Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Introduce Self

Thankful for our life group leaders and those involved with them.

It is such a wise decision to give of your time and resources to be able to grow closer to God and each other.

It’s hard for that to happen on a Sunday morning.

Being apart of a life group makes it so much easier to do life together with the Christians the Lord has put in your life.

If you haven’t signed up yet, we have three groups going on.

Ladies, Men, and a group for men and women called spiritual formation.

be sure to scan that qr to sign up or sign up at a table in the back on your way out today.

Family Room-not to hang out in

Nursing Room

How you all doing today?

I love traveling and I love preaching.

Last week I got to preach at a small country church in Tennessee that was celebrating it’s 175th anniversary.

That church was planted 13 years before the Civil War Started.

They had a full house of about 40 or so.

It was a sweet time.

It made me reflect on the Old Country church I grew up in.

I love a church of our size and larger.

However, there is something special about that Old Country church back in the holler, at least to me.

More important than a type of church though, is the gospel that has been faithfully preached there for 175 years.

That has been preached for 43 years at this church.

And is the topic of our message today.

Open up to 1 Cor 15 please

We have been in the series ReThinking church for 16 weeks now.

It’s been amazing to go through this book of 1 Corinthians and understand better what a church is to be by analyzing what Paul wrote as a means of correction to the church at Corinth.

He planted the church at corinth abotu 50 AD and is now writing back to them 5 years later addressing unity, immorality, and a list of questions they sent to him.

We are looking today at what he says about the gospel by which we are saved.

If I were to ask you…what is the gospel?

What would you say?

Some may answer..the good news…maybe..the truth…or the bible…the story of Jesus…and while all of those answer the question in some way…Paul is very clear in this passage about what the gospel, greek word euangellion, by which we are saved is...

Now, if you are here and your a believer…you know what the gospel is…but dont’ tune out on me.

If your here today and you think you know what the gospel is but you aren’t sure…Buckle up.

We are about to go on a ride to find the truth.

If you are here and say “Pastor, I don’t beleive in Jesus.”

Well, I do and I want you to as well.

If you’ll listen to me today you’ll hear something for you too.

I promise.

If not, I’ll take you to lunch.

Follow along with me and let’s see how Paul started out this passage on an vitally important subject.

1 Cor 15:1-2

Exegete:

Short but powerful intro to the passage.

Paul is closing out is letter to them and this is one of the last topics he addresses.

There is something important to understand the context and importance of this passage to the Greeks in Corinth.

In Greek philosophy, which drove much of the culture at the time, there is no resurrection of the dead.

Many of the philosophers saw the body as a prison and death a gateway to freedom from it.

If that is the case then a resurrected body wouldn’t make sense because you would find yourself going back into a prison.

When Paul would preach to the masses they would treat him just like many are treated today when they speak of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ…they would laugh at him

They mocked him.

The truth of the gospel has been mocked since the earliest days of its preaching…I’m just glad Paul didn’t let that stop him.

So here he is declaring the gospel to this group of people that he has obviously already preached it to.

Why would he reiterate it?

Because we need to be reminded sometimes don’t we?

Zig Ziglar said “Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.”

He has not only taught it to them, they have recieved it…meaning they believe the gospel and stand on it…

Remember the receipients of this letter have been a church or ekklesia, group of people gathered together for about 5 years now.

They have stood on the truths of the gospel for that long.

Then the important part of these two verses.

By which you are saved.

The gospel is the only thing that saves.

Eph 2:8-9

Faith in the good news of Jesus.

He’s calling on them to remember this, don’t forget this vital truth, don’t forget this foundational teaching…If you forget this foundational teaching your faith is in vain…

It will be without success.

You can’t live a victoriuoius Christian life and not remind yourself of the Gospel.

You can’t live a life glorifying to God and forget the gospel.

You won’t have victory over the sin in your life and you won’t be able to impact others for Christ if you forget the gospel.

Illustrate:

I recently ready that if you want people to remember something, you need to repeat it so many times, that if you were to say it just once more, you’d likely puke.

Just when you get tired of repeating yourself, you can expect that people will almost get it!

But once you get to a place where the people around you smirk, or roll their eyes, because they know what you’re about to say, then you’ve reached your destination.

However, keep repeating it anyway if it’s still important.

This applies to both good and bad thing.

This happened in WW2 with Hitler.

It’s in conversations on Hitlers leadership I always hear the saying “If you say something long enough and loud enough, people will believe it.”

As believers we begin to think that the gospel is just for those who haven’t trusted in Jesus.

How wrong are we to think we have come to a place in our lives and walk with God that we don’t need the constant reminder that there is a God who loved you enough to send His Son to die on the Cross for your sins.

To pay the debt you could not pay and satisfy His own wrath rather than asking you to do it.

And He made that payment easily transferrable to us by faith in Jesus Christ.

We look at the gospel as the gateway to Christianity and then obedience as the means to which we keep it.

Paul Washer said “The devil would gladly give a Bible to every man and promote obedience to its commands if in exchange we would surrender to him the Gospel.”

“The devil would gladly give a Bible to every man and promote obedience to its commands if in exchange we would surrender to him the Gospel.”-Paul

Washer

It’s by faith in the gospel that we have a relationship with God through Jesus and that relationship is eternally secured.

Apply:

Let’s put the jelly on the bottom shelf here.

Paul is writing to the Hebrews to remind them of the gospel that they have already bellieved in.

They have already been living to an extent.

The repetition shows it’s important.

What can we take from this?

I.

The Gospel is Foundational

The Gospel is the foundation of our faith and it is the means by which our relationship with Christ is determined.

Not our obedience.

Your relationship with God isn’t established because of how obedient you are nor is it dependnent upon that.

That’s called conditional love.

God’s love is unconditional.

God’s love isn’t based upon your good works…but His.

The Gospel isn’t something we should hear when we are first saved…it isn’t something we should only say to those who don’t know Jesus.