Amen. Thank you, Mother and Daughter Hyatt. The
beautiful song, Jesus led me all the way. Would
you make your bible please and turn with me to
the Book of 1 Corinthians as we look together
today during this chapter. We turn now. We are
eventually going to come to the end of 1 Corinthians.
We've been studying this book since the month
of January. And as we get to chapter 15, we come
to the end. and one that's going to take several
weeks for us to process, and then we'll wrap
it up by the holiday time. Let me begin reading
today in verse one of verse 15. Now I make known
to you, brethren, the gospel which I preach to
you, the gospel you receive, and the gospel you
stand. My gospel you are saved, if you hold fast
the word which I preach to you, unless you believe
in me. By the liberty you have the first importance,
by all coerced deeds, that Christ died for our
sins, according to the Scriptures, and that he
was buried, and that he was raised on the third
day according to the Scriptures, and that he
appeared to see the Son of Man of the Twelve.
After that he appeared to more than five hundred
men at one time, most of whom remained until
now, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared
to James, and then to all the apostles, and after
all, as it were, to one untimely born. He appeared
to me also, and to me, and to all of you. For
I am the least of the apostles, and am not yet
to be called an apostle, because I constitute
the church of God. But by the grace of God, I
am what I am, and His grace for me did not covene.
But I think I've seen it more than all of them,
yet my eyes are the grace of God with me, whether
they're my or they, so we preach, and you believe.
Some components are essential to the very nature
of things. In the last couple of years, I've
tried to learn a little bit about the computer.
But I have learned that you can't learn. programs
on the computer and you can unload them. You
can take them off. I have learned that you can
add hardware and you can remove hardware. But
there's one piece of a computer that has to be
there for to be a computer, and that's the hard
drive. And when you lose that hard drive, what
you have is a piece of junk. You don't have a
computer any longer. A hard drive is a simple
to the nature of the given. Take away a football.
And you no longer have a football game. You can
play a game with other kinds of balls, drop them
down the field. You can even try to check around
balls once or twice. But it won't be a football
game because a football is essential to a football
game. But they gather true atoms of hydrogen.
and want to have some oxygen if you have what?
Take away one of those atoms with hydrogen and
you have what? Hydrogen. Oxide. Alright, I don't
know if that was 80 or 802. Don't know what you're
saying. Yeah, I can tell you that. You take away
one of those atoms with hydrogen, you don't have
water anymore because... You have to have that.
It's essential to the nature of water. Take away
the alphabet, and no longer have a language that's
written. Take away the staff, and you no longer
have, once it is needed, that is, and you no
longer have music. You can have notes on the
table, but it won't be much of an evidence that
they have a staff just by meaning to those notes.
Take away the musical resurrection. of Jesus
Christ and you no longer have the gospel. Further,
take away the resurrection of Jesus Christ and
you no longer have hope of a future resurrection
for you and me. Both resurrections now of Christ
and now of the human race are essential to the
Christian message. Now, of course, there were
some who were denying the resurrection of believers.
They had accepted the resurrection of Christ,
but apparently their Greek philosophy was still
influencing their thinking about the resurrection
of different beings. Plato thought that the body
is evil, that it's the soul that is immortal.
on the body as a temporary prison with the soul
as a sleeping mid of the body the better off
you are. That kind of thinking apparently hung
on through the prison. St. Paul the Freak here
asked him to figure out what to do. He did fine
until he came to the point of his judgment that
he mentioned the judgment that is coming, which
God has guaranteed. by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. And when he mentioned the
resurrection, immediately they began to fear
and to mock him, because they, the paradise intellectuals
of the day, did not accept the idea of resurrection.
Chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians has been called the
great resurrection chapter of the Bible. Chronologically,
it comes with reference to 55 A .D. or thereabouts.
It really is the first written account of the
resurrection. Now it's not in American form like
the Gospel, but it's the first written account
of the resurrection and it is a strong claim
to the reality of Christ's victory over death.
All of this is possibly a paragraph we've played
around to or very frequently. The words are gospel
and grace. Of the 155 times you find the word
grace in the New Testament, the third of them
are in false letters. Paul used these two words,
gospel and grace, more frequently than all of
the other New Testament writers combined. He
loved these words. Michael Kershaw. Paul wants
to say to us in this text. It is that the gospel
is the means for God's grace to be realized in
your life. The gospel is the means for God's
grace to be realized in your life. We're going
to break this text up into two pieces. The first
part is the gospel of Christ, verses one through
eight. He recounts, for example, the record of
the Gospel. Our salvation, folks, is rooted in
historical events. It is rooted in the biblical
record of the fall of man, the promise of the
Redeemer, the choice that they were had when
he received as the specific life through whom
the Redeemer would come, the birth of the Redeemer,
his life. climaxed by his death, burial, and
resurrection. The gospel cannot be divorced from
the historical aspects. The gospel of Jesus Christ
is not merely theoretical or philosophical. It
is not just a moral ethic or a set of ideas.
The gospel is a truth that is willing to The
gospel is the record of God's selfless intervention
on behalf of His fallen creatures. It is God
acting in time and space to carry out His eternal
purpose of glorifying Himself by rescuing unworthy
sinners from our deserved destiny. His death
is given by Paul as or our sins. His language
is taken to mean as a substitute for our sins.
He died in our place as a substitutionary death
according to the scriptures. That is a fulfilled,
God -established plan of promises throughout
the Old Testament scriptures. In his burial here,
but that was the point of the question and the
controversy that was in court. Paul says that
Jesus appeared four times, he emphasized this,
after he loathed, he appeared, he appeared, and
he said that he would live some 25 years. were
still living, who could attest to having seen
the risen Christ. He does note that some of them
have fallen asleep, which is a metaphor for death.
And that really introduces what he wants to talk
about, because he's going to talk about the fact
that those who have fallen asleep are not lost.
Under these verses that we've read, he emphasizes
the the fact that Jesus lives. And hundreds could
testify to having seen again the living record.
The evidence of the resurrection was demonstrable.
It was undeniable. His enemies weren't able to
contain the truth. An agnostic professor was
once talking to a little girl who believed in
Jesus Christ. They said there have been many
who have claimed to be Christ. How can you be
so sure that you believe in the true one? Without
hesitation the little girl said, I believe in
the one who rose from the dead. There have been
many who have claimed to be Christ in history,
but only one. and that is our Lord Jesus Christ.
The record of the gospel. Paul then tells us
a little bit about the responsibility of the
gospel because he says, this is what I preached
to you. The word preached here used twice in
verses one and two. It literally means, this
is what I gospeled to you. It's the word form
of the noun gospel. It's the good news. I delivered
to you. Paul uses the word here that means I
passed it on with a sense of authority. I was
authorized to give this to you. But Paul is saying
here is that the possession of the gospel brings
responsibility. not that we worship the Lord
Jesus Christ or that we gather to prepare ourselves
to do certain things. The point of the whole
mission is in the last few words that says to
be a visualization of the world. That is why
we gather together that we might worship and
prepare ourselves for the being that God has
created. to do, and that is to share the gospel
with the world. I don't know how many of you
saw any of the Thomas Keepers assembly yesterday,
but you left your hand. Let me ask any of you
who were there, go back in. We had some more
traveling this morning, and others flew in earlier
this morning on that 747. But I'll tell you,
my heart was blown yesterday, because I heard
Greg Loring first, and then others after him.
to pray the gospel uncompromisingly, unhesitatingly
with those million and that million men crowd
gathered there because of the millions beyond
that who have watched it over several million.
That is what it's about, sharing the gospel as
the responsibility we have in us. The Lord has
authorized us, as in both cases, to deliver it.
The response of the Gospel is also meant to give
the response to the Gospel, all as which you
receive. And he equates in verse 2, notice, with
the fact that they believe. At a point in time,
they heard, and having heard, they receive, they
believe that they are basically the same thing.
It doesn't say that they work. that they received
it as a gift. This is the gift of God, which
we put alive in Jesus Christ, our Lord. As many
as we've seen, yet for them they gave the card,
become the sons of God, into those who believe
of his name. John wraps both two words together
also. The response to the gospel is to receive
it, to believe on it. He talks to us about the
fact that there's a result for the Gospel. And
it is that these Christians having received and
believed were saved. He says, by which you are
saved. It's in the present tense. It means by
which you are being saved. It is passive. They're
not saving themselves. Someone else is doing
the act of saving. but it's an ongoing process.
Only before the fact that additional people were
getting saved in Corinth, that may be what he
has in mind. I rather think he's talking about
the truth, that while we have been saved at the
moment of our belief in Christ, we're also in
the process of being saved from the power of
sin. We are being kept. which is really the second
thing that he says here regarding the result
of the gospel. Notice he says, by which you are
being saved if you hold fast the word. The fall
constructs this in such a way that it's presumed
that... unwarningly holding fast to what had
been delivered and preached to them. What we
have here is the canthroly perseverance of the
saints, one of the great doctrines of the Word
of God. Willis Berkoff defines the perseverance
of the saints by these words. He says it's that
continuous operation of the Holy Spirit in the
believer. by which the work of divine grace that
is begun in the heart is continued and brought
to completion. And so the perseverance of the
saints that is continuing to hold to the word
is really the work of God's Spirit in us, keeping
us, securing us. And so he explains to us wonderful
things about the gospel and its power. Billy
Graham tells the story of talking to a gentleman
in Russia many years ago and learning this story.
That's after the Bolshevik revolution, a local
communist leader gathered a certain village together
to preach to them the virtues. communism, and
it supplanted their minds from religion, which
Marx called the gopheate of the people, the drug
of the people, to keep them in bondage. This
communist leader hurrayed into the people of
the village for a long time, and then, potentially
pointed to the pastor of the church in the village
and said, I will give you five minutes. to reply
to what I said. The pastor immediately said,
I do not need five minutes, only five seconds.
And the Baptist stood up and went to the platform
and said to the village government there, the
lawyer is risen. And there's one, the village
answered back, he is risen indeed. The kindness
officials took it up and let's sit down. and
failure. Yet you hold fast the word that was
preached to me, the result of the gospel. And
now let's move ahead into the second part of
the paragraph which deals with the grace of God,
God's saving grace, esteem, and mercy. born,
he appeared to me. Paul was thinking of his conversion
of the road to Damascus when Jesus appeared to
Paul. He describes himself as one untimely born.
He is one who has suffered miscarriage. One who
has been aborted is the idea. Paul is thinking
here perhaps of a couple of directions. First
of all, he was not a normal member of the apostolic
band. They had seen Jesus earlier. A down year
later, he had seen Jesus. But he says a miscarriage
that implies something earlier than what would
be expected. So Paul may have been thinking too
of the fact that he, as a Jew, had believed on
Christ. I had. of national Israel. The Jews of
the nation have rejected Christ. The key, by
God's grace, has been saved. They have believed
on Christ. And so Paul's salvation here may be
thought of as a picture of the future restoration
of Israel. For Christ will appear to national
Israel and the nation will be converted in a
day. And yet for this reason writes Paul, I found
mercy in order that in me as the foremost Jesus
Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience
as an example for those who would believe in
him for eternal life. Paul was talking here about
the saving grace of God that he had experienced.
I hope that you've experienced that saving grace.
Would John Linton of old can truly Admire that
grace as you sing, amazing grace. How sweet the
sound saved a wretch like me. I once was lost,
but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see
the saving grace of God. Then Paul goes on to
talk about the serving grace of God for a verse
5, he says, I'm the least of the Apostles who
have not fit to be called an Apostle because
I've persecuted the Church of God and by the
grace of God I am what I am. Paul says not only
did God's grace save me, God's grace called me
to serve. He said the one who had persecuted
the Church of God, here I am now, unworthy as
an Apostle of that The very church both did not
boast to himself, but he boasted in what Christ
had made of him. Certainly this sense of unworthiness
on Paul's part is one that all of us can likely
identify with. As he said earlier in this very
book, what do you have that you did not receive?
Whatever we have, folks, we've received it from
God. And if you and you do have some capacity
to serve Jesus Christ, then that is the serving
grace of God in your life calling you out, sanctifying
you, setting you apart to a role, to a purpose,
to function within his body. of God's grace that
is God's strengthening grace. For he says, his
grace toward me did not prove vain, but I have
labored even more than all of them, yet now I
have the grace of God with me, with God's calling
from God's enablement. Has God called you to
be a leader in your shell -grewed dogma? a Sunday
school class of boys and girls. With God's calling
will come God's enablement. That's what Paul
is saying here. God's strengthening grace, the
resurrection, provides us with this power to
live our lives and to make our mark for Christ.
It is a wonderful thing to know that God has
only saved us from hell that he has given us
a wonderful destiny. And that destiny involves
being involved in serving God in this world,
and then in the world to come. Great Glory. This
book asked me a promise to keep the door open
a couple of years ago in private life. Any questions?
And in the book, he talks about a gentleman by
the name of George Little, who was a British
agnostic in the last century. Mr. Little set
out to prove to himself and to the world that
the New Testament lacked credibility. To do that,
he determined that he would undermine the foundation
of the Christian faith by getting to the truth
about Paul. And so he delved into Paul's life.
He read everything that he could read about it.
He absorbed what had happened to this man. And
his conclusion was remarkably different than
the thesis he began with. To sum it up in one
sentence, here's what he discovered. All of conversion
and apostleship alone, duly considered, are a
demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity
to be a divine revelation. He says when I look
at what happened to Paul, there's only one explanation
and that is what he believed and what he will
claim was the truth. But you're thankful for
God's grace and for the gospel that releases
God's grace in your life and you believe in that
gospel. Because God's grace Changing you and
transforming you for the power of the resurrection.
Are you serving God in the power of Christ's
life? And God wants you to realize and to experience
the power of His grace today. And that grace
comes to us. This is the depth that we remember
as we come to the table at this point. As we
partake of these elements. As partake of them
realizing they represent the gospel, the gospel
of Christ. As partake of them giving. that saves
us, calls us to purpose, and strengthens us for
whatever God's purpose is in our lives. As your
word says, forgive one another. Just as God,
for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. As we partake
of this cup, there's the gratitude for it that
we are being issued. Not only for us, but for
others, who have yet to believe. We have shed
it that we might be forgiven. Thank you. your
desire to give to the elders and the poor benevolents.
You may do so by dropping your gift in the box
at the back exit as you leave this morning. That
will be our way of collecting that. Secondly,
if you are a guest here this morning, we again
welcome you and I and some others that we hear
at the back in our reception area. I hope that
you'll come by and see us. And let's look at
it personally. Would you do that? Let's stand
together, please, and sing the first verse. of
day. great one another.