Well, good morning. As you can see on the screens,
we're going to be in First Corinthians chapter 15.
We're going to go through the 1st 11 verses.
So if you want to go ahead and turn there that way you don't
have to do it in just a minute. Over the last few weeks, we've
been reading and studying this letter to the Corinthian church
called First Corinthians. It's Paul's first letter.
You guys might be tired of being in First Corinthians.
I promise there's light at the end of the tunnel.
We'll be finished before Christmas, actually, Yeah,
before Christmas, maybe, anyway. But we've we've seen so much in
this letter about what it means to be the church.
Lately, we've been talking about the gifts of the Spirit.
Pastor Joe taught us that, that if you're a believer, right, you
have a gift. And he also taught us from
Chapter 13. Excuse me, that if you use your
gift outside of the context of love, you have nothing and you
are nothing, right? You're no more than a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal. In other words, you're annoying,
Joe said. I didn't say that.
Joe said it last week. Pastor Jake talked to talked to
us about the importance of using our gifts in the church in an
orderly way. We need to come here and worship
the Lord in an orderly fashion because that's how he wants to
be worshipped. We see that all through
Scripture, right? We see it in the Old Testament
books. We see it in the law.
We see all through. Like there's chapter after
chapter in Exodus that you guys went through before I came here
about how the temple should be set up.
How should we set up the Tabernacle as we travel through
the wilderness? He gave specific instructions on
how he wants to be worshipped. God wants to be worshipped in an
orderly way. I'd like to ask you a question
this morning, though, like like Pastor Jake, he he emphasized
building people up. It's important for us to come.
And Paul has been doing this all throughout the letter.
He's been asking us and telling us that that everything we
should do should be for the purpose of building others up.
So I want to ask you this question this morning.
What are we building each other up in?
Is it self esteem? Am I?
Am I here to give you a pat on the back and make you feel good
about yourself? Is it just good feelings?
Hey, you did a good job or hey, your sports team won?
Is it just encouragement? Am I supposed to come here and
just offer a warm smile and easy conversation?
Thank you. Is what I'm supposed to do?
Is that what I'm supposed to do? Is, is, is that all we're
supposed to do to build each other up?
All of these things are good things, right?
We should encourage one another. We should offer an easy
conversation and a warm smile. We should do these things.
But all of that can be done in the context of, of where you
work your job. That can be done at the Rotary
Club. I was talking to someone last
night. I was watching the parade in
Kingsville. And we're talking about like,
oh, you know, if you just want a social club, join the Rotary
Club. They do.
They do social things better than the church anyway.
All of those things can be done outside of the context of the
church. But what different what?
What differentiates the church from the from a Country Club?
What what is the big difference? What makes having coffee with a
friend, a Christian friend different than having coffee
with with a non believer? Well the answer it should be
very obvious to us right? The difference is the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Paul has been beating the drum
of building others up through the whole letter.
And now here when we get to 1st Corinthians chapter 15, he's
trying to make something abundantly clear.
He's been responding to all sorts of things, right?
We'll do a quick review. He he's he's he's responding to
like explicit relationships in the church, meat sacrifice to
idols, gifts given by the Spirit, when to Mary, when to
divorce. And now he's addressed all of
these things. He says, all right, I'm done.
I'm done answering your letter to me.
Now I've got something to tell you.
And he moves on to the main thing.
So I want you to read with me here in First Corinthians 15.
We're going to read the first 11 verses.
I'll be reading from the Christian standard Bible Paul
writes. 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, and by which
you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preach to you,
unless you believed in vain, 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 then He appeared to Cephas, then to the 12.
Then He appeared to over 500 brothers and sisters at one
time. Most of them are still alive,
but some have fallen asleep. And then he appeared to James,
and then to all the apostles. And last of all, as to one born
at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.
For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be
called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God.
But by the grace of God, I am what I am.
And His grace toward me was not in vain, On the contrary, I
worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God
that was in me. Whether then it is I or they, so
we proclaim, and so you have believed.
Let's pray. Well, good morning, Father, we
recognize this morning that we can only call this day good
because of you. And Father, the good news of the
message of your son, Jesus Christ.
So we recognize that this can only be a good day and a good
morning, not because of the weather, not because of of of
how beautiful you made it, but because of, of what you did in
sending your Son to us. So Lord, we pray that you would
help us to understand that today.
Help us this morning to incline our hearts to the testimony of
Your Son, not for selfish or prideful gain, but for Your name
and Your name alone to be glorified and worshipped.
Father, I ask that You open our eyes to behold the wonderful
things in Your Word and help us to understand the message, the
meaning, and the might of the Gospel.
We also ask that You, You, unite our hearts to fear Your name and
satisfy us this morning with Your steadfast love.
And we pray all of these things together in the name of Jesus.
Amen. So as I mentioned before, Paul
is moving from gifts and order in worship to make something
very clear and utmost importance.
The good news. So he starts this chapter with
this phrase. He says, Now I want to make
clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I
preached to you. The translation you're reading
might say remind, it might say make known to you.
But I think the CSV gets it closer to Paul's intent here.
It's more than making the gospel known, and it's more than
reminding you. What we see here over the course
of chapter 15 is that Paul wants to make it abundantly clear.
What we see here is one of the most robust, like one of the
most robust explanations of the doctrine of the resurrection
that you'll find in the entire Bible.
He's going to clarify in these verses what it means, what to
believe the message of the gospel.
Danny Aiken, who's been so helpful with his commentary for
us and helping us organize our outlines and organize how we how
we present First Corinthians to you.
He says this. He says the church is unique in
many ways compared to any other institution or entity in the
world, not the least of which is because the mission of the
church is actually determined by the message of the church.
I want you guys to get that. Our mission as a church is
determined by the message of the church, and that is the gospel.
If we get nothing else right, we have to get that right.
Everything we do here at LEMC has to be centered on the gospel
of Jesus Christ. It has to be what we talked
about the most. It has to be what we talked
about the loudest in all of our meetings.
If you're in a leadership meeting, if you're meeting with
a ministry team, the gospel has to be front and center.
Otherwise, you're not doing what the Bible says we're supposed to
be doing. It's the most important message
of the Bible and the message of the church, and we must make
every effort to proclaim it to the world.
There are a lot of issues in Scripture that we can focus on,
and we should. We should give time and
attention to. And while they're important and
should be discussed, they aren't what we need to be defined by.
I'll give you a few examples. This is like you go to a doctor
or you go to the hospital and you go into the emergency room
and you're in there and you you have your wrist chopped off.
You're going to get seen faster than someone who has a cut on
their finger. It's called triage.
The nurses are going to say that guy needs, certainly needs
service more than that guy. So we're going to take that guy.
First. Let me give you some examples of
what we call theological triage. Couple of examples, not many.
There are some Christians who make it their number one
priority and they're most concerned with the three to five
verses you read on Friday. If you're reading in the church
reading plan in Revelation chapter 20, where John describes
that there's going to be 1000 year reign.
And some people are so concerned with that that they lose the
message of the gospel here. They would, they would more,
they would, they would prefer to, to talk about those four or
five verses in Revelation chapter 20 than they would to
talk about the whole gospel and the rest of the New Testament.
And it is important for us. I'm not, don't get me wrong,
don't hear what I'm not saying. It is important for us to
understand and interpret the Book of Revelation and those
specific verses. But if when I look at you and
you're walking up to me and I'm walking up to you and the first
thing that comes to my mind is your stance on that particular
issue, then it may be possible that in my interactions with
you, one or both of us has prioritized that over the
gospel. Another example would be like
the mode of baptism. We believe in this church that
those who profess faith in Christ should be baptized.
Those only those who have professed faith in Christ should
be baptized. And that means that the person
confess, confessing faith needs to be old enough to understand
the good news explained and to be able to confess with their
mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's called believers baptism.
We believe that here in this church, but I have friends who I
know that are Christians, I know they're saved, that believe
something different about baptism.
They believe that it's biblical to baptize infants into the
church. And on this point, we absolutely
disagree. However, neither of us would
believe that baptism is what saves us.
Only repentance and faith according to the gospel can do
that. But making the mode of baptism,
if that, if that's the key issue among us, then something other
than the gospel has been is put in place of the main thing.
So we have to think about what matters most.
And we can happily discuss and debate issues like this, but we
should never elevate them above these matters of less importance
to above the main thing, which is the gospel.
When we do that, we risk distracting the church from the
mission given to us by Christ. In Matthew 28 he says this, He
says Jesus came near to them and said all authority has been
given to me on heaven and earth. Go therefore and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the
Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I've
commanded you. And remember I'm with you always
to the end of the age. We don't want to get distracted
because the mission of the church, right?
The mission of the church is determined by the message of the
church. Paul's telling us here that we
must prioritize the message of the gospel in our churches.
He says this. He says, 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,
and by which you're being saved if you hold to the message I
preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
So he brought them the gospel, the good news.
They received it and they made it.
They made it the priority of their lives.
They said they're staking their lives.
They're taking their stand on the gospel, the good news of
Jesus. That's what they're doing.
He references an earlier point from the beginning of the letter
and he says the gospel, this good news, is how they're being
saved. Remember we talked about that
way back months ago. They're being saved.
It's a process of sanctification.
The gospel is what we're is what is saving us.
It's why we can't stop talking about it, like we can't just
make it what we talked about at the beginning and you're
converted and OK, you don't have to talk about the gospel
anymore. No, brothers and sisters, you
are being saved. You are being built up in
Christ. If you get tired of hearing the
gospel, then I don't know if you're a Christian.
The gospel is the good news. What does he say?
What does he mean when he says? Unless they have believed in
vain. Well, it made me think of the
parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 13, the parable of the
soils where the Gospel seed is spread out all over different
different types of soil. We can read that together here.
It says, It says. Then he told them many things in
parables, saying consider the sower who went out to sow.
As he sowed, some seed fell along the path and the birds
came and devoured them. Other seed fell on rocky ground
where it didn't have much soil and it grew up quickly since the
soil wasn't deep. But when the sun came up, it was
scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.
Other seed fell among thorns. The thorns came up and choked
it. Still other seed fell on good
ground and produced fruit some 100, some 60, some 30 times what
was sown. But anyone who has ears, listen.
So here in this parable, Jesus is teaching, he's teaching us
that there are some who will hear the gospel.
And it seems like that there's something real there.
It seems like that there's a a true conversion, there's a
sprout, but the root is never able to take hold.
So what does that mean for us today?
It means that I think that that it is a place for us to really
take a moment. This, this is a just, it's just
an aside Paul throws in there. He says unless some of you have
believed in vain, but but what it take a moment and think,
think about yourself and your life as a believer.
The goal here, my goal here to to bring this up is not to have
you question your salvation, but it's for you to think about how
you live your life and ask yourself this question.
Have I prioritized the message of the gospel in my life?
When I'm faced with challenges in my own life, do I reflect
what Christ has done to reconcile me to himself when I
have the opportunity to speak into the lives of others who
give who come to me for advice or or who come to me for
consolation, Maybe they maybe they want to come to you and
they just want to commiserate. They want to like they want to
say, Hey, I'm this is this bad things going on in my life?
Isn't it so bad? They just want you to say, yeah,
it's bad. Is what you what you the first
thing that comes out of your heart and your mind is it?
Is it the gospel? Is it sent?
Is the advice you're about to give centered on the gospel in
their life? We have to remember this, guys,
that anything that is almost the gospel isn't the gospel, right?
You can't almost believe the gospel.
So when it comes to our ministries and our events here
at this church, we need to ensure that we are prioritizing
the gospel in everything. If the gospel is not the center
of everything we do, then we don't need to do it based on
Scripture. We don't need to do it if it's
if it's just to come and have a good time, we don't need to do
it. That's not that's not what the
church is for. The church is for giving the
gospel to a sick and dying world.
That is what it's for. Invite your sick friends who are
sick because they're aren't they're lost.
Invite them to the church so that they can hear the gospel.
It I've been in churches where, where you can, you can invite
someone to the church and you never know what's going to be
preached. You never know if they're going
to get the gospel And you honestly, I don't even want to
invite somebody to that church because if I'm inviting a lost
friend to church, I want them to get the gospel and everything.
I want them to hear that Jesus is the only way that they can be
reconciled to the Father. We must prioritize the message
of the gospel. So if we're going to prioritize
the message of the gospel, we better know what it means,
right? So we must recognize the meaning
of the gospel. That's our second point today.
I've been saying that word a lot.
For those of you who count, gospel is probably the number
one word in the sermon Alexand. She counts the words.
But so I've been saying it a lot, but what does it really
mean? What does it mean?
You may know this already, but the the word gospel literally
means good news. So as a preacher of the gospel,
what that means is I'm a herald of the good news.
It has to be the the thing we we shout the most and the loudest.
Paul's helpful in how he transitions.
He's he isn't going to leave the important issue to chance in
this text by assuming that they remember.
Remember he says what I delivered to you that he does.
He's not going to assume that they remember what he delivered.
So he's going to spell it out for him.
He says this in verses three to four.
He says, 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 and that he was raised on the
third day according to the Scriptures.
Friends, this gospel, the gospel is summed up beautifully here
using 3 components. All right, three components.
The first one is this. Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures. There's nothing or out of the
ordinary about someone dying. I think we all have experienced
that in our lives and we will all experience it personally one
day. There's an old saying, right?
It goes like this. It's like there's only two
things guaranteed in life, death and taxes.
It's a guarantee. Death is a fact of life.
So Jesus dying wasn't unusual. In fact the the way that he died
crucifixion wasn't unusual during that time period.
In his book The Wickedness of the Crucifixion, John MacArthur
suggested that that during the time of the Roman occupation of
Israel as many as 30,000 Jews were crucified.
So what made what made Jesus death different?
Well it was the fact that he died for our sins.
Jesus death had a purpose. In Galatians 1 Paul writes this.
He says Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to rescue
us from the present evil age according to the will of God, of
our God and Father Jesus death wasn't an ordinary occurrence.
And Paul doesn't quote it says according to the scriptures,
right? He says he says that twice here.
He doesn't give us a specific scripture when he's saying that
Jesus is the fulfillment, but perhaps he had Isaiah's words in
mind. When I think of the gospels, I
think of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but I also think that of
the 5th gospel, Isaiah, because in Isaiah you get a beautiful
picture of what Christ did for us.
Thinking Isaiah has been given an insight into what God is
going to do in the future and he describes in very beautiful
words what happens, says it's in Isaiah 53, five But he was
pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of
our iniquities. Punishment for our peace was on
Him, and we are healed by His wounds.
And perhaps Paul had this other verse in mind. 5312, just just a
few verses down. Therefore I will give them.
Excuse me. Therefore I will give Him the
many as a portion, and He will receive the mighty as spoil,
because He willingly submitted to death, and was counted among
the rebels, Yet He bore the sin of many, and interceded for the
rebels. Jesus died for a reason.
He died for our sins as a fulfillment of the Scriptures.
The second thing we need to see here that Paul spells out for
us, it's very clear, Paul wants to make it abundantly clear that
Jesus was buried. Denny Akin points out again that
while this may seem like a redundant thing to say, of
course you bury dead people. That's what you do.
It's it may be redundant to say that a dead man was buried.
It's much more than that. It's tied to fulfillment of
Scripture again. Again, we'll go to Isaiah 53.
In the in verse 9, he says he was assigned a grave to the
wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death because he had
done no violence and he had not spoken deceitfully.
Paul's making it abundantly clear, perhaps answering rumors,
that Jesus didn't die. There's a theory called the
swoon theory that Jesus just passed out on the cross and they
pulled him down. He wasn't dead.
In that case, why would they put Roman soldiers in front of the
tomb? All of those things to think
about when you think about the resurrection.
The important thing that Paul wants to say here is that Jesus
did die. He died and he died for our
sins. He was buried.
And the third thing is he was raised on the third day.
Friends, the first two things don't matter at all if this
didn't happen. It it doesn't matter one bit if
the resurrection isn't true. The effectiveness of Jesus death
for the forgiveness of sin is proven out by the resurrection.
I'm reminded of the questions that the Pharisees had after
Jesus heals the man, remember he heals the man in Luke 5 that's
lowered down through the roof. They dig out of the top of the
roof and they lower this guy down and the first thing Jesus
says to them, it's like, friend, your sins are forgiven.
And the question the Pharisees asked him in Luke 521 is that is
that then the scribes and the Pharisees, they begin to think
to themselves, who is this man who speaks blasphemies?
Who can forgive sins but God alone?
Paul said that Jesus died concerning our sins.
He died for the forgiveness of our sins.
Who can forgive sins but God alone?
Friends, the resurrection of Christ proves that He is who He
says He is. Jesus Christ is God, the One who
has the power over sin and death.
The grave could not contain Him, sin could not defeat Him, Paul
writes he was raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures. Look with me in Romans 59 to 10.
He recognizes Paul does that. Forgiveness of sins comes
through both the death and the resurrection of Jesus, he says
in Romans Romans 5. He says, how much more than
since we have now been justified by his blood, we will be saved
through him from wrath. For if while we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how
much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by
his life? You're reconciled by the death
of your, of, of, of Jesus. We're saved by his life, the
resurrection, the power of salvation comes through the
resurrection. He's expressing here the the
importance of these components of the gospel.
He's tying them to scriptures, but he also speaks to the truth
of the evidence by reminding the Christians that like these these
Corinthians that there there were eyewitnesses that were
still alive. He says this, he says he
appeared to Cephas, also known as Peter, then to the 12.
Then he appeared to over 500 brothers and sisters at one
time. Most of them are still alive.
Some have fallen asleep. Remember we talked about that
and falling asleep to to that in that day.
It was some have died, then he appeared to James, then all the
apostles. Paul says, hey, hey, hey, you
don't have to take my word for it.
Don't take my word for it. Go ask one of the 500 people
that are still alive. Go ask them what they saw when
Jesus appeared to them. Jesus died.
He was buried, he was raised, and then he appeared to all
these folks. Go ask them.
They'll tell you it's true. One of my professors, Tom
Shrinery writes in his commentary, says this.
He says the resurrection appears to so many, have a cumulative
effect. So many different people at so
many different times were not deceived.
It appeared to all these different people at all these
different times. He's underscoring Paul is
underscoring the fact that it's really unlikely that this many
people could have hallucinated the same thing at the same time.
So there it is, the three components of the gospel.
Jesus died, He was buried and he was raised on the third day.
There it is in all its simplistic glory 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. Brothers and sisters, do you
believe it? Do you believe this to be true?
Do you recognize the meaning of the gospel, the good news that
Jesus Christ is God and He alone has the power to forgive your
sins? I ask you that do you believe it
knowing that the seed goes out over all types of soils and just
by the number of people in the room that that we have with us
on Sunday after Sunday, it's likely that some of some of you
here it hasn't taken root. So I ask you to to really
consider, do you believe the gospel, the good news that Jesus
died for your sins, that he was buried and that he was raised on
the third day according to the Scriptures.
So let's move on. So far we've seen that we must
prioritize the message of the gospel.
We must recognize the meaning of the gospel.
Now we're going to see that we must emphasize the might of the
gospel. There may be nothing more
impactful. There's some evangelist in here
that go out. There's there's in my mind.
There's nothing more impactful than sharing your personal
testimony of how God has saved you from your sin when you talk
to someone else about the gospel.
Here in the section we see a biblical example of that we see
here in eight through 11. Paul says last of all as to one
born at the wrong time. He also appeared to me, for I am
the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle
because I persecuted the Church of God.
But by the grace of God, I am what I am.
And his grace toward me was not in vain.
On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but
the grace of God that was in me, whether then it is I or they.
So we proclaim and so you have believed.
So in Paul's list of all the people that Jesus appeared to
after the resurrection, he mentions himself.
He says last of all as someone born at the wrong time.
He says this to highlight the reality of what we sang earlier
today, that without a true act of God, there would be no way
that you would believe. There would be no way that Paul
would have ever believed that Jesus was Christ.
But God did act. God invaded Paul's life.
God took a murdering zealot and made him a loving apostle.
He took a murderer who was killing Christians, and he
turned him into the guy who wrote First Corinthians 13.
Think about that. It's incredible to think about.
The conversion of Paul is one of the most incredible stories
you'll ever read. Paul was on a mission to destroy
the to destroy the church in its infancy.
We see that in Acts chapter 8 we get a glimpse into the reality
says this Paul, also known as Saul, said Saul agreed with
putting him to death, meaning Stephen.
On that day, a severe persecution broke out against
the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were
scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria, and devout
men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him.
Saul, however, was ravaging the church.
He would enter house after house, drag men and women off
and put them into prison. So Paul's trajectory in life was
pointed straight to hell. But he didn't think so, right?
He thought he was. What he was doing was honoring
God. He felt that he was acting on
God's behalf. He was zealous for the Lord.
But he had missed what God was doing.
He had missed it as if he'd been born at the wrong time.
In verse 10, we get the conjunction.
In verse 10 in First Corinthians, we get the
conjunction. But anytime you read but you
need to start looking at what's happening, He says this.
He says, but by the grace of God, I am what I am.
And his grace toward me was not in vain.
On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but
the grace of God that was with me.
Paul's trajectory in life was bent on destroying God's church,
but God had other plans. Paul calls the intervention into
his life the grace of God. Paul didn't deserve what Jesus
did for him. In fact, he deserved the exact
opposite. But Acts 9 describes the events
of Paul's conversion. It says in Acts 9, it says while
Paul was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples
of the Lord, God intervened. He blind Saul on the road to
Damascus, and Jesus himself speaks to him.
He announces himself to Paul saying I am Jesus, the one
you're persecuting. And he then goes into town where
he's visited by a disciple named Ananias who didn't want to go
because he knew who Saul was. He was terrified of making that
visit. And this is what Paul told us.
Paul is told as his sight is restored after three days of
blindness, says it says Ananias went and entered the house.
He placed his hands on him and said, Brother Saul, the Lord
Jesus who appeared to you on the road you were travelling, has
sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with
the Holy Spirit. And at once something like
scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight and then he
got up. He was baptized.
Did you catch that? That was a, that was a transfer
of this. This is a physical picture for
us. This is a transfer from darkness
to light. Scales fell off his eyes and he
was able to see again in an instant.
Jesus did that. The gospel is the only message
that has the power to take anyone from sin to salvation,
from hell to heaven, from death to life, and from darkness to
light. If you think you're too far gone
for Jesus to save you, think about Paul.
Remember what it said. It says while Paul was still
breathing threats and murder against God's people, God saved
him. If you think you're too far
gone, you're wrong. Paul's response was not to sit
by the sideline ashamed of what he had done.
On the contrary, he allowed the Spirit of God to work in him.
He says that that of those whom Jesus appeared, he had worked
the hardest, giving, giving the message of the gospel to as many
as he could. He took his calling very
seriously. If Paul had merely stopped
persecuting the church, if he had just stopped doing what he
was doing, that would have been a huge win for the good guys,
right? If he had just stopped
persecuting, stop breathing murder.
Stop breathing violence. It would have been a huge win.
But God doesn't work in small ways.
God wants to show the world just how good he is.
He demonstrated the might of the gospel in the conversion of
Paul. He took someone who wanted to
make the good news bad and made him a herald for the only one
who can save. Paul's testimony is the best
argument for the truth of the gospel.
I want to say that last line one more time.
He took someone who wanted to make the good news bad and made
him a herald for the only one who can save.
I just have to sit sit there and think about that.
He has the power to save even those who hate him so much.
If you think you've that you that you're not, you're not
there yet. If you think you're too far gone
for God to save you, you're wrong.
So I have a few final thoughts today.
As we wrap up, I want to quickly review what we've talked about.
We must prioritize the message of the gospel.
Christian brother, sister, examine your lives.
Is the gospel the priority of your heart?
Ministry leaders, those of you who have leadership in this
church, pastors down to people who serve in any, in any area,
is the gospel the center of your ministry?
I can promise you that, that all of us pastors have committed to
making the gospel the center of everything we do here at LAMC.
So I want, I want you to think about this, ask yourselves as
you're planning things for the church, you're planning events
for the church. How is this making the gospel
the central focus? How are we, how are we teaching
people who come to our to our event, who come to whatever
we're doing? How do we, how do we show them
that the gospel is central to what we do and say?
Everything we have to do has to be continually evaluated to
ensure that the good news is proclaimed.
Because we are so prone to drift outside of that, we have to be
so laser focused on making sure that what we do here is centered
on God's good news. Next, we must recognize the
meaning of the gospel. In order to be convictional in
anything, we have to understand it.
So we need to understand the gospel front and backwards.
Paul says this. He says he's not ashamed of the
gospel because it has the power. It is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes.
We believe that the gospel is the power of God for salvation
for all who believe. Remember, we are being saved,
which means we need the gospel every day.
We need it today just as much as the day we were converted.
I just I just beg you as you go home today to dwell on the truth
that you need the gospel just as much today as you did the day
you were converted. You need it.
First Corinthians, it's in in verse three to four, it says
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
He was buried. He was raised on the third day
according to the Scriptures. And that, friends, is good news.
So we must emphasize the might of the gospel as well.
So when telling others the good news, there's nothing more
impactful to remember than sharing your own story.
Share how God has changed your life.
And remember that if God can save Paul, he can save anyone.
I just want you to remember this.
It's not necessarily how much sin you've committed in your
life that's going to send you to hell.
It's not about how much sin that sends you to hell.
Your sin you were born with it is what separates you from God,
and if you do nothing about that, you will go to hell.
Living in the dark in many ways is hell already.
I just want you to know that what will keep you in hell is
the rejection of the light of the gospel.
If Paul had kept going on persecuting Christians, had he
not had an experience with the living God?
If God had not invaded his life and he had just refused to
believe, he would have remained a blind man who never regained
his sight, and he would have quickly died.
What will keep you separated from God is rejecting the light
of the gospel. If you're here today and you
feel God tugging on your heart, urging you to follow him.
If you've been a member of this church or in church since you
were eight days old and you've heard the gospel over and over
and over again and you've just resisted it over and over and
over again, friend, I just don't waste another second.
Surrender to God and recognize Him for who He is.
Jesus died for your sins in fulfillment of the Scriptures.
He was buried and raised on the third day.
And this is such good news. Who has the power to forgive
sins but God alone, friend, Jesus Christ is God, His death
atone for the sins of all those who believe.
And I urge you to put your faith in him today.
Embrace the free gift of grace in your life.
Step out of the darkness and into the light.
Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for
the good news. That is the gospel.
Thank you that you that you did not want to leave us in our sin,
but that you sent Jesus to live that perfect life and to die on
the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
He died concerning our sins to fulfill the scriptures to
fulfill your plan, your plan A from the beginning.
So Lord, I pray that that that someone here today that that
needs to put their faith and trust in you.
Lord, I pray that you would that you would you would move in
their heart in such a way that they cannot resist.
Thank you so much for for our worship.
Help us to stay centered on you and everything we do here at
LMC. Pray these things in Jesus name,
Amen.