Your Comeback Is Louder Than Your Setback
By Erik Kingsley · · Imagine Church, Pembroke Pines, FL
Have you ever made peace with something being over? Not dramatically — just quietly. You stopped praying about it. You stopped mentioning it. You filed it under things that didn't work out and moved on. The dream. The relationship. The version of yourself you used to believe in.
That's exactly where the women in Matthew 28 were when they walked to the tomb that Sunday morning. They weren't going because they believed in a miracle. They were going to grieve. They had already accepted it. He was dead. They saw it happen. And now they were just doing what you do when something is over — showing up to take care of what's left.
What happened next is the reason we're still talking about it two thousand years later.
The Tomb Was Already Empty
"Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen." — Matthew 28:5-6
Three words the angel said that changed everything: He is not here. Not barely hanging on. Not on his way back. Not a maybe. The tomb was empty. The grave gave back what it tried to keep.
And here's the thing that's easy to miss when Easter becomes a holiday instead of a reality: every other grave in human history is still occupied. Every philosopher, every religious leader, every person who ever claimed to have the answers — their bones are still in the ground. His tomb is the only one that's empty. That's not a small detail. That's the whole thing.
Two thousand years ago, people said the same thing about Jesus that the voices in your life have said about you. It's over. It's done. There's no coming back from this. They were wrong about him. And they are wrong about you.
The Stone Wasn't Rolled for Jesus
Here's a reframe that will sit with you for a while.
Most people assume the stone was rolled away so Jesus could walk out. But think about who you're talking about. This is the same person who walked on water, raised a man from the dead after four days, and created the universe with his words. He didn't need the stone moved.
"The stone was rolled so that you could see in the tomb. It was rolled back for your faith and for my faith so we could believe."
The stone was moved for the witnesses. For the women who walked up that morning. For the disciples who needed to see the linen cloths lying there. For every doubting, grieving, exhausted person across two thousand years of history who needed to look at an empty tomb and know — he's actually alive.
That includes you. The stone was rolled for your faith. It was an act of love directed at every person who would ever need proof that death doesn't get the final word.
And Peter
This is the part of the Easter story that doesn't get enough attention.
Peter had sworn he would never leave Jesus. Even if I die with you, I will not deny you (Matthew 26:35). Bold words. And then, three days before the resurrection, when things got hard — when it actually cost something — Peter denied him. Not once. Three times. To a servant girl. The shame of that must have been suffocating.
So when the angel appeared at the tomb and told the women to go tell the disciples, what he said next is everything. He didn't say, Go tell the faithful ones. Go tell the ones who stayed. Go tell the ones who didn't mess up.
He said: Go tell the disciples — and Peter.
"And Peter. Two words. And those two words changed everything."
Jesus specifically made sure the person hiding in the most shame was on the list. The one who failed the hardest. The one who was probably convinced he had disqualified himself for good. Jesus didn't skip him. He called him out by name — not to expose him, but to include him.
That's who God is. He's not tallying your failures to hold them over you. He's looking for you in the room where you've been hiding and making sure you know: you're still on the list.
Easter Is a Personal Invitation
Here's the shift that changes everything about how you read this story:
"The resurrection is not just a historical event. It's a personal invitation that says, I rolled the stone away. I took the penalty for you. I broke the power. Now come and see that nothing has to stay buried."
Romans 4:25 says Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. That word — justified — means declared not guilty. Not managed. Not on probation. Not conditionally forgiven pending future behavior. Declared. Not. Guilty.
And Romans 8:11 takes it one step further: the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. Not near you. Not available to you on Sundays. In you. Right now. Which means every dead dream, every broken relationship, every part of yourself you've written off still has access to resurrection power.
Most people treat Easter like a history lesson. God designed it to be a personal testimony.
What You Do With This
This isn't just inspiration. There are real steps that follow a real resurrection.
Name what you've been treating as buried. Get alone with God this week. Write it down — the dream, the calling, the relationship, the part of yourself you've quietly given up on. The resurrection starts with honesty. You can't speak life over something you won't acknowledge.
Change the language. Your words are seeds. Stop declaring things over that God hasn't declared over. Stop saying it's too late, I've gone too far, it's never going to happen. Speak what God says. That's not positive thinking — that's faith. Abraham was over a hundred years old when God told him to look at the stars and count his descendants. The vision came before the evidence.
Keep showing up. Peter didn't quit. Even in his shame, he was in the room when Jesus appeared. Your job isn't to have it all figured out. Your job is to keep showing up — to church, to prayer, to community — even when you're hurting, even when you don't see how it's going to work out. God's power doesn't ask permission from your circumstances.
Your Story Is Not Over
Whatever has been declared finished over your life — by other people, by your own mistakes, by circumstances that felt final — the resurrection says otherwise. The same power that pulled a dead man out of a sealed tomb lives inside you right now. That power doesn't shrink based on how bad things look. It doesn't require you to have your act together before it activates.
God didn't send his Son to stay buried. And he didn't design you to stay buried either.
Your comeback is louder than your setback. That's not a slogan. That's a resurrection declaration.
This message was preached at Imagine Church on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026. If you want to hear the full sermon, it's available on the podcast and on our YouTube channel. We'd love to see you in person — doors open at 9:30 AM every Sunday at the Holiday Inn in Pembroke Pines.