Sermon Tone Analysis

I love the news.

Much to my family’s chagrin, I prefer talk radio to just about anything else.

I also read the news online every day.

We’ve not had cable for the last 5 years or so, so I miss out on the local news at 6:00 and 10:00 (I’m assuming they still air the news at 6:00 and 10:00?).

Though my penchant for news bores/annoys my wife and kids, I am, every now and then, able to impress.

On Kansas Public Radio, there’s a game show Saturday mornings called Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me where they ask people trivia questions from that week’s news headlines.

I’m…pretty good.

I’m kind of a big deal...

Does anyone want to play a quick round of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me?

I got these questions from yesterday’s program, so they’re very up-to-date.

Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me

>There’s news, and there’s news.

It’s one thing to know the headlines of the week’s news; it’s far more important to know this news:

Christ died for your sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried, and He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

He is Risen!

This is my favorite news headline of all time.

It’s the best news headline in history.

In fact, there is no news any more significant; no news any more life changing, no news any better than this: He died for your sins.

He was buried in a borrowed tomb (no need for a tomb of His own; he only needed it for a few days).

He rose from the grave, crushing death to death, showing that God was satisfied with His sacrifice.

He is Risen!

He is Risen, indeed!

I like that my kids are somewhat impressed with my knowledge of the week’s news headlines.

What I want more than anything, though, is for the news of Jesus’s death and resurrection to be impressed on their hearts, to change their lives.

I want that for you, too.

So, if you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15.

Our text is on page ___________ of the Red Pew Bible in front of you.

If you don’t have a personal Bible, please take one of those in the pews or come see me after worship; I’d love to give you a Bible to keep.

If you are able and willing, please stand with me for the reading of God’s Holy Word!

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!

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The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ being the most important news of all time requires our commitment, or, for some of us, our re-commitment.

We don’t move past this news, we don’t skim over it like the headlines of the morning paper; this news doesn’t ever find itself in the recycling bin or in the bottom of the birdcage.

This news—the gospel, the Good News about Jesus Christ and what He has done demands more.

We need to be reminded of this news.

Reminding

We constantly need reminding.

We need reminding, first of all, that the gospel isn’t anything we do.

Hear that again: the gospel is not anything we do.

No matter how important what we do is, no matter how commanded what we do is—the gospel is the news of what God has done in Christ.

You can’t do or be the gospel.

The gospel is a newspaper headline.

It’s the announcement of what God has done in history through Christ’s sinless life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection.

Here, in this passage, Paul gives us what we could call the gospel in a nutshell:

This is the essence of the gospel.

Christ died for your sins and rose again that if you repent and believe in Him you can have forgiveness and eternal life.

This is the essence of the good news about Jesus.

You’ll notice, it’s not advice.

It’s not instructions or commandments.

It’s not, to use the biblical category, law.

It’s not.

It’s news.

We need constant reminding of this because we are constantly forgetting what the gospel is.

We need constant reminding because we are constantly forgetting what the gospel does.

Here is Paul, 15 chapters into the letter, and he says, “Now, let me remind you, brothers and sisters...”

Isn’t that interesting?

Let me remind you… Paul knows that we need to be reminded of this incomparably Good News.

You and I do not wake up in gospel-mode.

Our hearts are set on the flesh by default.

It’s a mercy that the mercies of God are new every morning, because we are desperately in need new morning mercies.

We do not wake up in gospel-mode.

We wake up just a-raring to sin.

Or, let’s just put it this way: we wake up…well, I’ll just use myself as an example.

I wake up and all my thoughts are about “my day.”

All my thoughts revolve around the phrase “my day.”

What’s “my day” have in store?

What’s “my day” going to look like?

Who is going to interrupt “my day” today?

Don’t my wife and kids know this is “my day”?

Immediately, first thing, I am set on myself.

I am oriented around myself, almost from the get-go.

I recently and inadvertently won a bid on ebay (Ever been there?

Bid on something and then think, ah, I don’t really want that.

I always seem to win when I realize don’t really want it).

I won that bid on ebay and now the Case Home is the proud owner of an Amazon Echo Dot.

It does some pretty cool stuff (including apparently listening to us all the time).

Aside from being constantly surveilled and spied-upon, I programmed some our lamps to work with it and now we can ask it to turn the living room light or the light by the back door on or off .

It’ll turn the TV on or off and adjust the volume.

It’ll play whatever music we ask it to play (currently “Ba Ba Black Sheep” and “Ring of Fire” are tied for the most requested song in our house).

I can also ask it about my day.

“Alexa, what’s on my schedule?”

As if I needed any more help being self-absorbed and self-centered.

I’m just more efficiently self-absorbed now, thanks to Amazon and their fancy do-dads.

We do not wake up in gospel mode—whether it’s driving down the road wondering "why can’t everyone drive like me?”, or waiting in line at Walmart, just certain that those people are there to “ruin my day”.

We do not wake up in the fresh awareness of grace.

And yet, and yet, we do wake up into a fresh heaping of grace from Lord who loves us despite our sin.

We need reminding of the news that Jesus died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again and lives today—and this, not because we deserve it; this, not because we have earned God’s favor; this, because God loves us in spite of us.

He loved us while we were His enemies.

He loved us and did all the work to reconcile us to Himself.

We need reminding, each day, of this news.

Our minds are given to gospel amnesia.

So we have to be reminded as to what is of first importance.

Reprioritizing

We constantly need reprioritizing.

Paul delivered this message as of first importance: (verse 3)—For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance...

It seems clear to me, by what he goes on to say and what he says elsewhere, that he doesn’t mean “initial importance”, but “central importance”.

Paul isn’t saying, “Okay, listen to this real fast and we’ll move on to the more important stuff.”

Paul’s saying: “Okay, listen.

This is of first importance, utmost importance; this is the single-most important news there is.

Listen!

Let me remind you!