Resurrection Matters: Why The Resurrection Changes Everything | 1 Corinthians 15

Resurrection isn’t a once-a-year celebration. It’s the reason we can get out of bed with hope, stand before God without pretending, and face our sin without despair. We open our Easter series in 1 Corinthians 15 with Paul’s simple but urgent move: he reminds the church of the gospel. Not because it’s new, but because it’s easy to drift, and we need truth brought back into focus again and again.

We talk through what the gospel actually is: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried, and he was raised on the third day. That message is not self-help or religious motivation. It’s the core Christian proclamation that saves, steadies, and reshapes a life. We also unpack Paul’s “you are being saved” language, tracing salvation through justification, sanctification, and the future hope that becomes sight when Jesus returns. If you’ve ever wondered how you can be fully forgiven and still feel like God is working on you, this gives you clear categories without watering anything down.

Then we tell the unforgettable conversion story of Charles Spurgeon, a fifteen-year-old caught in a snowstorm, walking into a tiny chapel, and hearing a layman preach one simple command: look to Jesus. Not to your performance, not to your willpower, not to your résumé. Look to Christ crucified, risen, and reigning. We close by turning our attention to the Lord’s Supper as a living reminder of the body broken and the blood poured out, and the resurrection power that makes all the difference. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review that tells us what truth you most need to remember right now.

Transcript

Easter Series Begins In 1 Corinthians

Good Preaching Means Good Reminding

What The Gospel Is And Does

Saved Past Present And Future

Spurgeon’s Snowy Day Conversion Story

The Gospel’s Power And The Lord’s Supper

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello and welcome to the FBC El Doredo Sermon Podcast. My name is Taylor Gere, and I have the privilege of being the pastor here at First Baptist. And I want to thank you for listening into our sermon this week. And I want to tell you this if you're in our area and you don't have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist El Doredo. Will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week? 1 Corinthians 15. Really, it's where we will be as we look towards Easter, which is hard to believe. Here we are beginning our Easter series as we prepare to celebrate in just about a month the resurrection of Christ. But really, we don't wait a month to do it. We celebrate it every time we are in this room, and really every time we're not in this room. And so this morning we begin a series called simply this resurrection matters. And you say, Pastor, we we know that. It's why we're here. We know it matters. But I believe as we walk through 1 Corinthians 15, we will see just how deeply it truly does matter. And uh as we prepare to take the Lord's Supper in just a few moments, I just want to say a few words about 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 and 2. Let me read these two verses to us. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. Let me go ahead and read verse 3 and 4. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures. Paul begins with this phrase, I want to remind you, brothers. And really it's a more general term, brothers and sisters. I want to remind you, brothers and sisters. I like that word remind because what he's doing is telling the church at Corinth, and I pray, telling us what we hopefully already know. If you don't already know this, today's a really great day to get to know this, and I'd love to tell you more about it. But reminding us of what we already know. And in the Christian life, what we need time and time again are these reminders. This is what you believe, this is who you are in Christ Jesus. Now, I'll tell you a secret, and I may get a lot of emails from a lot of pastors that'll be very angry at me for telling you this secret. It's like when a magician gives away how the trick is done. Uh, but I'll just tell you a secret. Good preaching is simply good reminding. Okay? Now, a lot of pastors we want you to be impressed, like we found the secret nugget. Surely no one else could find the nugget that we found for you. No, no. Good preaching is just good reminding. It's an it's an open book test. We've all got the word of God right here. And good preaching and and good Bible doesn't have to be preacher, good Bible study, good discipleship is just looking at the Word of God and reminding yourself over and over again what you know to be true. That when you rise out of bed in the morning, you know this. Christ Jesus is risen from the grave. I'm a child of God, and I can live uh according to that today. Reminding of what we know. So I want to remind you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel I preached to you. I like that little phrase too. The gospel I preached. Gospel I preached. Really, those are the exact same words there. The gospel I preached. So the second word I preach is just kind of a verb form of that. So the gospel I gospeled to you is basically what he's saying there. This is the gospel I proclaimed. And what is the gospel? Uh he tells us very clearly in verse 3 and 4. The story, the not just a story, the reality that Christ has died and Christ is risen, that we can find eternal life in him. So I remind you of this gospel which you received. Paul means this in a very literal way. You received this gospel, Paul would say, from me. I literally preach this gospel, proclaim this gospel to you believers at Corinth. We know from Acts chapter 18, Paul spent a year and a half in Corinth ministering there. And so you received this gospel. Paul isn't saying this in a prideful way, as if I'm the only one that can provide the gospel. No, he knows where the gospel comes from, Christ Jesus. We see uh later on in verse 3 that Paul would say this: it's the gospel that I also received. What has been given to me, Paul says, I now have given to you. Hopefully, we saw a beautiful picture of that this morning. We prayed over families of parents who earlier in their life received the gospel, and in the days and years ahead, we'll pass that gospel on to those sweet children. We saw a picture of it as Jake and Lane Atwell had been pouring into Axel, and we see the gospel he's received just a few moments ago as he was baptized and gave us a picture of this. This is Christian discipleship. So the gospel which you received, and I love this, in which you stand. Justification language. This is who you are. This is the gospel in which you stand. You can boldly stand before the throne of God, not by your own effort or works, but because Christ has done in you what only he can do, and now you have access to the Father. This is good news. The gospel in which you stand, verse 2, by which you are being saved. Paul says, by which you are being saved. Now, what in the world does that mean? You are being saved. Because that sounds different. We spent a year in Romans, and that sounds a little bit different than what we saw every week about you have been saved. Justification. Now Paul's using this language of you are being saved. Don't be afraid of that. Paul really uses three types of language. Sometimes he says, you have been saved. That's justification. It has happened. Sometimes he talks in sanctification language. You are being saved. Throughout the course of your life, the Spirit is working in you really to work out your salvation, to really show the outworkings of that salvation in your life. Paul even talks about you will be saved. And when he says that, that doesn't mean you're not saved now. He just means when you go to the Lord or the Lord returns to us, that the full consummation, faith becoming sight will be before you, and all of your salvation, that faith will be sight in that moment. I think this morning of our little ones. Think of a little one, uh, Hugh Dow. Think about Hugh this morning, baby Hugh. When sweet little Hugh was born just a few months ago, and and and Hayden and Katie were filling out the info for the birth certificate. Let's get a name, let's do all this. They didn't do this. They didn't say, hey, we're gonna name him Hugh. And then later on, if he can live up to it, we're gonna let him have Dow. You know? If he can really prove himself, we're gonna let him have that last. No, of course they didn't do that. On that birth certificate, what did they want on there? Hugh Tao. He is a member of the family, and nothing can ever change that. Now, here's what's also cool, and I could say this of any of our children this morning. In the days and months and years ahead, little Hugh is gonna get to experience what it means more and more to be a Tao. He is one, but he's gonna learn what they do at Christmas time, what are their traditions? What do they do? What vacations do they take yearly on dad's side or mom's side of the family? What does this tradition or that what does it mean to be that? He is becoming more and more of who he already is. That's the Christian life as well. You are justified, nothing can change that. You are in Christ, but Paul also says you are being saved, meaning this sanctification, the outworkings of your salvation, the Holy Spirit is growing that in you as you grow in Christ Jesus. He says this if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, and don't be afraid, those who know Christ and dwelled with his spirit, they they will hold fast unless you believed in vain. He's getting at what he's about to get at in the rest of 1 Corinthians 15. But this is our gospel. Christ came, Christ died, Christ rose again, Christ will return for us. This is what Paul is reminding us of as we take the Lord's Supper this morning. This is what we are being reminded of this morning, and I just want you to know this. That gospel which we proclaim, it has power. Axel can tell you. There's power in the gospel. Anyone in this room that knows Christ Jesus can tell you, uh, Taylor, if you could just see who I used to be compared to once I found Christ, how everything changed. I I love the story, and I just want to briefly state it of Charles Spurgeon. Maybe he's called the Prince of Preachers, maybe the greatest preacher outside of Jesus and Paul, certainly, to walk the planet in London uh in the 1800s. The story of his conversion is a fascinating one. He was 15 years old. He writes all this in his autobiography. It's a very uh snowy day. At 15 years old, he he feels so burdened by sin. And literally, every Sunday, he's visiting every church in town, seeing if someone can tell him what he needs to do with his sin. Who can tell me how to release this burden of sin that I have? And it's a very snowy day, he talks about, uh, and he's trying to get to one church, but but the snowstorm is so heavy that he has to take a side road, and he ends up at this little bitty Methodist chapel, and he says there's 12 or 15 people in the room. So a little church on a snowy day, it it gets even better. The preacher can't even get there because of the snowstorm, so there's no preacher there. So this layperson steps up into the pulpit and and he is tasked during this snowy day to provide a sermon. And and uh Charles Spurgeon says, I'll be honest, it's not a very good sermon. He takes it even further. He said, The man himself wasn't the brightest of men around that stepped into the pulpit. He said, The text was this look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. That was his text that morning. And as this lay person steps in the pulpit, Charles Spurgeon actually gives us exactly what it says, what he said, and I want you to read it along with me on the screen. You can put the first slide. It says look. Now, looking don't take a great deal of pains. It ain't lifting your foot or your finger, it just says look. Well, a man needn't go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn't be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look, even a child can look. But then the text says, Look unto me. Now that's not the most beautifully articulated sermon we've ever read. But the sermon continues, and the preacher then says this look unto me, I'm sweating great drops of blood. Look unto me, I'm hanging on the cross. Look unto me, I am dead and buried, look unto me, I rise again, look unto me, I ascend to heaven, look unto me, I am sitting at the Father's right hand. Oh poor sinner, look unto me, look unto me. Now the second half's pretty good. That this lay preacher stepped into the pulpit, read that text, and said, The gospel looks about like this. You look unto Jesus. Charles Spurgeon continues and said, The the preacher looked down and saw him. Again, twelve or fifteen people in the room, saw Charles sitting there. In exact words, he looked at Charles from the pulpit and said, You look miserable. And Charles said, you know, he he wasn't wrong. And Charles Spurgeon, the greatest preacher to ever live on a snowy day in a little Methodist chapel with 15 other people, and a lay preacher who'd probably never preached a sermon, probably never preached another one. Charles Spurgeon that morning gave his life to the Lord Jesus, and for the first time he looked unto Christ. And you can read in his autobiography, he felt the burden of sin roll away. That's the power of the gospel. That's the beauty of what Paul is proclaiming, reminding us of the gospel that I preach to you, which you received in which you stand. Whether it's Charles Spurgeon on a snowy day, whether it's you and I in a room looking like this or some other room, or whether it's maybe a young person or old person this morning that for the first time needs to have that Spurgeon type moment where you feel your burdens roll away, that's the beauty of the gospel, and that's what it's capable of. And as we come to the table this morning, that's the gospel that we celebrate and the gospel that we remember. The body of Christ broken for us, the blood of Christ spilled for us, and that's the gospel that makes all the difference in our lives.