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If you are uh new to point or relatively new to point, maybe you can come in this summer, uh maybe this is your first time today even, uh this is a a really important Sunday, um, not because we kind of planned this out as an important Sunday, but I'm gonna actually tell you guys today, teach you today, what is the most important message I could teach on. Okay? Hopefully every Sunday you hear this message, come through the teaching. In fact, if you spend much time with us here, I think what you'll start to notice is that every time we teach, it all comes back to the same basic foundational core truth, and that is the gospel, okay? Um and that's that's the core message, and I'm gonna explain why here in just a minute. But uh I um anybody like driving out in the country? Uh I like to drive in the country. It's just something relaxing about that driving through the country. Uh one of the reasons I like to drive through the country is because I know this probably uh maybe some of you don't know this, but I'm an undercover redneck, and so I actually like the country a lot, like being outdoors a lot, and and I like to hunt and fish and just be in the outdoors. And um, yes, I have killed Bambi. Um, but I I like to be outside and I enjoy when I drive through the country, um, I like to look out at the wildlife. And so my wife knows this about me, but it can be a little dangerous riding with me when I'm driving through the country because I like to like check out the deer and the turkeys and the hogs and whatever other wildlife happens to be there. And when we were in college, uh I we lived in this little town about 30 minutes away from school, and I would commute there fairly often, and and I I uh by the grace of God survived that season of time because there were multiple times I nearly ran off the road because I was looking at wildlife, and I'd, you know, you kind of start to drift towards what you're looking at, and and I would hear the little the little vibration, uh, those things that are supposed to make sure you stay in the lines, and then like, okay, correct, you know. And I'm and I've there's even were some times, I'm just gonna be honest, that people will come in the other direction and were like honking at me, you know, like what are you doing? I'm like, I'm looking at the deer, you know. Um, but I just like got get caught up in looking at the wildlife. And it's so interesting how when you put your focus on something out here in a field, uh, where you're driving, you're supposed to be between these two lines, and all of a sudden you find yourself drifting. You know what I'm talking about? And we've and it's not just in that. I mean, if you've ever seen, have you ever been driving down the road and somebody's parked on the side of the road, you've got to be really careful, right? You don't like start to drift as you look that way, because that's the nature of what happens when you're driving. You'll start to drift towards what you're focused on. And I tell you that because I think that in the church, we have a drifting problem that's similar. When we make things that are not supposed to be central, when we put those in our central focus, we will start to drift towards those things. And there's a number of them I could list and I will list this morning to you, but what should be the focus of the church is the gospel. Jesus. And we talk about Jesus a lot around here, and we talk about the gospel around here because in essence, you can't have the gospel without Jesus, and with Jesus you get the gospel because it is who he is and what he has done that is the good news, that is the gospel. Okay, that's the message. And so when we talk about Jesus, we talk about the gospel, in some ways it's almost like we're talking synonymously about this. And this is the core message of our church. In fact, if you take away the gospel, take away this message, um, and I'll make the case in a minute, you don't have Christian faith anymore. You don't have, you don't have the church as the Bible defines the church without the gospel message at the core of the church. And so I would actually say that the church sometimes has gospel drift because we get locked in on other things. Sometimes churches, we get locked in on production, making a good production of our services, making sure we've got good quality production. Not bad, but sometimes we get locked in on that and we're like, okay, that we start to drift towards that. Sometimes we get locked in on programs. And it's like, okay, if we get these programs, then we'll be a good church. And so we start to drift towards a program. Sometimes we get locked in, and I'm going to make this case in a sec, too. Uh, we get locked in on morality, being good people. We kind of drift towards that. How about this? Sometimes we get locked in on social justice. And we start to like steer over here towards social justice. I think actually all those things can be good things and they can support the work, but the core focus should be the gospel, should be Jesus Christ, okay? He is the one who we've got to be keeping our eye on, or we will drift. And this is why in our text today, Paul's gonna say something that should grab our attention. It should kind of, maybe even for some of us, rattle us a little bit, but grab our attention and our focus because he's gonna address the Corinthians after all the things he's talked about. He's talked about a lot of material. I mean, 1 Corinthians, one of the longest letters in the New Testament. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, some of those other passages of scripture, they're relatively short letters. The letter to Corinthians is long. And he's covered a lot of ground, talking about everything from how do you handle lawsuits among believers and divisions and how do you handle sexual immorality and marriage and singleness and how do you understand idols and food sacrifice to idols. He's covered a lot of material. But now we're at this point and he's saying to us, I want to tell you what's really most important. I want to tell you what really at the end of the day matters over all this stuff. Even over the gifts that we talked about the last couple weeks, these fun gifts that clearly the Corinthian church was exercising these gifts, including the sign gifts, and and that's great and all, but he says, I want to tell you what's most important. And so I want to just read the passage to you, and then we're gonna break it apart. And for some of you who've been with us, I hope that this is somewhat of a review today. I hope that you're like, yes, I have heard this, I'm with you, Nick. But for those of you who maybe are new to the faith, or maybe new uh to point, or maybe even you're an unbeliever, you haven't yet received the gospel, put the put your hope in Jesus Christ, maybe you're exploring faith, just curious about it. I don't know where you are in one of those categories, but I would just simply say to you, this is the message of Christianity. When we say Christian, we mean, I know the world has their own definitions of that, they have their own way that they try to define that. There's a lot of baggage attached to that. But this is what we mean by being a follower of Jesus, being a part of Jesus' church. And so, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, there's some Bibles around you underneath the chairs if you want one. Verses will be on the scripture as we put them up there every week for you guys. Um, but I encourage you to read along with me. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 1. We're gonna read all the way through verse 11. I may make a couple of comments as we go, but we're gonna we're gonna walk through this today. Here's what we got. Now, brothers, I want to clarify you, clarify for you the gospel I proclaim to you. You received it and have taken your stand on it. You're also saved by it if you hold to the message I proclaimed to you, unless you believed for no purpose. For I passed on to you as most important what I also received that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at one time. Most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all, as to one abnormally born, he also appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by God's grace, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not ineffective. However, I have worked more than any of them, yet not I, but God's grace that was with me. Therefore, whether it is I or they, so we proclaim, and so you have believed. So as I said, Paul's covered a lot of ground in the book of 1 Corinthians, and now he said, this is what's most important. What I really want to make sure you guys are clear on what I want to make sure you hear. So I want to start out with just the idea, and this is why I say some of this may be a review for some of you in the room. What do we mean by gospel? What is the gospel? Okay? Well, the gospel, the word the gospel, uh actually means good news, right? Uh if you've been around church very long, you've probably heard that term before, the gospel. But it's good news. And it didn't actually start, the word usage, uh the word itself gospel didn't actually start in the New Testament. Like, if you know your Bible, the first 39 books, or what we call the Old Testament, second 27, uh, second half of the Bible, or really the last third of the Bible, is what we call the New Testament. And there's 27 books there that include some of the letters that Paul wrote to these different churches. But the word gospel, the idea of gospel, was actually an Old Testament, an ancient world kind of word. Uh it was this word Euvangelion, okay? Uh and in case you you don't know a little bit about that background there, let me just give you a brief summary. Um, there would be in that day in the ancient world different cities, and you guys probably know, but uh periodically different people groups would attack one another, and there would be battles, there would be wars, and sometimes people groups would come through and try to take over uh particular areas, towns, and of course, as these battles occurred, uh people would uh would send out their men and and to go fight these battles. And so let's say you've got a city that's under siege or uh attacked, um, and they are sending out their men to war, and they go out and have a battle out in this field nearby. And of course, if the enemy that's coming against them wins, they come in and take over the village, they come and come and take over the town, uh, and now they're in charge. But hopefully, when you send your men out to war, they go out and they win. And what would happen if you won was you would send a messenger back into the city, and that person was the gospel herald. And they would go in and they would give the Eangalion that said, We win. We have the victory. We get to stay here. Uh we're we're still we're still we're gonna be okay, okay? And so it was this good news. You see why it was good news for them? It was great news because they had the victory. They won. Now, in our modern world, that might not resonate with us the same because we don't have that going on on a daily basis in our world or even periodically, that, but we get the point, and I would actually say to you this is why in the New Testament, it's very appropriate to use the word gospel when we think about what Jesus has done. Because what Jesus did for us, as we discussed this morning, is he won. He won the victory for us, he won the battle. And it was a very, very important battle because it was a battle for our very souls. And he won that battle. And so it's this gospel. Now it's interesting about that is because this changes all of the Christian framework. And what I mean by that is because the gospel is something that has been done, not something that we do. The gospel tells us that we have that Jesus has secured something for us we could not do for ourselves. And so the gospel uh says that that Jesus' work is finished, it is done, but religion says do. Now, in our graphic uh for this series, uh there's a mountain there, and the reason why, and not just because I think mountains are really pretty and I think it's a cool picture of a mountain, but because I talk to a lot of people, and when they think about uh the gospel, or they think about religion, and then they're talking talk about God, um, I hear people say things like, well, aren't people across the world really all trying to just make their way up uh a path to the top of a mountain where there's this God or salvation? They might use different language, but we're all kind of talking about aren't people just all different paths? So you just take different religions in the world and they're all just kind of on their their own path, but we're all gonna end up in the same place, right? And that's that's what the the prevailing thought even of our world is today in many places. And I want to say to you, absolutely not. Absolutely not. In fact, not only is that not a good idea, uh a good picture of what's really going on, it's actually uh a good reminder that what we preach as a and teach as a Christian is the exact opposite of that. That as a Christian, we're not just another path of good works or trying to earn our way or get to God, but actually what we teach and what we preach from the Bible, which is where we get what we understand about God and who we are and this gospel, it says that what? That in the person of Jesus, that Jesus actually came down to us because we weren't good enough. We were kind of lost in that fog down there, confused and unclear. And Jesus comes down to us knowing that we could never be good enough to get to the top of the mountain. We can never make our way up to the top of the mountain. He picks us up, puts us on his back, kind of thinking about the 99 and the one and the sheep, you know, and throws the sheep over his shoulder and takes it home, the sheep that's in outlost, and then carries us up the mountain to God the Father and to the place that we're trying to arrive. Day one, the moment that we put our trust in Christ, we have now gotten everything that we long for in the person of Jesus. Now, that doesn't mean that we still don't live in a broken world, a fallen world, a sinful world, a world where we're dealing with suffering and the consequences of all of that, but it does mean that we have now received what we are longing for. Day one. And all of the Christian life is actually a response to that, a response to the goodness and the grace and the love that we've received in Christ. Are you with me? Okay, so the reason I'm telling you that this morning is because there are still many of you in this room who probably think, oh, I'm just kind of making my way up this path, and eventually I'll get there. And I would say to you that in the person of Jesus, you have already received adoption, citizenship, and a heavenly kingdom. Now, we don't always live in light of that, do we? We don't always live as if that's the case. But that's what we've been given in the person of Christ. We have won, we have received the victory. So, Paul, notice what he says this morning. I want to try to break this into three parts for us, just to make it a little more digestible. And I want to get the big pieces of his teaching in this section and why he took the time to write this to the people of Corinth. I've already mentioned this to you, but notice he's writing to believers in Corinth, right? He's writing to Christians. He says brothers to them. He's writing to people who already have heard the gospel, who already, and in fact, actually have already believed the gospel, and he's saying, I want to what? Remind you. I want to clarify the gospel. And I would say to you that I personally in my life need to regularly review the gospel. Some people might use this kind of language. I need to regularly preach the gospel to myself. Remind myself of what's really true. Because while many times people think the gospel is for unbelievers, I actually think and know, not just think, that the gospel is for believers too. Because typically when we use the word unbeliever, we mean those who are Christian or unbelievers like those who are not Christian, and believers are those who are Christian. But the gospel is actually for those of us who are Christian who are struggling with unbelief. And many of us are in many times in our lives. And I could give you lots of examples in my own life where that is the case. Because you can see it and how we respond to sin. You can see it how we respond to our daily lives and the stressors of life. Who do we turn to? What do we look to? Where do we run to? Are we just trying to make our case for goodness and why God should love us? Are we overfeeling shame and guilt and feeling that there's no hope? That indicates we don't believe the gospel. It indicates that we haven't really fully embraced our identity and our status in Christ. So Paul says first on the front end, he says, I want to clarify for you the gospel I proclaim to you. You received it and have taken your stand on it. Clarify. Why would Paul take the time to do this again? Because he knows that gospel drift is a very real thing for the church, for believers, that we regularly wrestle with this. I think Paul Tripp uses the term spiritual amnesia, gospel amnesia, that we struggle to remember what's at the core of our faith and the core of the message that we preach and teach. So in doing that, what does Paul say is essential? You might call it the irreducible minimum of the gospel. You know what an irreducible minimum minimum is? It's where you like take it and try to condense it down to its smallest form. And you say, okay, it can be more than this, but it can't be less than this. And what I'm about to tell you about the gospel is that it can be more than this, but it can't be less than this. And this is a super condensed version of what uh, again, what is in the gospel, because actually I would say that the whole word of God, all 66 books in this scripture that we have, proclaim this gospel to us in a very extensive, or the book of Romans, for example, which is a massive and expansive view of the gospel. Because we could plumb the depths of the gospel for our entire lives and never actually understand or grasp the fullness of all that's there. But in this irreducible minimum, what does Paul say? Well, he says this in verse 3. He says, For I passed on to you as most important what I also received. And then it's indented because in the early church they would actually use this as something they would recite, they would uh talk to each other somewhat like it was a hymn. Maybe even they sung in the early church. We're not sure exactly all the specifics about how they use this, but it's indented here because there's a sense that this was something they passed on in their gatherings. And when they'd come together, they would remember the gospel. And this is what it says that Christ died for our sins. That Christ died for our sins. I love that Paul starts the gospel with what Jesus did, not what we have done. Okay? Now we're gonna get to what we did we've done in just a second. But he starts with Jesus, what Jesus has done. Why? Because the gospel starts with God, not with man. The gospel begins with who God is and what he has done. The gospel begins with God as creator God, who created this perfect world. He created this place with all these beautiful things to enjoy and all these beautiful things for for life to thrive in. And he created it. And again, we know that that in just a minute uh we we see the other half of this, that it's not like that anymore. It's not fully like that. It's been marred because of some issues that we have. But the gospel starts with God, that God is good, that God is perfect, that God is sinless, that God is holy, that God is righteous. You can use all that different language, but we're talking about a God who is an amazing, perfect, incredible, awesome God, creator God, who's eternal, who's in uh is is is uh beautiful in every way. Okay? And so the gospel starts with God, but he says Jesus died for our sin. Well, Jesus is God's Son, God made flesh. We're gonna be working through the book of John this year, and when we get to that, we're gonna talk about specifically first 18 verses of John, speak to his incarnation, when he came in the flesh, and we're gonna talk about how that is such a beautiful reality that God came near to humanity in flesh, in skin. But Jesus died for our sin. Jesus came, he chose to come. He came, as we said uh a couple weeks back when we talked about the love chapter, because he didn't just love us in words, he didn't just love us or have some emotion toward us, but he actually stepped out of heaven and in his affection drove him to an action. It drove him to actually change, uh, in one sense, uh not change his his direction towards us because he has obviously the choice to love us or not. He chose to love us and then to move into action, which meant he came down and became flesh and lived a sinless life and died a horrific death on the cross. And I would say to you that Paul wants to make certain that the Corinthians, and I would say to us today, don't forget that Jesus Christ died on the cross. Jesus Christ died. That he came and he actually did live a sinless, perfect life, and he died on the cross. But he also died for a reason. Why'd he die for what did he die for? Says there, right? He died for our sin, our sinfulness, our rebellion. Now, there's a lot that I could say on this too, and we could talk all day long about sin. But at the core of sin is when we as human beings decide that we want to be God instead of letting him be God. Okay? At the core of sin is it's my way over God's way. At the core of sin is me saying, I'm gonna worship myself over God. I'm going to be in charge, I'm gonna call the shots, I'm gonna be in control. You can use whatever way you want to say that, but at the end of the day, what we're saying is, God, we're gonna turn away from you being in charge and being in control and being king, and we're gonna become our own God, our own king, our own master, our own Lord, even. And so Jesus had to die for that because there is a penalty, penalty for our sin. There is a penalty for our sin, and that was eternal separation from God. Romans, as I said a while ago, it gives us an expansive view of God, and he says, the writer, same writer as the writer of Corinthians, inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6.23. He's saying that what we deserve because of this sinfulness, because of this rejecting God as king and rejecting God as Lord, is we deserve death. There's a penalty for that. Someone had to pay the price for that, right? And Jesus paid that price. That's why he went to the cross. He did it because he loved us, but he did it because he knew somebody had to pay the penalty for our sin. So Jesus Christ died on the cross for sin. You want me to tell you one of the number one reasons why people don't like the gospel? You can already kind of anticipate this one, right? Because to acknowledge the gospel is to acknowledge that we are sinners that need saving. Are you with me? To acknowledge the gospel, to believe the gospel, starts with understanding that we are broken and helpless and hopeless apart from the work of Jesus. And I think the part of the reason why the world rejects this gospel, rejects this message, I mean, we said it was good news. It's a victory. But guess what? It's not good news unless you understand that there's bad news first. And the bad news is that we deserve death. We deserve separation. And I would actually tell you that most human beings don't really believe we deserve that. That many human beings, maybe, maybe some of you today, I don't know, don't actually believe that we're all that bad. And that we actually deserve eternal separation, eternal damnation, hell, whatever you want to call it. I think a lot of Christians who sometimes we forget how deep the consequences are for sin. But the Bible clearly says that the consequences for sin is death, eternal separation from a holy God, a righteous God. I need to find that sometimes. I need to remember that sometimes. I need to reflect on that sometimes. So that I can once again appreciate the good news of the gospel. Sometimes the longer we're a Christian, sometimes the less we think we actually need Jesus. Anybody been there? Well, God, I'm doing pretty good. I'm a pretty good person. I'm a pretty moral person. I mean, I'm not that bad. I mean, sure, I mean, sometimes I'm a jerk to my wife. Sometimes, you know, like I say some mean things to my kids. Sometimes I honk at people in traffic and tell them they're number one with the wrong finger. But I mean, I'm not that bad. Not really that bad. I mean, seriously, you know, I joke, joke, but we we have kind of these levels. We assume somehow that we're really not that bad. But the Bible says that with all without God, we are desperately depraved, broken, messed up, jacked up, whatever you want to say, and we have no hope of eternal life. We have no hope of being with God. That's the bad news. And so Paul wants to make sure it's very clear, even in saying that, that Christ died for our sins. He didn't just say he died, he died for our sins. Jesus went to the cross because I'm a sinner and needed saving. I needed rescued. He went to the cross because you need saving. You need rescued. Your sin, your rebellion. And I should say something here too, because I want to be, um I think this is helpful for me. It wasn't really until uh a number of years, maybe probably my late, late 20s, when I started to really understand the beauty of this gospel message in a whole new way. But part of that was a journey that I was on because I grew up in church. I was a church brat. I was there all the time. And there was something in me that thought somehow that because I had grown up in church and I knew a lot about the Bible and that I had all this information and content that I could spit out at any point in time to anybody who asked about Jesus and about the Bible and about God, about the gospel even, that somehow God owed me something. There was an entitlement that had snuck into my heart. And it wasn't until I started to see the prodigal son's story as a story of not just one son, but two sons, that it really began to strike me how we can get lost in our religion. How we can get lost in our own self-righteousness. Let me explain. I told you it's called the Prodigal Son story, but some of you know this to be true. It probably is not an accurate description or title for the story because even though much of the story is uh focused on this younger son who definitely sinned, who said basically in the story, read between the lines, Dad, I want you dead. Give me my inheritance, I'm gonna go do whatever I want. I'm gonna be a hedonist. The words that it uses there, I'm gonna squander all this on loose living. I'm gonna go do whatever I want, whatever makes me happy. And there are people who sin against God and basically saying, God, I don't care about what you have to say, I don't care about morality, I don't care about I just want to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want, and that will make me happy. And by the way, people who struggle with sin, I mean, let's be honest, no one would struggle with sin if there wasn't something fun in it for a moment, right? It's something that's pleasurable for a moment. And so that's the younger son. And so some people, this sin is about just flat out saying, God, I'm gonna do whatever I want and I'm gonna pursue pleasure the way I want it. Whatever makes me happy, that's what I'm gonna do. And it leads us down a path to destruction. But then there's others of us in here, and this is why I said this was key for me, who are like the older brother in the story, right? And some of you know this story, and some of you have heard this teaching, but you understand that in the story there's an older brother, and that older brother represents the religious crowd. In fact, Jesus was telling this story to Pharisees, and they were highly offended by this story. But Jesus, I think, was really pointing at them when he's talking about this older brother who had this entitlement come in, where he says to the father, he says, Look, you know, the son, the son, younger son who squandered all the wealth, who'd been totally an idiot, basically, he comes back and the father embraces him and throws a party for him. And the older son's standing outside sulking, angry, ticked off at his dad because he showed him grace. And he says, Dad, I've done all these great things for you, and you haven't thrown a party for me. Wham, wham, wham. Right? What's the point? Because that older son was self-righteous. He was trying to save himself through through uh religion, you might say. Through good works, through attaining uh God, the Father's approval through his works. Why is that significant? Because for some of us today, we probably resonate more with the second story, the son, the older son. And I want you to know that there have been people who've been sitting in churches for years who know a lot about God but still don't know God. There's people who've been in churches for years who know a lot about how to be a moral person, a good person, but don't know the gospel, who haven't really believed the gospel. They might even tell you the bullet points of the gospel, and yet have not laid down their self-salvation project and receive the grace of God and receive the message of Jesus as sufficient for their sin to save them, to rescue them, to redeem them. And I'll be honest with you guys, this has been a real tension for me. And there have been times where I can still see in my heart this entitlement mentality that rises up, this self-righteousness. We need to clarify the gospel that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that we were rebellious through irreligion or through religion, and we needed Jesus Christ to rescue us. But notice also Paul includes he rose from the grave, right? He includes not only that he died for our sins according to the scriptures, but he was buried and he was raised on the third day. Now, I'm not gonna get extensively into this today because next week's sermon is on how the resurrection is absolutely essential to the gospel message. And I think it gets left off a lot. A lot of times we stop at the cross. Jesus died for our sins, all right, we're done. But actually the resurrection is essential to this. And we're gonna talk about why it's essential to this. And Paul includes this in it, saying that Jesus was buried, but he was raised on the third day, and then he what? He appears to Cephas, who's Peter, he appears to other apostles, um, he appears to 500 at one time. So there were people who were alive. In fact, Paul even says, he says he appeared to these guys, James, he appears to the apostles, and he appears to some who have fallen asleep, i.e., or should it say, aka, they're dead. Uh they are no, they're they're no longer around. But there were some that still were alive and they had seen a resurrected Jesus. It's pretty awesome. And just so you know, um, if you think that you struggle with doubt and you're wondering if anybody else does, well, there's a story when Jesus does appear to his apostles where it even says in the text that some, the apostles, doubted. So, welcome to the doubt club, all right? If that's you, I mean, the apostles, they were seeing Jesus in real life and still struggle with doubt. This is a part of our humanness, isn't it? But he appears, and this was part of the early church's mantra to remind them that look, we can have confidence that Jesus came out of the grave. And so we see that the clarity of the gospel is that Jesus not only paid the penalty for our sin, but he rose from the grave and he conquered sin. He conquered sin and death, our greatest enemies. He conquered them. Which means that we no longer have to just roll over and give in to sin and be enslaved to it. But we actually have life and the power of the resurrection is alive and well in the heart of the believer. So we can say no to sin. We can say no to sexual immorality, we can say no to pride, we can say no to jealousy, to envy. Any of those sins that we struggle with, we can say no to because the power of the Holy Spirit that brought Jesus Christ out of the grave is alive and well in the heart of the believer. And it's an awesome, awesome thought. An awesome reality. But not only does Paul give clarity to the gospel, he also talks about the centrality of the gospel. He talks about the centrality of the gospel. He says, I passed on to you what is most important. Paul would show up on the scene, he would preach the gospel as much as he could in an area, in a city, and then he would, after he proclaimed the gospel, he'd see who received the gospel. He'd go to the temples, he'd go to the tabernacle, he'd go to these different places where people were having spiritual conversations, hanging out, and he would preach the gospel, and hopefully the Spirit would bring some people to faith, to put their trust in Jesus. Because only the Holy Spirit can actually make that happen, make that transformation happen. And as they did, then he would begin to disciple them. He'd begin to grow them in their understanding of who Jesus is, following Jesus' instructions to make disciples, to teach them, to obey everything that Jesus commanded. We're going to talk a lot about that this year. But he says, um, I think the reason why he's reminding the Corinthians of this, it's most important, is again, as I said earlier, this is not just a message for unbelievers. When I grew up, I told you I was a church brat, I grew up, I thought the gospel was just about um, you know, it for those people who don't believe in Jesus, they need to hear the gospel message and they need to put their trust in Jesus. And then from that point forward, we just earn our way. Right? The gospel, you kind of start, it's the it's the ABCs of the faith, it's the starting block of the faith, but it's it's not what you need for everyday life. But that's actually not true. It is central to all of life. In fact, Paul, through this passage, reminds us that the gospel is a past, present, and future reality. It's a past, present, and future reality. Um, that the gospel reminds us that we have been saved from the penalty of sin. We are being saved from the power of sin, and one day we'll be saved from the presence of sin. Are you with me? You see how that works? He says we now receive this gospel. He says you've received the gospel that Jesus Christ died on the cross, that he rose again from the grave. That was a past reality. Jesus paid the price, it is done in the person work of Jesus, but now we have this power to overcome sin in our daily lives. Like I said a while ago, the power that brought Jesus out of the grave is accessible to the believer to say no to ungodliness. And now, as we grow up in that, we we know that one day we're looking forward to the day that he'll remove all presence of sin. And thankfully, we won't have sin plaguing us any longer like it is right now. And I'm looking forward to that. But the gospel is the central message. I think one of the reasons why we have gospel drift and we start to lock in on other things is we forget how beautiful this message is, or even how relevant it is to every single aspect of our daily life. That it is a part of everything we do. Notice that in this passage, you know, Paul he says that he himself is one who was abnormally born and he also appeared to me. Um, that's interesting in that passage because what Paul, of course, is referring to is his conversion experience. He wasn't one of the first apostles who was one of Jesus' actual disciples. I won't get into all the specifics of the story, but just know this that Paul became an apostle later because he had a Damascus road experience where he's trying to kill Christians, and Jesus strikes him down, blinds him on a road, and says, Why are you persecuting me? Which that in of itself, by the way, is interesting. That he says, Why, not why are you persecuting persecuting Christians or my people, but why are you persecuting me? Jesus identifying with his people. And Paul understands that he has this role, he has this responsibility, and that it's the that is the good news that has given him this opportunity. It is the good news, it is the gospel that has given him this apostleship, it is the message of Christ, and is even in his experience that he is learning to live out the gospel as central to all of his identity and all of his life, because we see that where he says, But by God's grace, I am what I am. That the gospel changed his very identity. It was central to his life, it was central to who he is, who he was as a person on the planet. So we thank God for the gospel. We thank God that it is central. Now, I'm going to give a practical application here. Because some people go, well, you know, we go to church. Um, what are we trying to do when we come to a church gathering like this? Uh I want to be real careful. I'm not, I'm not, this is not in order to just be critical of churches that are in our community because we're still learning, we're still we're still growing, we're still fumbling our way forward, okay? We're trying to figure this thing out as we listen to God, as we follow God, as we look to His Word. But there's sometimes a mindset that this church gathering or these church settings are many times just places where we try to grow in being better versions of ourselves. Okay? And sometimes that's what we think. Well, if I just go to church, then I can just be taught how to be a better version of myself. So that's why a lot of the sermons or a lot of the teaching you hear in different church environments is hey, here's some tips and tricks on how to have a better marriage. Here's some tips and tricks on how to be a better parent. Uh, here, here's here's some guidelines, some principles you can put in practice to be a better manager of your finances. Okay? And if you read the Bible, I think that you will become a better version of yourself if you apply it. But I hope you know this. That is not the goal of the Bible. It's actually not the goal at all. You see, we don't just need better versions of ourselves. We need to go from being people who are separated and dead to coming to life in Christ. We don't just need to work harder at trying to be a more moral person, a better husband, dad, father, even though I hope all of us are growing in that. We need Jesus to rescue us, to save us, to make us new creations in Christ Jesus. And that's exactly what Paul's language is in 2 Corinthians 5 is that we're no longer, you know, dead. We are new creations in Christ Jesus, and we have a new operating system, we have a new way of thinking, we now are completely different people, and that does make us better husbands, better dads, better people walking around on this planet earth. See, this is not just a bull, a book of rules and guidelines and tips and tricks. This is a book of transformation. This is a book of Jesus coming and making us who we were intended to be by his grace, by his goodness. And man, that gives me hope. Because every time I try to do it on my own, I own, I fail. I fail royally. But thankfully, he is at work in me, and I can echo the sentiments of Paul when he says his grace is not without effect. In fact, that's the third piece I would want to say to us this morning, and I think Paul's trying to reiterate is gospel change. It's not just gospel clarity he's giving us, not just gospel centrality, but gospel change. This is what I would say. It's not just the gospel that enabled us to cross the line of faith and to come into the kingdom of God. It's the gospel that helps us grow up in our faith, to mature. It is the gospel that helps us take steps towards sanctification. That's a big word that just means to be more holy, more like Jesus. He's what we're shooting for, right? Titus says it this way. It's actually Paul writing to Titus. Says this. He says, For the grace of God has appeared with salvation for all people. Awesome. Right? The grace of God has appeared for salvation for all people. Who would receive, by the way? Because not everyone's getting saved, because not everyone has received the gospel. Not everybody wants to receive this message. But he goes on to say, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lust and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works. Do you notice anything in that passage? It's the grace of God that gave us the ability to become sons of God, children of God. And it's also the grace of God that is growing us and teaching us to say no to ungodliness. As I said earlier, to summarize it simply, I used to think, well, it was God's grace that got me into the kingdom. Now it's my job to earn my way for the rest of my journey. If I'm a good enough person, God'll, then I can keep it. But that's not how it works. Ephesians 2.8 reminds us that order of works and grace are really, really critical when Paul writes there, for by grace are you saved through faith, not by works, so that no one can boast. Because he already knows that what we would do if we could earn our way is we would boast all the time. We're prone to pride. We'd like, in fact, some of us in this room, again, why the gospel is offensive is because we'd rather just say, I can earn my way. There's a part of the human nature that just wants to say, we can do it on our own. But that's not the message of the gospel. We were saved by grace through faith, not by works, so that no one could boast. But then what does he say? For we are God's workmanship in Christ Jesus to do good works. Good works are a response to the work of Jesus. When we are kind, when we are loving, when we are gracious, when we say no to ungodliness, all that is a response to what Christ has already done for us. Do you see how this is different than every other world religion? Do you see how this is not like every other path up the mountain? Because in this we are saying that the only hope we have is Jesus. And yes, Paul doesn't argue the fact that we have to put some effort forth here. He even says this. He says, However, I worked more than any of them. There is effort. I mean, you have to be willing to submit and surrender your life. There is effort exerted. You have to. You can't say, well, I'm just going to sit here and God's going to make me into a godly person. That's silliness. But notice what Paul backs it up and says. He says, Yet not I, but God's grace that was with me. All the while we can't take credit. And that's a good thing. Because we want to. Many times I want to take credit. We're not preaching a workspace salvation here. I think you guys know that. But we are saying this that if we believe the gospel, we will change. We will grow. We will mature. If we believe the gospel, we will actually grow up in our maturity. Our desires will change. We won't want to just pursue what the world pursues. And when I say the world there, I'm talking about the culture's view of what really comprises life, what makes life worth living. We won't see it there because we know that life's not found there. We know life is found in Christ. So we won't lead a life that is just the same as everyone else, that's syncretized to the culture around us. We will be distinctive. Why? Because the grace of God in us is compelling us forward. I've learned this lesson with my kids. There is a place for discipline. There is a place for instruction and guidelines and rules. I believe that, right? Amen, parents? That's there. Okay, we need that. But here's what I also know: unless my kids' hearts are changed by God, it's not gonna stick. I mean, I can do it for a season, but the moment they're out away from me, they're out of sight, if their heart doesn't love what is good, they're gonna default to what that flesh wants to do. So as much as I instruct my kids and we discipline them because we want them not to be fools, and the Bible says, you know, discipline them, drive out foolishness, I know at the end of the day that that's not gonna actually help them grow up fully in the gospel. What's gonna have to happen, they're gonna have to have a personal relationship with Jesus, and He's gonna change their desires. And the grace of God can do that in our hearts, in the hearts of our kids. And the grace of God can do that in the hearts of us parents, moms, dads. The grace of God can change us, can transform us, can grow us up. Now, again, I can give you tons of examples of how this works itself out, but I want to clarify with Paul this morning. The good news, the gospel. Because it's possible this morning that some of you could be sitting there, having been in church all your life, or maybe even a very short time, and still thought that somehow that what we are preaching or what we are teaching or that this Christian merit, this Christian uh message is all about how we just again become better versions of ourselves, or we just do the right things, we just check off boxes of morality. And I want to clarify with you the goal of the Christian faith is to increasingly trust in Jesus and his sufficiency. To know him. I mean, that's in I love where John says, now this is eternal life, to know, to know Jesus. To have a personal, engaging relationship with Christ that is changing our desires, that's changing our behaviors, that's changing, it's reminding us who we are, what we are to be doing with our lives. I have to say this because it's really key here, and that is the gospel only becomes good news when we believe it. The gospel only becomes good news when we actually believe it. Notice what Paul writes at the last verse there. We read it earlier. Therefore, whether it is I or they, so we proclaim, and so you have believed. The Bible tells us very clearly that the ones who are being saved are those who believe. I mean, John 3.16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him would have eternal life. I hope for you, some of you in the room that are believers, that this has been a good review, a good reminder of the message that's got to be central so we can stay on track. There's probably some of you who are unbelievers. And I would just reiterate the point this morning that if you want to experience eternal life, if you want to have life in Jesus, if you want to accomplish the purpose that God has for your life, if you want to experience the significance and the worth and the identity that you desire, you can find that in Jesus. You can find it in him. In fact, using our definition or Paul's writing here, Christ died for our sins. According to the scriptures, he was buried and rose third day. In Romans, he says this. He says that if we would confess Jesus as Lord with our mouths and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we can be saved. We can receive the gospel. And then we can begin to grow up in the gospel. We can begin to mature in the gospel. Some of you today need to stop trying to earn your way to God. You can't. Some of you, God's saying, stop rejecting me, stop ignoring me. I love you, I'm pursuing you. And there's some believers in the room today, and maybe I've even had to wrestle with this in my own heart. Um, we need to ask God to help us be refreshed in the gospel. Like to be remembered how how desperately depraved we have been and we are apart from God, and how the bad news of our eternal separation from God should drive us to appreciate the good news that Jesus has won the victory. That Jesus has won the victory. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much that we don't have to save ourselves. We're not on some sort of path trying to make our way up a mountain to get to you. Jesus, you came to us. I praise you for that. I am so grateful. Because I know, I know, I know, I know I could never make it through my effort, through my works. God, I pray right now that your spirit would help us all into this room, in this room, to believe the message of the gospel for ourselves. For some, just maybe to have a moment where we're just we're still and we reflect on the gospel and it becomes real to us again. Because we've gotten stagnant, gotten complacent, gotten maybe even calloused or indifferent. Would you stir in us a fresh affection for you, a fresh gratitude for the gospel? And God, I pray that there might even be someone in this room right now who knows the bullet points of the gospel, like knows the whole point of yes, Jesus came and he died on the cross and he rose again, and people can believe in him and have eternal life. But they've never actually put their trust in that for their salvation. It's very possible. There are people who sit in church every single week in gatherings all over the world that have yet to receive the gift of salvation through faith. By faith. And I pray that, God, if there's anyone in this room today that's in that position, that today they would receive the gift by faith. Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you'll be saved. God, for us as Christ followers, we just confess that entitlement sneaks in, that we let shame and guilt overwhelm us at times because we don't believe the gospel. It drives insecurity, which drives all kinds of crazy behaviors. We just ask for your help today, God. Help us remember that central message to our life. The good news of Jesus. Praise you, God.