January 12, 2020 - JESUS, Creed & Gospel

The smaller groups in our church community are inside our homes where we go deeper, build friendships, and walk out the Christian life with each other. HOME CHURCH GUIDE + “Breaking the Ice” question (group facilitator) + CHECK-INS: Introduce, check-in + CARE: Needs in the group + COMPASSION: What is the group planning? Are you inviting your neighbours to join in? + GROUP ANNOUNCEMENTS Church-wide, group-only + DIG IN: Discuss questions as a group + END AND HOMEWORK: Final questions, prayer huddles for personal requests. Consider breaking into small groups (huddles) of 2-4, by gender, if large enough. DISCUSSION questions: 1. What are some of the most powerful or impactful stories in your life? Real or fiction? How do they still speak to you? 2. Whose life do you find inspiring and compelling, what are the elements in their life story that speak to you? 3. Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-12. Pay attention to words or phrases that stick out to you and share why. 4. What happens when we separate how to be saved from the larger story of Jesus and Israel? 5. How would you talk about the Gospel/good news? 6. In Luke-Acts, Jesus not only tells but shows the impact of His/this story in His life and the church. How does the story of Jesus have power in our times and context? 7. Other thoughts from your notes on Sunday? Prayer Requests: In January we are on re-centering around Jesus! We’re in trouble when we aim for a salvation culture instead of a gospel culture. A church with a gospel culture goes way beyond, “I’m a sinner; Jesus, take my place.” Dallas Willard writes, “Gospels of Sin Management” presumes a Christ with no serious work other than redeeming humankind... [and] they foster “vampire Christians,’ who only want a little blood for their sins but nothing more to do with Jesus until heaven” (McKnight, TKJG, 81). OPENING STORY BIG IDEA: MAIN TEXT: 1 Corinthians 15:1-12 (specifically verses 3-5) CHRIST’S RESURRECTION 15 Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received—that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been in vain. In fact, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, this is the way we preach and this is the way you believed. NO RESURRECTION? 12 Now if Christ is being preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? UNPACKING... A. IT’S ALL ABOUT... SALVATION IS PART OF ... B. THE “T” TRADITION... AND DEFINITION THE GOSPEL IS NOT SIMPLY ABOUT DEALING WITH YOUR... THE STORY AND IMPLICATIONS... WHAT IS GOSPEL? The word... “...the gospel, articulated overtly in passages like 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and 2 Timothy 2:8, is first of all Christological. It tells a story about Jesus as Messiah and Lord of all, whose life was one of entering into our human condition (ending in death) in order to raise us from that human condition. So I would say that change is not the gospel. The gospel is that Jesus has been crucified and raised. And those who are in fellowship with him can and will be changed into Christlikeness. Christoformity is not the gospel; it is what happens when the gospel impacts a person.” SALVATION FLOWS FROM... We want to be forming a Gospel Culture church ALL OF JESUS... “So let’s be clear here: the options are (1) the soterian gospel of Salvation without Israel’s Story framing it or (2) the Story gospel that saves. Or, salvation with no story or Story with salvation. Which one is more biblical? That’s the only question that really matters. All I’m asking is to look at your gospel and look at 1 Cor 15, the sermons in Acts, and the Gospels and see if it is the same as that gospel.” PAUL’S GOSPEL SUMMARY 1 CORINTHIANS 15 “There is a profound imbalance in the soterian gospel because it is only salvation and no Story and it is a gospel that is not the same as found in 1 Corinthians 15 etc, while the Story gospel of King Jesus has both Story and salvation and fits with 1 Corinthians 15 etc. The balance of the Bible can only be recovered by re-framing the gospel around the Story that finds its way to Jesus”, McKnight. Sources: Bible; The King Jesus Gospel, Scott McKnight; The Day the Revolution Began, NT Wright; Jesus and the Eyewitness, Richar Bauckham; Conflict and Community in Corinth, Ben Witherington III; Others.