Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

A sunset?

A sunrise? before kids, when Steph and I were first married.

Drop her off, go to the lake

what shows the beauty of Christ?

Transition: Before we can get very far and what the gospel means for you and I, we really need to understand what the gospel is as the Bible defines it.

History: Here in these verses from 1 to 34, the argument is for the certainty of the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

In these few verse we see that fact that Jesus did indeed die and rose again.

This is the heart of the gospel, for if this doesn’t happen, we believe in vain.

What is the Gospel

says

But what is the gospel?

If it’s what saves me, what is it?

What does it mean for me?

has a concise gospel for us, as it says:

Now I would remind you I want to make quite clear to you something that the community here already knows, but has begun to forget.

Vs. 1 This gospel is what your past, present, and future are based on.

It’s not just something you believe once, it’s ongoing.

We need to be reminded of it ever day.

For Paul, he says in that it is wretchedness and shame for him not to proclaim the gospel

1

Vs. 2 If you hold fast If statement: The Corinthians were beginning to slide into the thought that Jesus didn’t rise again.

Any movement from what Paul had preached and what they received would mean that they believed in vain and that they were never believers.

Here’s a point.

The church in Corinth was starting to doubt that Jesus rose again.

They had started to take a part of the gospel and throw it out.

What happens when we take any part of the Gospel and say, “Hey, this doesn’t line up with what I feel is possible”, rather than taking the Word of God as the Word of God, everything starts falling apart.

The resurrection of Jesus belongs to the teaching tradition of the gospel that Paul has received and passed on to the Corinthian believers.

Without Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, the gospel is not good news, since sinners would not be saved.

The Christian faith serves no purpose (is “in vain”) without Jesus’ resurrection and thus provides no salvation; if one translates the Greek as “without due consideration,” Paul says that people who think of themselves as Christians have an incoherent faith if they do not accept Jesus’ resurrection as a historical fact.

The resurrection of Jesus belongs to the teaching tradition of the gospel that Paul has received and passed on to the Corinthian believers.

Without Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, the gospel is not good news, since sinners would not be saved.

The Christian faith serves no purpose (is “in vain”) without Jesus’ resurrection and there is no salvation.

What the text is really saying is that Paul that people who think of themselves as Christians have an incoherent faith if they do not accept Jesus’ resurrection as a historical fact.

But it’s not just the resurrection that this text addresses, it’s the other parts.

The resurrection is and always has been the foundation of all preaching about Christ.

Without it, the gospel dwindles into an inspiring story of a wise teacher who suffered heroically as a victim of human decitefulness.

Paul hints that if they move from this belief, it brings their salvation into question.

The resurrection is the keystone that integrates the incarnation and Christ’s atoning death.

If it is removed, the whole gospel will collapse.

If there is no resurrection of the dead (15:12), humans remain under the tyranny of sin and death, and their bouts of doubt and despair are fully justified.

Moo, D. J. (2015).

The Letters and Revelation.

In D. A. Carson (Ed.), NIV Zondervan Study Bible: Built on the Truth of Scripture and Centered on the Gospel Message (p.

2353).

Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Transition: If I take any part of the gospel, or preach to you any part of the gospel, that adds to or takes away from what God has said, it’s a false gospel.

You can’t be saved by it.

If I mess around with God’s holiness.

Or Jesus’ divinity, or Jesus’ humanity, or that my sins aren’t as bad as they really are.

That’s messing around with the good news.

It’s no longer shows the beauty of Christ.

Garland, D. E. (2003). 1 Corinthians (p.

679).

Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic.

Transition: If I take any part of the gospel, or preach to you any part of the gospel, that adds to or takes away from what God has said, it’s a false gospel.

You can’t be saved by it.

If I mess around with God’s holiness.

Or Jesus’ divinity, or Jesus’ humanity, or that my sins aren’t as bad as they really are.

That’s messing around with the good news.

It’s no longer shows the beauty of Christ.

SOmething that we need to remember.

Paul isn’t coming at them guns-a-blazing.

He’s coming at them as a local church that has become confused.

So he gently reminds them of the thing that they had originally recieved.

He wants them to see the beauty of Christ.

BI: The Gospel shows the beauty of Christ and any diveation from it, and perversion from it, and movement from it does not make Christ look beautiful, it doesn’t make him look at sufficient for salvation, he doesn’t look as though he is enough.

So what was being preached to the Corinthians?

Why does it show the beauty of Christ?

What the text goes on to say is the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

If you can’t believe in this, you aren’t believing in the Gospel.

What did he preach?

Or what is the Gospel?

Christ – the gospel is about the second member of the trinity, Jesus Christ.

This long promised Messiah was born of the virgin Mary and lived a sinless life.

This last three years of that life were spent doing good and teaching people about God.

Jesus is unique.

There is no other like him.

He is therefore irreplaceable.

There is no other Savior.

The world has no other hope.

Ortlund Jr., Raymond C.. The Gospel (9marks: Building Healthy Churches) (p.

30).

Crossway.

Kindle Edition.

Died – Jesus, both fully human and fully God, was put to death on a Roman cross.

He really died.

To the point that when His body was taken down from the cross it was buried in a Jewish tomb.

This death of Jesus was not an accident, however.

Jesus, the Messiah, died instead of us (who are siners) and for our benefit.

This happened all according to what the Bible already prophecied (

That he was buried Confirms that Jesus died.

Ortlund Jr., Raymond C.. The Gospel (9marks: Building Healthy Churches) (p.

29).

Crossway.

Kindle Edition.

Ortlund Jr., Raymond C.. The Gospel (9marks: Building Healthy Churches) (p.

29).

Crossway.

Kindle Edition.

For – Sometimes the most important words in our Bible are the smallest ones.

The word, “for” means “in the place of”.

The death Jesus died was substitutionary.

He was dying in the place of or for someone else.

This gets explained further with the next two words.