Yo os Declaro el Evangelio

Intro: What’s clear when you read 1 Corinthians, is that not only was the church was in Corinth, but Corinth was in the church.

Ill. Similar to when the boat is in the water it’s ok, but the problem when the water is in the boat, it’s not ok.

Four years had passed since Paul planted the Corinthian church, and there were yet grave problems of carnality among the members.

So the apostle arranged a meeting with a few key families...a sister named Chloe and her family, along Stephanas and his family. These concerned Christians travelled all the way to Ephesus, to give the apostle a report about the spiritual condition of the people. Needless to say, it wasn't a fun meeting:

Paul: "How are the Corinthian brethren doing?"

Estefanas: "Well, where do we start???” “People are showing up drunk to the Lord's Supper.”

“Several others have lawsuits against each other. Makes it hard to evangelize the magistrate when so many of his cases are Christians suing other Christians from our church!”

“We hoped that church services would help change all this, but even they get crazy. There's no order. Everybody wants to be in front and supposedly everybody has a prophecy to tell or a tongue to speak in all at once. No one understands anything. It's total chaos.”

Chloe: "On top of that, the church didn't just split, but got quartered!"

Paul: "What?!?"

Estefanas: "Yeah, there are four clans now; those who say they are your disciples, another group claiming to be Peters's, some say they are of Apollos, and yet others say they are the real ones, Jesus' true disciples. Paul: "Oh my.."

"But how is Bro. So-and-So doing?". Uh...he's dating his stepmom, and everyone thinks it's fine."

Drunkenness, divisions, immorality, pride...abounding in the congregation. And the whole letter of 1 Corinthians is Paul responding to these situations and steering the church toward righteousness.

So what does Paul do in 1 Corinthians 15? He reminds them of the only true solution for carnality and immaturity...the Gospel and its power to make them firm. And in it, he is reminding us all of the power of the Gospel!

Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-4

1 Corinthians 15:1–4 RVR60

Además os declaro, hermanos, el evangelio que os he predicado, el cual también recibisteis, en el cual también perseveráis; por el cual asimismo, si retenéis la palabra que os he predicado, sois salvos, si no creísteis en vano. Porque primeramente os he enseñado lo que asimismo recibí: Que Cristo murió por nuestros pecados, conforme a las Escrituras; y que fue sepultado, y que resucitó al tercer día, conforme a las Escrituras; From this text I see necessary advice for us today in this conference:

-La Predicación del Evangelio (The Declaration of the Gospel)

-Los Pilares del Evangelio(The Definition of the Gospel)

-El Peligro Respecto al Evangelio(Danger Concerning the Gospel)

La Predicación del Evangelio

(The Declaration of the Gospel)

Text:

1 Corinthians 15:1 RVR60

Además os declaro, hermanos, el evangelio que os he predicado, el cual también recibisteis, en el cual también perseveráis;

Exp. Paul arrived at Corinth years prior, a cosmopolitan city dominated by Greek thought.

The Greeks had a false belief that everything immaterial was good and material was bad, including the human body. Therefore, the Christian doctrine that God (being immaterial) would become a human (material), then die, then effectuate a bodily Resurrection as the basis of our salvation, to them was foolishness (“locura”).

It was not just different, but the total opposite of what they believed.

Yet Paul preached the Gospel at Corinth and praise to God, we read in Acts 18:8 of God’s honoring the truth preached: “many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.”

When you come to 1 Corinthians 15, Paul firmly, calmly, stands once again with the same saving message, “Os declaro el evangelio.”

In it were unstable relationships, unstable families composing an unstable congregation.

To deal with the spiritual immaturity and instability in relationships....Paul does not invent a new doctrine, or try to come up with a new solution but he says once again, “Os declaro el evangelio.”

Then, to emphasize the Gospel’s importance in the most extreme way, in v.2, we read in Spanish “la palabra que os he predicado.

But the word here for word is not “logos” sino “euaggelion” and the word for preached is not “kerusso” sino “euēggelisamēn”. Literally Paul reminds them that he “los evangelizado por el Evangelio.” (“the gospel which I gospelized unto you.”)

And here is what he declares concerning the Gospel.

"I preached..."

"Ye also have received"

"Wherein ye stand."

"By which ye also are saved...."

Ill. In 1959, a 9-year-old boy named Ronny was denied service at a segregated library in South Carolina.

He refused to leave without his books, and the police were called.

Not only was he permitted to use those books, but he went on to read many other books, and then he went on to earn his PhD in physics from MIT, and that little named Ronald McNair later became an astronaut. Today, when you walk into the same library in Lake City, SC, you walk into the Ronald McNair library, that once refused to lend him books is now named after him.

App. And what a glory of the Gospel, that in hearts and whole cities, Christ was once unwelcome, He is now named as Lord...all because of Declaración del Evangelio.

Then Paul does on to remind us of....

Los Pilares del Evangelio

(The Definition of the Gospel)

"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" Exp. Having reminded us that the Gospel’s importance and power, he then mentions what are the Three Immovable Pillars of the Gospel, Christ's substitutionary Death, His true Burial, and His Glorious Resurrection. Let us look at these pillars in order

The first pillar upon which the Gospel stands is that "Christ died for our sins", Jesus' substitutionary Death.

Exp. The greatness of the Gospel first stands upon this pillar.

Ill. Danger of this becoming boring to us...”Christ died for our sins.”

Several obstacles stand between us and Heaven... -The Terrifying Holiness of the Place. -The 144 foot high walls that surround it.

-The powerful angels that guard it from the intrusion of even one sin.

-The Law of God. The Law of Sin and Death.

-Our guilty conscience.

-God’s declaration that He will not all all acquit the wicked.

But one final obstacle being the greatest exists...God’s love for His own Son.

“God who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” (Romans 8:32

In the Gospel God saved us from God! The sacrifice of God the Son saved us from the wrath of God the Father.

Paul reminds us that not one second of those six grueling hours suspended upon Calvary was penal toward Jesus' conduct. But every millisecond of it earned by us, yet our penalty served by Him. Christ died for our sins.

Arg.  Mark 10:45 – "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." 1 Peter 3:18 – "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God..." "But He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities..." (Is. 53:6).

And let it be known, that Jesus' death would not be incidental (a fall from the second story of a house, or generic sickness would not claim his life)...it was not an oversight by the Romans or a mistake by the Jews, but by the God of Prophecy described in detail "according to the Scriptures".

So that when you and I witnessed it by the eyes of faith, we would know that the Gospel’s author was God and not man.

Purposeful and not incidental was His Death.

Ill. Not lost his life Vietnam soldier Arg. "No man taketh my life..."

Divine mercy and justice embraced one another upon the broken flesh (carne rota) of Jesus. Christ died for our sins

He drank the cup of God's wrath that we night drink from the cup of His Grace....Christ died for our sins

He unworthily ascended Mount Calvary so that we could unworthily ascend into Mt. Zion in Heaven one day...Christ died for our sins Quote: “Christ’s heart was so set upon our salvation that He would never return to heaven without it. He had rather go to hell for us than to heaven without us.” Thomas Goodwin...Christ died for our sins

App. The Gospel is not a message that makes good men better, but rather makes the vilest men into the most sanctified, free of every trace of corruption, and fit for Heaven's holy courts, because Christ died for our sins.

App. The Gospel is a not a limited solution, because sin is not a limited problem. Sin is a universal problem. "Free Insulin for life" only excites us diabetics. "Less invasive chemotherapy" only calls the attention of cancer patients.

Considering who the Corinthians were, ex-drunkards, adulterers, ex-extortioners, ex-pagans, what glorious news this is, that the reader may include himself, for Christ died for our sins. READ YOURSELF INTO THIS TEXT.

App. May we exclusively celebrate Christ who alone died, for the Atonement was not a team accomplishment. "Christ died for our sins".

Ill. When a basketball of football team wins a championship, even the guys who never play get to share in the trophy. Not like a You're not even the third string junior varsity long snapper you're not even the Waterboy.

You and I contributed nothing to the gospel, except the sin that made its costly atonement necessary.

The Gospel is such Good News because first we are such bad news!

So may we say with all joy, mixed with deepest humility, Christ died for our sins.

The second pillar upon which the Gospel stands is the burial of Christ..."And was buried"

Exp. Lest we minimize the impact of Jesus' burial, Paul identifies it here as the second pillar upon which the Gospel stands. Burial is the most humiliating of human experiences. That though a man be born above the ground, and then above the ground grow and mature, study, learn, earn money, establish a career, marry and have children, build himself a house; all his impressive activities above the ground, he will succumb to death and go below the ground he once stood over. Burial is part of our ancient Fall. For when the Divine Judge came to the guilty first Adam with most severest and yet righteous sentence "from dust thou and unto dust shalt thou return."

Often in the Bible when men were so disgusted or disheartened, they would actually cast dust on their heads, a sort of self burial, declaring that death and burial were like unto their horrible current condition.

Arg. The desperation of Job talks about the humility of being near death. "He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes."

Ill. Mexican funerals when the men of the family throw shovels of dirt over their loved one. It's so final.

App. What a heavy sentence upon Adam and us, "from dust thou and unto dust shalt thou return." But thank God, the second Adam stands in front of that sentence upon us top return unto the dust, and declares "I'll take that in your place. I will also be buried."

The third pillar upon which the Gospel stands is His glorious Resurrection...."And rose again the third day according to the Scriptures..." Exp. Paul here he reminds the church of the third immovable pillar on which the Gospel stands.

Jesus' Death was not a loss, and His burial was not final, because the Father took pleasure in those first two pillars so much, that He literally resurrected Christ from the dead.

And just as it did at Corinth, today in our world, that glorious Resurrection also distinguishes our Lord from inventors of religion or of false hopes, because it proves the literal hope beyond Death.

Let me explain...

Ill. For example, in Hinduism, in order to give future hope, they promote the idea of future re-incarnation. That if you behave yourself decently in this life, maybe in the next one you will be a German Shepherd in a well-to-do family. That you come back in another life as something else.

Ill. And others, with when speaking of the deceased, have said things like, "Grandpa passed away, but he lives on by the taqueria he founded. Or, my aunt passed away, but she lives on in all the paintings she painted."

But the Gospel as Good News speaks not of a fictitious or an emotional resurrection by having a taqueria that continues on after you're dead, or through a painting people admire when you are dead. Nor is it to return as a German Shepherd. No. The Gospel stands alone and firmly upon a literal, real resurrection, that he same body that died shall be the same body that also comes back to life forever, because the same body of our Lord that was literally dead, was also literally corporally raised.

Arg. "But now Christ is risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of the Resurrection" (v. 20).

"Because I live ye shall live also."

App. Death dies in the Gospel

El Peligro Respecto al Evangelio

(The Danger Concerning the Gospel)

Text: 1 Corinthians 15:2-4

1 Corinthians 15:2–4 RVR60

por el cual asimismo, si retenéis la palabra que os he predicado, sois salvos, si no creísteis en vano. Porque primeramente os he enseñado lo que asimismo recibí: Que Cristo murió por nuestros pecados, conforme a las Escrituras; y que fue sepultado, y que resucitó al tercer día, conforme a las Escrituras;

Exp. At Corinth, the primary danger taking place, was the rumor among some of them that there was no such thing as the Resurrection (vv. 12-13). It was a heresy, that would undo all hope of salvation if men were to believe it.

However, also in the text, there is another danger concerning the Gospel, the forgetting of the Gospel, which is why he speaks this way:

“por el cual asimismo, si retenéis la palabra que os he predicado, sois salvos, si no creísteis en vano.”

He is not speaking of the danger of altering or adding to the Gospel, but forgetting the priority of the Gospel.

The danger here is that the Gospel in the hearts and in the church would be displaced and moved to secondary importance.

Ill. Pensemos en el famoso caso del Motín del té de Boston de 1773, en el que unos americanos manifestantes eran disfrazados de nativos americanos olvidaron llevar sus remos para escapar después de arrojar el té en el puerto del mar. En lugar de alejarse remando rápidamente, se tambalearon en el puerto.

The very thing designed to keep the afloat and safe, they had forgotten about!

App. In our fundamental churches today, I do not believe so much that we have such the problem that the Corinthians had, that some might change the Gospel or deny the Resurrection.

Our doctrinal statements are biblical, especially concerning the literal bodily Resurrection of Jesus.

However, we do fall into the second temptation, not to alter the Gospel, but to reduce it to second place.

The Gospel, our only “remo” that keeps us afloat, we have forgotten, although we remember many other things.

Yes. We become primarily all about which institute we studied in, and our favorite preachers, and which group do we primarily identify with.

And we have good standards, and standards in their place are good. Women wearing skirts and men wearing suits and ties are for sure good things, conservative music styles, men not wearing earrings and coloring our hair blonde. These are good, but how easy it is to remember only these and forget the foundation of the Gospel!

Then, to add more emphasis to the Gospel, he writes in verse 2, “Porque primeramente os he enseñado...”

The idea here is that that of first and greatest importance is the Gospel, and that the Gospel remain there!

In the same thought he commands them to retenéis la palabra que os he predicado.

Its only worthy place to occupy in our churches and families is first place!

How this affects our family life:

Three main dangers exist when we move away from the Gospel:

-Self righteousness (Telling your teenage son, “When I was your age I was never lazy and rebellious like you. I never grave your grandmother the problems you give me.”) -Misplaced confidence in our human efforts (Parents hoping that buying Batman toys for their sons and expensive quinceañeras for their daughters will procure their obedience.)

-Desperation when those efforts fail (Then after all that doesn’t work, they yell, “After all I have done for you, I can’t believe you treat me like this.”

App. There is no situation in your family be it so painful, that the Gospel cannot touch and heal.

Ill. Lady who died with her son in a car when the solution was so near to her.