Sermon Tone Analysis

Sermon Text:

ILLUSTRATION: Not in History, But News!

Linda Lavin, TV’s “Alice,” told what it was like when a fire swept through the hills where they live in California.

She was in the kitchen preparing dinner for ten people when she and her husband, Kip Niven, realized that, should the wind shift, the fire would quickly destroy their home.

The children were given boxes and told to pack up the things they really wanted to save.

All the while Linda wondered what she would grab—clothes, a vase, a pillow?

In that awful moment of decision, Linda discovered her roots were not in things, or the house, but in the family.

So she took her “wedding pictures.”

Why? “Because all the rest is history, and that’s still news!”

Use of the Word “Gospel” The English word “gospel” comes from Anglo-Saxon Godspell, meaning “good tidings” or “good news.”

It translates Greek euangelion.

In the New Testament this word refers to the good news preached by Jesus that God’s kingdom is at hand ()

The English word “gospel” comes from Anglo-Saxon Godspell, meaning “good tidings” or “good news.”

It translates Greek euangelion.

In the New Testament this word refers to the good news preached by Jesus that God’s kingdom is at hand (Mark 1:14-15)

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news (euangelion) of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news (euangelio)’ ” ().

Robert A. Kugler and Patrick J. Hartin, An Introduction to the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009), 361.

The gospel is the good news about what God has done to save sinners through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ

Bobby Jamieson, God’s Good News: The Gospel, ed.

Mark Dever, 9Marks Healthy Church Study Guides (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 13.

Good news makes the bones fat (); good news is like cold water to the thirsty ();

The most detailed, systematic discussion of the gospel in the whole Bible is found in Paul’s letter to the Romans, especially in the first four chapters.

After announcing that he is not ashamed of the gospel because the righteousness of God is revealed in it (), Paul begins his proclamation of the good news by delivering some sobering bad news in 1:18 through 3:20:

Bobby Jamieson, God’s Good News: The Gospel, ed.

Mark Dever, 9Marks Healthy Church Study Guides (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 13.

To sum up, there are two main points that Paul is communicating in this three-chapter-long explanation of the bad news of humanity’s rebellion against God:

1.

All people are accountable to God, who is our holy Creator and Lord, and who is worthy of our worship and obedience.

2. All people have rebelled against God, continually sin against God, and are therefore objects of God’s wrath.

Bobby Jamieson, God’s Good News: The Gospel, ed.

Mark Dever, 9Marks Healthy Church Study Guides (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 15.

the Corinthian church was confused about the resurrection of the believer.

Therefore, in the letter which the church had written to Paul, one of the questions had to do with the resurrection of the believer's body (see note—•).

Some in the church were flatly denying the resurrection ().

Some were apparently following the false teaching of others:

⇒ spiritualizing the resurrection, saying it was already past or else took place at death (cp.

).

⇒ rebelling against such an idea, claiming that it was scientifically impossible for maimed, scattered, decomposed bodies to be raised in an act of recreation.

The answer of Paul is simply argued: the resurrection of Jesus Christ proves the resurrection of the human body.

In fact,

The facts of the gospel which prove the resurrection of the believer are fivefold.

1.

The importance of the gospel (v.1-2).

Some in the church were in danger of not continuing in the faith; they were denying the very hope of personally living in the presence of God ().

Note what Paul says about the believers in the church.

1.

They had received the gospel

2. They stood in the gospel.

3.

They were saved by the gospel.

The word "saved" is present or continuous action, "you are being saved."

Scripture teaches three tenses or stages to salvation: the past, present, and future

Note: A person must hold fast, continue to believe to be saved.

"...he that endureth to the end shall be saved" ().

"Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised)" ().

"Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him" ().

2.  Fact 1: Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture (v.3).

Note four points.

1.

The words "first of all" mean that the very first thing Paul ever preached to the Corinthians was the death of Jesus Christ.

2. The first fact Paul himself received was the death of Christ.

"Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" ().

"And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again" ().

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" ().

"Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour" ().

"For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself" ().

"By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" ().

"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God....For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (, ).

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed" ().

3.  Fact 2: Christ was buried and arose according to the Scripture (v.4).

1.

The burial of Jesus Christ is important, for it proves two significant things.

⇒ It proves that Jesus Christ died.

No man is buried unless he is dead.

⇒ It proves the resurrection.

The empty tomb is evidence that Christ arose from the dead.

2. Jesus Christ arose from the dead.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ assures the believer that he too shall be raised from the dead.

"And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" ().

"Which [God's mighty power] he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places" ().

"Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification" ().

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" ().

"But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" ().

"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him" ().

"Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?

And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" ().

"For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead" ().

4.  Fact 3: there were eyewitnesses (v.5-7).

"But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you" ().

"Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon" ().

5.  Fact 4: there was one strong eyewitness, Paul himself (v.8-10).

Paul was desperately driven to labor for Christ.

To Paul the greatest thing in all the world was the grace of God, the fact that God loved him so much...

• that God forgave his terrible sins.

• that God allowed him to follow and serve His dear Son.

• that God allowed him to proclaim the glorious cure for the cancer of sin and death, even the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

6.  Fact 5: there is only one gospel that is preached and has to be believed (v.11).

the fifth fact of the gospel is desperately needed by the world:

Putting it all together, we could summarize the gospel in four words: God, Man, Christ, Response.

God.

God is the creator of all things.

He is perfectly holy, worthy of all worship, and will punish sin.

Man.

All people, though created good, have become sinful by nature.

From birth, all people are alienated from God, hostile to God, and subject to the wrath of God.

Christ.

Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, lived a sinless life, died on the cross to bear God’s wrath in the place of all who would believe in him, and rose from the grave in order to give his people eternal life.