The Gospel is for Believers

Intro

Receive and Stand

The live, death, and resurrection of Jesus makes up the fundamental message that Paul other the other disciples proclaimed to those that would listen. For some, the message of the Gospel would fall on deaf ears like crop seeds on hot concrete, never to grow and sprout. However, others would be like good soil, which would take hold of the crop seed, and it would cause it to take root and grow big and strong.

And yet Paul didn’t write to them because they were doing so well in their faith. The Corinthians were struggling with division, sin, immorality, civil cases, idolatry, and numerous other problems that called their faith and devotion into question. Throughout the letter, Paul confronts and convicts the Corinthians to change their ways and to walk in the light that they responded to in the Gospel.

This it why Paul says, 1 Corinthians 15:1-2

1 Corinthians 15:1–2 CSB

1 Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

At the time, Paul was addressing a key issue that arose among the people about the resurrection from the dead. He makes it a point to tell them that if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then all their belief and all their hope is in vain. As one commentater puts it: “...so if death gets the last word for believers in Christ, they have exercised faith for nothing.”

We can learn two very important truths from Paul’s argument in this passage that will lead us into our main talking point today: first, the Gospel is fundamental to the life of a believer. Second, the Gospel actively works in the life of a believer.

Back to the Fundamentals

As any good sports player would say, you never graduate from the fundamentals. Bill Cowher, the former head coach for the Steelers, once said, “You go back to fundamentals when things start to go awry.” Michael Jordan said, “When I was young, I had to learn the fundamentals of basketball. You can have all the physical ability in the world, but you still have to know the fundamentals.”

The same mindset is true for Christians as well. Whether you’re new to the faith or old in the faith, hearing the same message over and over again can seem boring and dull if we have a misunderstanding of the Gospel. We talked the last three weeks about how the Gospel is meant to lead people to Christ. We used the Three Circles and the Roman Road to use as an outline to share the Good News with others in the hope that they would turn from the sin.

However, there’s an issue with thinking the Gospel is only about evangelism. While the Gospel does save, it also continues to save. When Paul wrote to believers, he said they should hold onto the Gospel, “…by which you are being saved.” The Gospel is not a belief that you slowly grow out of once you become saved. When we believe that we’ve outgrown the Gospel, that mindset proves how far from the Gospel we’ve become.