have it put together, but I'm standing confidently in the power of God and I can't give you what you're asking for, but I can give you what you need. Let me tell you about my savior Jesus.

Let me tell you what he did for me. And let me pass it freely on to you. So that they're one day. Could turn into day one my friends it's still day one. And it's never not going to be.

Every head bowed and every Hound closed across every location in Church online. My prayer for you today, is that this hits home? Maybe you've been living that half life that we talked about just simply skirting around the edges of faith. And God is calling you fully to step and plant your feet on the same ground of the empty tomb that he did. My prayer for you today is that you would do that.

Maybe there's somebody on your mind that needs to experience their one day. My prayer is that you would be The Shining Light of Day One victory in their life that they need. Whatever that looks like for you. We're going to move into a time of response. You could come down to the cross at all of our locations.

You can write something down pin it to the cross. Maybe you need to come and take the Lord's Supper take communion and reflect on the fact that Christ did die for you. You need to give your life to him today. You need to give everything over to him today. Maybe you just need prayer.

There's something blocking you from experiencing that day one victory. You just need somebody in your life that's going to come up and say I'm gonna pray with you. I'm gonna stand in the gap for you. Our prayer team will be available at all of our locations. Don't let the enemy rob you of that victory.

Don't let the tyranny of the urgent. Keep you from responding in what the Lord's doing right now. Let me pray for his father. We are undeserving of your Grace We're undeserving of your love, but you are so so good. Father when we are weak you are strong.

Father I pray that in each and every one of our Lives the day one power and victory of your son would move in our lives to such an extent that it would it would resurrect cities Lord. It would resurrect communities that it would resurrect families and generations. God would we be so broken for our friends would we be so So committed to them. Hearing about you. That we would give everything that we would plug into the rich inheritance.

And that every day would be Easter for us Lord. There is no day. From here on out that you are not King. And you were not. Help us move now.

We love you Jesus name. Amen.