The Best News: A Clarifying Reminder

Intro

Second week of three

Last week we looked how we are to be unashamed of the gospel.

We are called to share the gospel, the good news, with people and yet all too often we don’t.

We act as if we are ashamed of the gospel

The claims of the gospel

death and resurrection

The exclusivity of the gospel.

The Best News

even good news, the best news, can change everything!

Life is about keeping first things first.

The Church, like a us as people, must strive to keep first things first.

As a Church, we have one job — the make disciples of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth

The Great Commission

That missions is shared by the church’s message, the gospel

Every time the church gathers the gospel should be heard clearly

And I hope that it is

The Apostle Paul show us that the gospel is the most important message and he defines for us just what the gospel is.

1 Corinthians 15:1–8 CSB

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 and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.

We must prioritize the significance of the Gospel. (vv.1-3)

Even here in the early church there was a need to clarify the gospel.

Only a few years and or or two degrees of separation from Jesus, yet there could still be such unclarity

“Six degrees of separation”

And so Paul needs ot “make clear” to the COrithians the gospel that HE PREACHED!

It’s not just that they got is twisted because someone originally brought an incomplete or insufficient version of the gospel.

It was brought by Paul and he is clarifying that he preached!

It was by the gospel that Paul preached, that he is clarifying, that the people in church in Corinth were being saved

It is the same gospel by which we are being saved

Note that it is not in past tense.

“It was by this gospel that you were saved”

What we have here is an indication that while the action started in the past, it is continuing into the present.

Our salvation isn’t something that happens one day and then it is done, it is something that happens everyday.

We’ve put so much emphasis on conversion-ism that we’ve forgot that there is sanctification that comes after that.

Growing in Christ-likeness.

Becoming Disciples

There is a struggle every day to kill the sin on our lives, to be better.

Often we fail, we are after all human,

But through God’s grace and power, we can grow closer to Him, grow in Christ-likeness

This means that we should becoming more and more like Christ and leaving the values and ways of the world behind.

Believing isn’t just putting a Christian veneer on our preexisting life

It is to be born again

To become something totally new and transformed.

What is veneer?

It is a way of hiding what is truly underneath.

Use a cheaper, sub-grade wood and cover it with veneer.

Useful in woodworking, deadly in our own lives!

How many of us think that we can just paste a thin veneer of Churchianity over the cheap, tawdry, sub-grade base of our lives and call it a day?

The Gospel is the only way you can be saved

This isn’t nice to hear in our pluralistic world.

It is one od the reasons that we might be ashamed of the gospel

“All roads lead to the mountain top”

But they don’t

Only one does.

Many of the world’s religions have competing truth claims about God, God’s nature, etc.

they can’t all be true.

“Who are you to think that you have the truth”

turn it back

Who are you to think that you have the truth?

We cannot come to know God, to know the whole truth about God, except through faith in Jesus Christ

This is a response to the Gospel message and the work that that message does in us.

“For I passed on to you as most important”

There are lots of things that are important in the life fo the church and the life of a believer

But the most important thing is the gospel

It is the first thing

Until we get that right, nothing else can come.

We can do all of the good and important things in the world, but until we get the first thing first, it is all vanity.

The church in Corinth was messed up (!), so Paul had to talk to them about all sorts of things, but he came back to gospel as the most important thing

All of the rest of this stuff I’ve talked to you about means nothing if you don’t get the gospel right.

We must recognize the substance of the gospel. (v.4)

Again, it is only 15-20 years on from the crucifixion, but Paul still clarifies it all for them

Been a bit longer for us, maybe we need clarification from time to time as well.

Paul sis not want there to be any misunderstanding of the gospel message

There are three main truths in the gospel:

“Christ died for our sins

The word for means on behalf of

In payment of

Took on the payment

“he was buried”

only dead people should be burried

This truth emphasizez that Jesus really was dead

It was not a fraud

God knew that there would be people to denie the ressurection.

To do this you have to either deny he rose from the dead (more on this in a moment) or that he really died

Swoon Theory

“He rose on the third day, according to the Scriptures”

If all Jesus did was die on the cross, then his death didn’t matter.

His resurrection proves that God accepted His payment for our sins

Conquered death

Far too many people have a theology that ends on Good Friday

Or one that starts on Resurrection Sunday

We must see that the resurrection is/was witnessed (vv. 5-8)

Remember when I said that we would come to the answer to the denial of the resurrection?

This is the more common of the ways to deny the gospel

Sure Jesus lived, he preached, he even died, but come back from the dead he did not.

Jefferson Bible

Paul knew this.

Here he provides a list of witnessed “most of them are still alive”

He is encouraging folks to check it out for themselves.

“Do the research”

I would offer this: we can know the resurrection is true because of the testimony of these witnesses

many, many of them died martyrs’ deaths

you don’t die for a lie if you’re the one making up the lie!

We must emphasize the supremacyof the gospel.

Why is the gospel the most important message in the Bible and in the Church?

because this is the only message that can take you from sin to salvation

It is the only one that can truly transform you down to the core, striping back the veneer and changing what is underneath

It does not matter how much you say the right things, do the right things, present the right things. It doesn’t matter how great your veneer is, until you are stripped down to your core and transformed you are not in relationship with Jesus.

I weep when I consider how many Matthew 7 Christians there are sitting in our churches.

Those who confess Jesus with their lips, who have the veneer down, but are rotten in their core.

Matt 7:21-23

Matthew 7:21–23 CSB

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’

Who is your one?

One person you are praying for to see them come to faith?

This gospel message is their only hope for salvation

We all need to ask a question:

“If you were lost, with out Christ, and every Christian shared the gospel as much or as little as you share the gospel, would you ever hear it?”

This isn’t someone else’s responsibility, it is ours.

The gospel has the power to transform even the most depraved sinner

John Newton

If the gospel is not true, nothing else matter, but if it is true, it is the only thing that matters

It is the best news, but it is news that changes everything.