January 19, 2020 - JESUS, Creed & Gospel 2

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. Warm-up questions: • • • • Use last week’s questions as part of the discussion if you have not met yet during this series. Have you heard a story that caused you to make a new decision, change something, or perhaps buy something? What do you see as the central parts of the Jesus-way of living life? Why? What stories helped you choose to follow Jesus? DISCUSSION questions: + Read the series text again: 1 Corinthians 15:1-5, 20-28 • McKnight says: “Look again at the gospel summary in 1 Corinthians 15. There is nothing direct about being reconciled to God or to others, nothing direct about being declared righteous, nothing about God’s wrath being pacified, and nothing about being liberated from our entrapments to sin, self, the system, and Satan. To make these absences a little more obvious, there is also nothing in those sermons about God’s love for us or God’s grace” (150). How does this impact the ways we share Jesus and when we talk about these other ideas? • What might this mean for our personal sharing and what we display in public worship/ gatherings of the church? • How do we bring together the proclamation of Jesus’ story and then our very personal challenges (e.g. love, sin, identity, etc.)? • To follow Jesus most directly impacts our identity in the world. How is this so? Have you surrendered former markers of identity to follow Christ? Was it difficult or easy? 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 15:1-5, 20-28 (New English Translation) 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. 20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. 22 For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; then when Christ comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has brought to an end all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be eliminated is death. 27 For he has put everything in subjection under his feet. But when it says “everything” has been put in subjection, it is clear that this does not include the one who put everything in subjection to him. 28 And when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all. BIG IDEAS: 1. Framed by... SIX COMPARISONS BETWEEN WHAT SOME HAVE TAUGHT VS. THE APOSTLES APPROACH - McKnight Goal... 2. Centres on... 3. Involves... Framing 4. The Gospel... PAUL'S GOSPEL SUMMARY 1 CORINTHIANS 15 Three Paragraphs A, B, C A. Vv. 1-2 It's all about... Wrath and Judgment THE PROBLEM... "Remember that the fundamental solution in the gospel is that Jesus is Messiah and Lord; this means there was a fundamental need for a ruler, a king, and a lord." B. Vv. 3-5 The "T" Tradition... and definition. Builds on vv. 1-2 "According to the scriptures" is the whole of the Old Testament witness of all that has gone wrong and God himself coming to make it right. We are not to reduce Jesus’ life and the Cross to ONE view Paul is expansive here. Galatians 4:4-6, 1 Cor 6.11 The solution Jesus offered was THE KINGDOM OF GOD! If the kingdom of God is the solution, THEN... If eternal life (John 3) is the solution, THEN... Empire? Three things happen in Jesus’ death... JESUS DIED: 1. with us (identification) 2. instead of us (representation and substitution), and 3. for us (incorporation into the life of God). C. Vv. 20-28 Talk about Jesus... So What? 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.