1 Corinthians 15 1 thru 11 (2015)

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1 “What Is the Gospel?” 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (February 1, 2015) Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 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, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. PRAY We are starting a new series this morning, interrupting our series on the gospel of John for four weeks in February and, along with several churches in town (First Baptist, Christ Presbyterian, College Hill Presbyterian, and the Community Church of Oxford) and teaching on the subject of evangelism, telling the good news of Jesus Christ with others. Some of you may remember that several of the same churches did the same thing last year, except then we taught on marriage. The main reason we decided to do this last year and this year is we want to attempt to communicate to this town some sense of Christian unity. All of our churches are different, we all disagree at some level on theological issues and stylistic issues, but on the main things – the gospel of Jesus Christ, the authority of the Bible as the Word of God – we agree. We want to do something to proclaim our unity on the essentials to Oxford, and what we came up with was four weeks of preaching on the same subject, from the same texts each Sunday. And by the way these aren’t the only churches with whom we have gospel unity, but these are the only church participating this year. So, our subject for the month is evangelism. Evangelism is telling other people the good news of Jesus Christ. Some of you may be completely unfamiliar with that word, you’re new to church, and that’s great – hopefully, you’ll learn a lot about something that’s very important in the Christian life. Others of you do come from church backgrounds where evangelism was mentioned a lot, and your churches always had programs where you would go out in the community, door-to-door, on the street, on mission trips, to do evangelism. You watched a lot of Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron videos. And maybe you feel guilty because you haven’t been the evangelist you’ve been taught you should be. And still others of you come from church backgrounds where evangelism wasn’t an emphasis. Maybe evangelism was seen as something that just wasn’t done, it was kind of © 2015 J.D. Shaw

2 rude or intrusive to tell other people they needed to believe differently. You’ve seen manipulative evangelistic techniques, aggressive techniques, and you were turned off by it. So I’m sure we’ve got people from all over the map in our church. What I hope we all do in our churches this month is offer you a balanced, biblical approach to the whole subject. But before we can talk about how to do evangelism, how to tell others the good news of Jesus, you’ve got to know what the good news of Jesus is in the first place. What is the gospel? I don’t know of any passage in the Bible that summarizes the gospel of Jesus better than this one in 1 Corinthians 15. Three things: first, this gospel is news. Second, the gospel must be received. Third, this gospel, when received, will make a perfect heart. First, this gospel is news. The New Testament was originally written in Greek, and the word which is translated as “gospel” in verse 1: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you…” translates the Greek word evangelion, which means “good news.” In fact, the word “gospel” is Old English for “good news.” You could just as easily and more clearly translate verse 1 as “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the good news I preached to you…” We probably should update our Bibles but we don’t because Christians have gotten so attached to the word “gospel.” But gospel means good news. Paul, who wrote 1 Corinthians, says that this good news is of first importance, in other words, it’s foundational to Christianity. There is no Christianity apart from this good news. And that alone makes Christianity utterly unique among the world’s religions. Every other religion is based on good advice. They tell you how to be moral, they tell you how to be holy, they tell you how to do good deeds. And according to those religions, what you do is of first importance. Certainly, in 21st century America, what is seen as foundational to the good life in our culture has nothing to do with any news you might hear. In America, what are we told will bring you success, prosperity, money, happiness? Work hard, or marry rich. If you don’t work hard, you won’t stand a chance. But if you study hard, exercise hard, work hard at your job and work hard at your relationships, and if you just put forth enough effort then you can have a good life. What you do is of first importance. Christianity says “no.” What is of first importance, what is foundational, is not good advice. In Christianity, in a very real way, what you do with your life does not matter. Your good deeds, your hard work, are not foundational. What is of first importance is the good news of Jesus. So, what is the good news? Verses 3-7: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and © 2015 J.D. Shaw

3 that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” According to these verses, the good news has three components: first, we really are sinners. That’s verse 3 – Paul talks about “our sins.” Before you can understand any good news in Christianity, you must first understand the bad news. You must understand what your biggest problem in life is. Some of you walked into this room this morning and you thought your biggest problem was that you don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend. You’re really lonely, and if you could just get a boyfriend or a girlfriend everything would be fine. Or, you walked in here today and you thought your biggest problem was that you don’t have enough money to pay your bills, and if you could just get x-amount more dollars per year from your job, everything would be great. Or, you walked in here and you thought your biggest problem is that your marriage is falling apart, or your children are making horrible decisions and ruining their lives. You walked in here today and you thought your biggest problem was that Friday morning you had an appointment with your physician and she said, “The biopsy came back, and it was malignant.” All are real problems but not your biggest problem. The Bible says that your biggest problem is that you are a sinner, you’ve done bad things, you’ve hurt yourself and other people, which means you’ve broken God’s law over and over again in word, thought, and deed. And the holy creator God of the universe will punish those sins. Now of course this is an unpopular view today. A lot of people do not like the idea of a punishing God. They say they cannot imagine worshiping a God like that. They say they believe in a God that only loves and only accepts, and never punishes us for our sins. That’s understandable on one level. But just think about it like this. If, as Christians say, God is all-powerful, but he refuses to punish all the ways we hurt one another on earth, if he refuses to judge those who do incredibly wicked things, then he wouldn’t be a good God. Imagine that a serial killer was on trial here in Oxford. The jury heard the evidence, convicted him, he was guilty, no one doubted it, but when the time came for the judge to sentence the man, he says, “You know, I don’t believe in the idea of a punishing judge. I only believe in a loving and accepting judge. So I refuse to punish you, young man, for your crimes.” Would we say, “Oh, what a wise and good judge”? No, we would demand that he resign immediately from his position. God won’t make that mistake – he will punish all our sins. He loves this universe too much to allow evil to rampage unchecked and unpunished. Therefore, I don’t care what is going on in your life right now, no matter how turbulent or hard it is (and it may be hard indeed), your biggest problem is that you are a sinner and God will punish those sins. That’s the bad news.

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

4 Now, the good news: second, Christ really did die for your sins. Verse 3: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures …” Here’s the good news: rather than punishing you for your sins, as you deserve, God became a man in Jesus Christ, and died in your place. Jesus was fully God and fully man. Jesus lived a perfect life, he never sinned, he only loved his neighbor, he never broke God’s law in word, thought, or deed. And at the end of his life he was hung on a Roman cross and died in our place for our sins. God judged him as if Jesus had committed our sins, and if we believe that God will treat us as if we had lived the perfect life Jesus lived. And Jesus dying for your sins is a gift, it’s grace. There’s nothing you can do to earn it or merit it. Do you want to know what it’s like to mature as a Christian? Do you want to know how you are maturing and growing as a Christian? When you first become a Christian, you can and do believe notionally that Jesus died for you as a gift, out of sheer grace, and that you did nothing to earn it. But do you know what’s really going on in your heart? What you really believe at a deep level is that you’re special, you’re different from other people, and that’s why Jesus died for you. I mean, yes, it was grace for everyone else, but for you, well, you’re different. You’re special, you to some degree earned Jesus’ death by being who you are. Deep down we all think that heaven just wouldn’t be heaven without me. We don’t really think we need grace; we all by default think God needs us. But as you go on in your Christian life, you see more and more that you deserve the anger and judgment of God just like everyone else. The only reason Jesus died for you is grace. Heaven could very well be heaven without me, since God doesn’t need me. Yet, he loves me. Even though I am a sinner; even though I was his enemy. Romans 5:9-10: 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies [we weren’t special; we were enemies!] we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Romans 5:9-10. Third, he really still lives. Verses 4-6: the gospel includes the good news about Jesus “ … that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.” This is talking about the resurrection of Jesus, how he was dead in the tomb for three days but God raised him from the dead, and then all the hundreds of witnesses who saw him in his resurrected body. Now, why is the resurrection of Jesus part of the good news? When someone commits a crime, how do you know when they’ve completed all the punishment society says they deserve for their crime? When they are let out of jail; when their term in prison is over, and they go free. What’s the phrase often used to describe people who’ve finished their prison term? We say, “They’ve paid their debt to society.” © 2015 J.D. Shaw

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Friends, the resurrection is important because without it you would never know whether or not Jesus died for your sins; whether he really paid our debt. And that is one way the Bible speaks of our sins. We have created a debt with our sins; we owe God an unfathomable debt with our sins. Now if Jesus never left the tomb, then he could not have died for our sins. He could not have paid our debt. In fact, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:17: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” But the resurrection means that Jesus has died for your sins, he has paid the debt you owe, because God accepted Jesus’ death as payment for your sins. One pastor I know puts it like this: the resurrection is God’s way of giving us a receipt, saying that the debt you owe for your sins has been paid in full. A receipt is a wonderful thing. Whenever I pay off a debt – a loan at the bank for a car, for example – I love getting the receipt back from the teller on that last payment. It brings me such peace, such joy, to look at it. In fact, sometimes I’ll go back and pull out old receipts to be reminded of the debt I was owed but now I’m free. I’ll carry it around with me, in my car, and every time I see it I can’t help but smile. And I can’t imagine how exciting it will be in the Shaw house when I get the deed of trust on my house back from the bank – what a day of rejoicing that will be! But how wonderful it is to meditate on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and to know that the only debt you will ever have that will ever really matter has been paid in full. The tomb is empty, and so you are free! And, friends, when you begin to doubt God’s love for you, when you feel condemned for your sins, when you can’t shake the shame you feel and your hear the enemy’s lies about how God can’t love you, how nobody can love you because of what you’ve done, you can pull out the resurrection and know that Christ really lives in heaven for you. “Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea; a great High Priest whose name is love, who ever lives and pleads for me; my name is graven on his hands [how? The nails!], my name is written on his heart; I know that while in heaven he stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart.” First, the gospel is news. Second, the gospel must be received. Verses 1-2: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved …” I love that Paul says we must receive the gospel, and not just that we must believe it. Lots of people in Mississippi, I think, believe the gospel – if you ask them whether or not that believe that they are sinners, that Jesus died for those sins, and that his body was raised from the dead, they’d say, “Yes, I believe that.” I’d go so far as to say that 90% of Mississippians believe that gospel.

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

6 But I am under no illusions that 90% of Mississippians have received it. Why? Because if you have received this good news, the result must be a radically changed life. Let’s continue with our debt analogy. Suppose that you are swimming in debt: you are upside down on your house, on your cars, you have a ton of credit card debt, medical debt, and you owe an arm and a leg to the IRS. You are drowning in a sea of red ink, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars you owe. And you are extremely depressed. Just as sad and down as you can be. No one, nothing, can cheer you up. “Life is totally unfair and just miserable,” you say. But then you get word one day that you had an old maid great aunt that you never met who died and you were the sole beneficiary in her will. And it turns out she had an enormous estate. Not just hundreds of thousands of dollars, but somehow she had socked away millions and millions of dollars. So not only do you get out of debt, but you are set for life. Would you, when you receive that news, say, “Well, I’m sure there’s a lot of paperwork. I’m dreading the paperwork. You know, I’m going to have to go stand before a judge and get the money, and sign a bunch of documents, and that will be a hassle. Then I’ll have to sit down and write a check to credit card company and the IRS, put stamps on the envelope, and mail them off. What a drag.” No! You write those checks to the credit card company, to the IRS, with a smile. You’d make up a song about how fun it is to write huge checks to your creditors, and sing, and whistle, while you paid your debts. Biggest checks you’ve ever had to write, but you’d be laughing the whole time. Why? Because if you hear that kind of news, you can’t be unchanged. When you really receive that kind of news, the joy of it must to some degree overwhelm you, so that everything else in your life that’s wrong looks relatively small in comparison. It must change you. That’s what it means to receive this news. If Jesus Christ came, lived a perfect life, then died on the cross for your sins to pay the incalculable debt you owe God for your sins – if he did that – then how can you ever worry about anything in your life ever again? Friends, if in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ your biggest problem by a factor of a million has been taken care of, then how can we worry about such relatively small things – money, jobs, relationships, children? We will only worry about those things if we don’t receive the good news. I mean, if somebody spends a billion dollars on a present for you, do you think he’s going to skimp on the wrapping paper? No, and that’s all the stuff we worry about in this life amounts to. Just the wrapping paper, on the gift of eternal life and reconciliation with God that we receive in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But how will the gospel change you when you receive it? Receiving the gospel isn’t just like coming into a lot of money. The analogy breaks down there. Suddenly coming into

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

7 millions of dollars can actually be a bad thing. You know all the stories of lottery winners whose lives fall apart after they win all that money. Or, if they don’t fall apart, it’s not like all people who come into money wind up being nice people. Have you not seen this happen to someone? They make a ton of money, and they probably do know a lot about business, but very often you find they think they know about everything. Because they made a ton of money in business, they feel like they know more than the counselor about therapy. They feel they know more than the minister about theology. They feel they know more about medicine than the doctor or law than the lawyer. You can’t tell them anything. So receiving the gospel doesn’t just bring about any kind of change, but a certain kind of change. Third, the gospel produces a changed heart. First, the gospel, when received produces confidence. 10 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, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. 1 Corinthians 15:10-11. We see in the New Testament that Paul is never timid or shy or scared. He says that he’s worked harder than any other apostle, that God’s grace has been incredibly effective through him. He says, “I preached and you believed.” Paul is never intimidated. We know Paul faced down lions, governors, high priests, other apostles, and even Caesar himself. So when you receive the gospel, you should be confident. You’re a child of the king, and children don’t have to beg, don’t have to worry. You will have everything you need to do your Father’s will. Second, the gospel, when received, will also make you contrite. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.. 1 Corinthians 15:8-9. When you receive the gospel, one of the biggest changes is that you’ll find yourself broken and humbled. Paul says, “Jesus came to me ‘as to one untimely born.’” That’s a very sanitized translation of 1 Corinthians. Do you know what Paul actually says? He literally says, “Jesus appeared to me as if I were an aborted fetus.” Now, what did Paul mean by that? Nobody knows exactly why Paul used that phrase to describe himself, but the general thrust of it is clear: by comparing himself to an abortion Paul is saying, basically, I’m a nobody. In a real way I don’t matter. There’s nothing good in me. I know there’s no reason for me to think highly of myself. I have no room to boast about anything; all my righteous acts, all my accomplishments, are only filthy rags. They are worthless. When you receive the gospel it will only happen after you admit you’re a sinner, and you don’t deserve anything good at all. But once you have received the gospel you also know that you’re absolutely loved by God, so you will receive everything you could possibly imagine and more. On the one hand you know you are a sinner and have nothing in yourself, but on the other hand you also know you are saved, and have everything. And © 2015 J.D. Shaw

8 when both of those things – your utter worthlessness because of your sins yet your infinite value because Christ died for you – when those twin truths work into your heart, it can bring unbelievable change in your life. They must be both be there, but then they will bring change. Third, the gospel, when received, produces joy. We’ve already looked at that. You can’t receive the gospel without joy. Over and over again we read in the Bible that one expression of the fruit of the Spirit, of the fruit of gospel-changed life, is joy. I’ll never forget hearing a story about Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, PA, when the elders met to discuss men who could be nominated to serve as elders the next year, one of them mentioned a certain man in the congregation. And Jim Boice, who was the pastor there for 32 years, said, “No, I don’t think so – I don’t see enough joy in his life.” He wanted a gospel changed heart for every man on the session, the board of elders at his church, and he knew joy was one mark. And you add all those changes up together, and there is one inevitable conclusion – when you receive this gospel, you have to communicate it. Now, we’ll bring it back to where we began – evangelism. The heart of being a good evangelist – someone who is skilled in sharing the gospel – is not technique. That’s where a lot of evangelism training goes wrong, if you’ve taken part in that before – they focus on content and technique. “This is how you start the conversation with someone who doesn’t believe the gospel. This is how you lead the conversation. This is the gospel information you communicate.” Some go so far to say, “This is how you seal the deal with the non-Christian and make sure they pray this prayer.” Now, I’m not knocking evangelism training programs – God has used them, and they can be helpful. I’m just saying they are not the heart of evangelism. The heart of gospel sharing is to have a heart changed by the gospel in the first place. Years ago I heard a minister say something that changed by life when it came to evangelism: “you talk about what you think about, and you think about what you love.” Some of you love Ole Miss sports and hunting – is it a struggle for you to talk about it? Some of you love your kids – is it a struggle for you to talk about them? Do you want to be able to share the gospel with others? Then allow the work of Jesus on the cross to work in your heart, and then I promise – you’ll want to talk about him, because you will love him deeply, from your heart. The more you love Jesus the more you’ll long for opportunities to talk about him to others. And when they see how genuine you are about Jesus, you’ll be effective. Over the next three weeks we’ll go into more detail about that. PRAY

© 2015 J.D. Shaw