So we are promised that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  This is the only the last of the remarkable promises of Romans 8.

Here we learn that there is no condemnation for us (v. 1); we are set free from the law of sin and death (v. 2); the Spirit of God lives in us (v. 9); we are the much-loved children of God (vs. 15-17); the present sufferings cannot begin to compare with the glory to be revealed (v.18); God is redeeming all that he allows to make us more like Jesus (vs. 28-29); he spared not his only Son, for he will give us all we need (v. 32).

Now, how do we know that any of this is true?  That these promises are not religious superstition and wishful thinking?  Because of the fact of the resurrection.  Here's why.

Death is the great enemy.  The mortality rate is still 100 percent.  No human has conquered it; no one can.

Ever since Juan Ponce de Leon came to Florida seeking the fountain of youth in 1513, we've sought it.  We spend $9.4 billion on cosmetic surgery every year, more than $6 billion on diets and diet products.

But we begin to die from the moment we are born.  You and I are one day closer to death now than we have ever been.  Death is the unconquerable enemy of life.  No one has the power to defeat it.

No one except God.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ proves that God has power over death--that he can defeat the grave, destroy its shackles, and free its prisoner.

When Jesus came out of that tomb on Easter Sunday morning, shoving aside the rock as a pebble before the Rock of Ages, he proved that God is the Lord of the universe, the One with the power over all the universe.

If he has power over death, he has power over "trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword."  He has power over death and life, angels and demons, the present and the future, height and depth, and all creation.

He has the power to keep his promises.  Power to set us free from sin and death; power to reward present suffering with future paradise; power to redeem all he permits; power to make us more than conquerors.  We know it is true because of Easter.  If he could defeat the grave, he can do anything at all.

And defeat the grave he did.  Easter is not something that may be true--it is an absolute fact of history.  I won't take the time to show you all the evidence in the case for Easter, but remember at least the short version:

We know Jesus existed without even opening a New Testament: from the witness of Suetonius, Mara bar Serapion, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, and Tacitus we can prove that Jesus of Nazareth lived, that he was crucified by Pontius Pilatus, and that his followers believed him to have been raised from the grave and worshiped him as God.

We have no explanation for the empty tomb except the resurrection.  The Christians didn't steal the body and then die for a lie; the authorities didn't take it, for they would have produced it; the disciples didn't go to the wrong tomb, for the Romans would have shown them the right tomb.  And Jesus didn't swoon on the cross, survive three days in an air-tight burial shroud, shove aside the stone, walk through locked doors, and do the greatest high jump in history at the ascension.

We have no explanation for the transformed and empowered lives of the disciples except that they met the risen Christ.  When I wondered in college if it was all true, if Christianity was worth my life, it was the fact of Easter that brought me back.  It is the fact of Easter that keeps me preaching this book.  It is the fact of Easter that makes Christianity true and Jesus worth my life.