1 Corinthians 15 - The Gospel - What is it?

The Gospel • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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HBI – The Gospel is more then just the salvation message it is the story of Jesus throughout the scriptures. 3   Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

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21-01-03 - 1 Corinthians 15 - The Gospel - What is it?

Intro

What is the gospel? This is something that I always thought that I knew well. I grew up hearing things like the salvation message, so I thought I had a good grasp of what the gospel is.

Many of you may know what the salvation message is, it is a vital doctrine we believe. There have been ways to share it like the Romans road, the wordless book, the chasm diagram.

I have used all of those things before and there is nothing wrong with them. But I came to the realization that we are missing something in narrowing down the gospel to just the salvation message. There is so much more to it then that and people want to hear it.

I was at a conference In Alberta listening to a Professor of New Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary named Scott McKnight.

I do not always agree on everything some theologians say but what he was talking about that weekend kind of hit me.

He reminded us that the gospel is more than just the salvation message, but it is the story of faith starting in genesis going to when Jesus is going to come back again.

This is what I wanted to look at. I was thinking about how we can share the gospel with those around us and so I wanted to get first into what the gospel really looks like.

After we do that I wanted to get into the book of Acts and go through the early church. They too where going through a changing world.

Everything was starting to look different and it must have been a challenge for them to know how to share this new message that they had received.

So, this is what we are going to look at over the next little while. What the gospel really is and how we can share the gospel within a changing world.

Then we will go into what it means to Know Jesus, grow in Jesus then show Jesus to others.

What is the gospel? The good News!

What is the gospel? This is what we are going to investigate first. We are just going to overview what it is and how that should change our lives.

There are a few passages of Scripture we can go to, to see this. Look into any sermon given by the apostles during there ministry.

But for this we are going to go to 1 Corinthians 15. Why is that? Well let us investigate what it says about the gospel.

We start with 1 Corinthians 15:1 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

According to this the main point of this passage is the gospel that they stand on. The word gospel is a word that we use a lot, but I wanted to look into what the word actually means. Does anyone know what it means?

The word for gospel means the good news, particularly the good news of salvation in Jesus. This is what Paul wanted to make clear for us, the good news of Jesus which we have translated as the word Gospel.

The next word is the word preached. It is essentially the same thing but what it means is to share the good news of the salvation of Jesus. The word used is evangelizo. It is where we get the word for evangelism.

The way this verse can be translated is the Gospel which I Gospeled to you. The gospel is the good news of Christ and proclaimed is where we get the word evangelism, to share the good news of Jesus.

They received the good news of Jesus, not only that but they believed the good news of Jesus, and they took there stand on the good news of Jesus the gospel which was proclaimed.

Why The Gospel? It is what saves!

Why is this important? Why do we need to know of the gospel? 1 Corinthians 15:2a  and by which you are being saved,

The good news of Jesus is what saves us, what brings forgiveness for our sins, and the message that we are to hold fast to.

When you are on a boat one of the first things most people do is put on a life jacket. Sometimes people do not think that they need one, so they go without. Even I have done that.

But they put on the life jacket because they know that if anything happens to them the lifejacket will save their lives.

If people knew that they where going to fall out of the boat, if it was a for sure thing that they where going to drown if they did not put it on it might change their minds about putting it on.

The gospel is a message that saves. Therefore, we tell people of the gospel because it is a message that saves people from their sin and death.

So, the gospel is the good news of Jesus, the gospel is what saves people to the uttermost. Now we are going to investigate exactly what the gospel is.

1 Corinthians 15:2b if you hold to the message I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.

15:3-4 Jesus is the Gospel!

Jesus is the gospel, and these next few verses get into exactly how this looks. It tells us what the gospel Paul and the rest of the apostles believed in.

1 Corinthians 15:3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 1 Corinthians 15:4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

There are 5 things we are told here that are at the heart of the gospel, 5 things we are going to investigate today.

Christ died for our sins, Christ was buried, Christ rose again to defeat death. All this was in accord with the word of God, to fulfill the word of God. And he appeared alive to many people after as proof that He was alive and was the messiah.

The first point, the gospel is Jesus. What we sometimes forget is that the gospel that we share is the good news of Jesus and the salvation that He offers.

What people often want to hear is not how they are going to hell if they are not saved, though that is true and important. But rather more often than not what changes people’s hearts, what they really need is to hear the story of Jesus.

Not only Jesus life but His death, burial, and resurrection. Without the death burial and resurrection our faith is in vain. It is vital to our faith.

Christ died for our sins; He was the atoning sacrifice that covered the penalty of death for our sins. Through a relationship with Jesus you can have forgiveness from sin.

He did it in accordance with the OT and NT scriptures. So we have to go back to what he Old and New Testaments and see what they have to say about who Jesus was and How his life is in Accordance with the Scripture.

When it says in accordance with the scriptures it is not just about one specific passage. It is in reference likely to the whole of scriptures they had at the time.

This should affect the way we look at the gospel. Mainly because now it is no longer just about the NT or even just the salvation message but rather the whole of scriptures.

These two verses are telling us all of this. That the gospel that changes us, that we stand on is the life of Jesus His death burial and resurrection and how the scriptures spoke about Him.

15:5-9

1 Corinthians 15:5-9 5  and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6  Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8  Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

And lastly, we read that Jesus really is alive, and he appeared to many and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is who he said he was.

If there was any doubt in your mind to the resurrection of Jesus, to know that He appeared to so many people, got them to touch Him, changed so many people lives, this should take that doubt away.

Jesus appeared! After he died many of His followers where likely wondering what exactly was going on and if Jesus was who He said he was.

This was just as important part of the gospel, that He appeared to the disciples and many other people to prove that He was who He said He was. The accounts of so many eyewitnesses do not lie.

He also appeared to Paul, to call Him out of a life of persecution. Instead, Jesus called Him to a life of being persecuted.

He found the good news of salvation and How Jesus brought that and it changed His life. He went on to plant many churches in His ministry.

If Jesus had not been resurrected from the dead, then Paul’s ministry would never have started. Not only that then our faith would crumble.

So What?

Why should I care about all this information? I guess more then that why do I care so much about this? This seems like very basic information, but it is vital that we get it right.

To often we tell people that they need to become a Christian, but why? Because they are sinners, they should want to be in heaven, and they can be there because Jesus died for their sins.

This is a great message to share, do not get me wrong. We know this is vital because that is part of what this passage shares as being part of the gospel.

But what we sometimes have forgotten is that what we are called to is a relationship with Jesus. This has become important in my life because to often I have seen kids accept the salvation message but never had a personal relationship with Jesus.

And to often when I have seen this, I have seen kids also fall back into their normal life after for they do not have that relationship.

This has become an issue in lots of churches today. SO, what do we do about this exactly? Well first we need to teach people about Jesus and His life.

If we approach this with that mindset then it will change the way that we share the gospel. The Romans road and the wordless book are still part of this approach for Jesus shared the same things.

But it becomes about so much more then that. What did Jesus tell people to do? He said to “follow me” to do as I do and to learn from what I taught.

If we want people to have a relationship with Jesus and become His children, then we need to start with telling people about the life of Jesus and who this guy is that they are being told that they need to follow.

Then we go back one step farther yet, if we are really called to tell people about the Jesus that they are told they need to become followers of then that means it is going to take time.

This means that more often than not it will not end with one simple conversation, but it will turn into relationship building, for who is going to want to hear what you have to say about Jesus if you first have not taken the time to get to know them.

So, what we have so far is we need to tell people about the messiah that we are telling them can save them from their sins. We need to build a relationship with them to do this properly.

The salvation message will come in with this for it is also what Jesus taught. Paul also said that the gospel is according to the scriptures.

This adds more detail on what we are to share with people. They need to know the Jesus that died for their sin, was buried and rose again to defeat sin for all eternity.

But we also learned that He did it according to the scriptures. That means we also need to go back to the beginning and let people know why they need a saviour. That Jesus was fulfilled what was talked about all the way back to Genesis.

The gospel includes information going from Genesis to Jesus coming back again and raising up from the dead the bodies of all those who believe in Him.

So, as you go and share the gospel with people, we need to keep this in mind. What this is then is disciple making which we are all called to do. It is a process that takes time and prayer.

As we go from here ask yourself how we can share what it means to be a follower of Jesus. People will ask who is Jesus? And why should I care?

We have the information that they need. So, let us go from here and make disciples of Jesus of all nations.