Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share The Message
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
The Message
1 Corinthians 15:3-5
March 10, 2019
Lord’s Day Worship
Sean Higgins
Download the bulletin.
Download the Kid’s Korner.
The sermon starts at 19:05 in the audio file.
Or, Reminders of God’s Central Work in Christ
Important things are things that are valuable for some reason, according to some standard. Important things are also things of consequence, that is, the effect of important things are significant. Gold is important because of what it can buy. Education is important because of what trained people can do. The gospel is important because it is at the center of everything God has done and is doing and will do.
There is no greater consequence maker than the death and resurrection of Christ. That’s not to say that the death and resurrection are the only things that are important, but apart from Christ’s death and resurrection the importance of everything else in the world is at best limited and most of it is vain.
The Corinthians were drifting from the message of the gospel and at the beginning of chapter 15 Paul states his aim to remind them about it. He preached it, they believed it and were being saved by it. In verses 3-5 he summarizes the message on the way to arguing in light of it from verse 12 through the end of the chapter.
The gospel can be stated in a sentence. In Greek the one sentence starts in verse 3 and ends in verse 8; in most English translations we get a break between verses 5-6. It doesn’t require a multitude of words to communicate it; this edition of the gospel is quite condensed. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn’t even know it could be presented so precisely (actually, they might have read 1 Corinthians). As I already said, the bulk of Paul’s burden begins in verse 12. Verses 1-11 are the reminders, the common ground, they aren’t the arguments. We could cover them quickly and get to dealing with the drifters.
Because, we’re not the drifters, right? We know this stuff. We know the basics of the gospel message. And I think that is probably true of most of us, and I think it’s also true that most of us still have much to realize regarding what we have in the gospel. Even in Paul’s brief summary there are a lot of unstated but indispensable truths behind some of the words.
The message, the gospel, the good news, reminds us of God’s central work in Christ. And when I say central, I mean the center of the most important things, the things of greatest consequence in time and eternity, in the meaning of life and death, and in God’s revelation.
We could boil verses 3-5 down to one subject with two verbs and one crucial prepositional phrase: Christ died for our sins and was raised. Who is Christ? How did He die? What does sin mean? And how was Christ raised? The answers to these questions are the reason we meet together for worship every week. The answers to these questions, along with the other truths in the verses, are the fundamentals of the faith. This is the message that defines us, the message in which we stand, the message from which we will not drift.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)
They received (verse 1) and believed (verse 2) what he preached (verse 1) and delivered. The message of the gospel is transmitted from one man to the next, from generation to generation, as the defining story. Paul learned it in Arabia, taught by God’s Spirit (Galatians 1:15-17), but this message had a defined shape from all the apostles. He faithfully delivered what I also received.
Paul delivered it as of first importance, not first chronologically as if it was part one in a series, but first consequentially, with no message that could (and will) do more.
[...]
View all episodes
By Trinity Evangel Church1 Corinthians 15:3-5
March 10, 2019
Lord’s Day Worship
Sean Higgins
Download the bulletin.
Download the Kid’s Korner.
The sermon starts at 19:05 in the audio file.
Or, Reminders of God’s Central Work in Christ
Important things are things that are valuable for some reason, according to some standard. Important things are also things of consequence, that is, the effect of important things are significant. Gold is important because of what it can buy. Education is important because of what trained people can do. The gospel is important because it is at the center of everything God has done and is doing and will do.
There is no greater consequence maker than the death and resurrection of Christ. That’s not to say that the death and resurrection are the only things that are important, but apart from Christ’s death and resurrection the importance of everything else in the world is at best limited and most of it is vain.
The Corinthians were drifting from the message of the gospel and at the beginning of chapter 15 Paul states his aim to remind them about it. He preached it, they believed it and were being saved by it. In verses 3-5 he summarizes the message on the way to arguing in light of it from verse 12 through the end of the chapter.
The gospel can be stated in a sentence. In Greek the one sentence starts in verse 3 and ends in verse 8; in most English translations we get a break between verses 5-6. It doesn’t require a multitude of words to communicate it; this edition of the gospel is quite condensed. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn’t even know it could be presented so precisely (actually, they might have read 1 Corinthians). As I already said, the bulk of Paul’s burden begins in verse 12. Verses 1-11 are the reminders, the common ground, they aren’t the arguments. We could cover them quickly and get to dealing with the drifters.
Because, we’re not the drifters, right? We know this stuff. We know the basics of the gospel message. And I think that is probably true of most of us, and I think it’s also true that most of us still have much to realize regarding what we have in the gospel. Even in Paul’s brief summary there are a lot of unstated but indispensable truths behind some of the words.
The message, the gospel, the good news, reminds us of God’s central work in Christ. And when I say central, I mean the center of the most important things, the things of greatest consequence in time and eternity, in the meaning of life and death, and in God’s revelation.
We could boil verses 3-5 down to one subject with two verbs and one crucial prepositional phrase: Christ died for our sins and was raised. Who is Christ? How did He die? What does sin mean? And how was Christ raised? The answers to these questions are the reason we meet together for worship every week. The answers to these questions, along with the other truths in the verses, are the fundamentals of the faith. This is the message that defines us, the message in which we stand, the message from which we will not drift.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)
They received (verse 1) and believed (verse 2) what he preached (verse 1) and delivered. The message of the gospel is transmitted from one man to the next, from generation to generation, as the defining story. Paul learned it in Arabia, taught by God’s Spirit (Galatians 1:15-17), but this message had a defined shape from all the apostles. He faithfully delivered what I also received.
Paul delivered it as of first importance, not first chronologically as if it was part one in a series, but first consequentially, with no message that could (and will) do more.
[...]