I have entitled our sermon this morning “The Gospel Message.” I wish to speak about the foundational truth at the heart of the Church that defines who we are as Christ-followers; and that is, the basic salvation message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Humberto Medeiros said, “The Church is not here to be popular, but to proclaim the good news of the gospel to those who like it and to those who don’t.” Oswald J. Smith asked, “Why should so few hear the gospel again and again, when so many have never heard it once?” John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States (1825-1829), stated, “My hopes of a future life are all founded on the gospel of Christ.” The word “gospel” is from the New Testament Greek word euangelion meaning, “good news.” Therefore, it is something that we should never hold back from preaching in our churches, or anywhere else.
I like preaching to the Church, and helping the saints of God grow and mature in their relationship with Jesus; however, there are often people in the pews who don’t have a personal relationship with Christ, and who don’t even know how to receive Him into their heart. There are likely times they will walk away from a church service and still not understand how to have a relationship with Jesus. They can enter the church building lost in their sins, and then depart after the church service is over still dying in their sins. The reason why this happens is because pastors and churches all too often fail to preach the simple gospel message.
It’s easy to spend our time preaching to the saints and forgetting the lost; to become distracted by trivial matters such as debating theology or politics; or perhaps, to find ourselves arguing about the color of the carpet or fussing over money matters. Unfortunately, it’s possible for believers to forget the ones who are lost and dying in their sins; however, we must never fail to recall that it was on account of the lost that Jesus came into this world. Jesus declared, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
It is good to teach Christians and help them grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ, for this is part of the Great Commission of “teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20a). Also, we need to study theology to know what we believe. There is also a time and place to become involved in political matters. However, our first priority should be to seek and to save the lost; and we do this by communicating with them the basic gospel message of Jesus Christ.
This morning, we are going to examine some words of the apostle Paul; and for Paul, the only thing that was important in his missionary efforts was “the gospel message.” In 1 Corinthians 2:1-2, Paul told us, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Paul didn’t approach people teaching them with deep philosophy or lofty theological tenets that he had learned in his rabbinical training; but he taught them the simple gospel message of Jesus Christ being crucified on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. This is the message that we will look at today; and it is the good news of Jesus Christ!
Basics Truths of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
Right here Paul laid out for us the basic gospel message. He provided three concepts that we must come to understand and embrace in order to be saved, and to inherit eternal life in the kingdom of heaven. Here are the three points he presented: 1.) Christ died for our sins; 2.) Christ was buried; and 3.) Christ rose again the third day. This morning we are going to look at each individual point and come to a basic understanding of how to be saved. What do you think we will discover? The Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman tells us, “In the gospel, we discover we are far worse off than we thought, and far more loved than we ever dreamed.”(1)
Christ Died for Our Sins
The first point is that “Christ died for our sins.” Probably all of us have heard the story of how Jesus was crucified on a cross. But why did Jesus have to be crucified? What was the purpose for His cruel death? Notice how Paul stated that Christ died for “our sins,” and the key word here is “our.” Jesus didn’t die for any sin that He committed, for the Bible tells us in 1 John 3:5, “He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.” Jesus never sinned; therefore, He was not killed for any crime He committed.
Jesus died on account of our sins; and each and every one of us has committed many sins. Romans 3:10 says, “There is none righteous, no, not one,” and Romans 3:23 tells us, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” It is extremely important that we understand how Christ died for “our sins.” Jesus stepped in and took our place in death so that we might live.
Why did Jesus have to “die” for our sins? We read in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.” Our “earnings,” our “payment,” and our “punishment” for sin is death; and this is a reference to “spiritual death.” The Lord does not strike our body dead whenever we sin; otherwise no one would be alive right now. What happens is that our soul dies when we are living in sin. Spiritual death is equal to spending an eternity in the flames of hell.
Hell is a reality. Dr. K. P. Yohannan, founder and director of Gospel for Asia, says, “In His earthly ministry, [Jesus] made more references to hell and judgement than He did to heaven. Jesus lived with the reality of hell, and He died on Calvary because He knew it was real and coming to everyone who doesn’t turn to God during his life.”(2) The reason why Jesus died for “our” sins is so that we don’t have to die for them, and so that we don’t have to spend an eternity in the flames of hell. Jesus died that we might have spiritual life forever in the kingdom of heaven.
Not only do we die a spiritual death for living in sin, but we are separated from God. Here is an illustration I have shared with you before: The word “sin” is from the Greek word hamartia, which means “missing the mark.” It was an archery term that was used when people were practicing with a bow and arrow. If a person was aiming at the center of the target and missed it, then someone would yell out “hamartia,” meaning, “You missed the mark!” Sin results in us missing the mark with God.
Isaiah 59:2 says, “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” Our sin results in us being imperfect; and imperfect people cannot come into the presence of a perfect and holy God. We are separated from God by our sin, as though there were a huge chasm standing between us and the Lord. In Luke 16:26 we are shown that if we die in our sins, without knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that there is a permanent gulf fixed between heaven and hell that can never be crossed. Ron Mehl, in his book Love Found a Way, shares an illustration concerning the great distance that exists between God and human beings:
Whenever I drive to the East side of Portland over the Marquam Bridge, I’m reminded of what it took for God to save us. On the upper deck of that two-decker freeway spanning the wide Willamette River, you can catch a glimpse of an exit that drops off into empty space.
When the bridge was built back in the mid-1960s, it was designed so that it could accommodate an east-running freeway still on the drawing boards, which was to be known as the Mount Hood Freeway. But the freeway was never built. Oregon voters opted for a light rail line instead, and plans for the highway were scrapped.
Even though there is no Mount Hood Freeway, you can certainly see Mount Hood from the top deck of the Marquam Bridge. On clear days it looms on the eastern horizon – a symmetrical, snow-capped beauty. And if you look carefully, you can see how the bridge was built to accommodate a freeway lane veering off to the southeast. It juts out just a bit from the bridge structure, and then is cut off as though sliced by a giant knife.
The “exit,” permanently blocked, now goes nowhere – except into the waters of the Willamette River that is far below. You can see Mount Hood in all its beauty, glistening like a jewel in the distance. But you could never, never reach the high slopes of that mighty peak via the Mount Hood Freeway, because the freeway doesn’t exist.
That’s a picture of man’s relationship with God. We might understand there is a God and even yearn to reach Him across an impossible distance. We might recognize His power and glory, His majesty and goodness, and desire with all our hearts to know Him and be with Him. But the distance is too great. The gulf is too wide. Only through Jesus Christ can we cross that gulf to God the Father.(3)
Jesus is the bridge to cross the great divide. He died for our sins in order to bring us into a right relationship with God. Because Christ died for our sins, the Lord sees our sins no more, and our sins don’t hold us back from Him any longer – that is, if we have accepted Jesus into our heart. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 says, “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.” Jesus is our mediator, our peacemaker, and our bridge between God and man. He died for our sins to make us clean and pure in the eyes of God, and to close the gap and place us in right standing with God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 states, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Christ Was Also Buried
Paul not only tells us that Christ died for our sins, but the second point is that “Jesus was buried.” We just learned in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that Christ became sin for us. The Lord Jesus “became sin” by taking all our sins on Himself. He bore the weight of all the sin of the entire world from the beginning to the end of this world’s existence. That is the reason why His death was so horrible and cruel. Jesus bore all the world’s sin on Himself when He was crucified; but He also bore all the world’s sin when He was buried as well. In other words, He took our sins to the grave!
The sin in our life has been killed, destroyed, and buried so it can no longer plague us with its consequences. The wages of sin is death; however, we no longer have to die, for death itself has been defeated. 1 Corinthians 15:54-55 says, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting?” Death has been defeated, for Jesus took the cause of death, which is sin, and He buried it in the grave. For those of us who have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, sin no longer has any victory over our life.
Later on, after having confessed Christ, we are supposed to be baptized, and Paul tells us in Romans 6:3-6 that baptism is symbolic of dying with Christ. Baptism represents dying to our former life of sin, and the putting away of that life of sin. When Jesus was buried our sins were buried with Him; and whenever we become a believer, we identify with Christ through baptism in order to show that our former life of sin has been buried, that it has been put away, and that is no more.
Christ Arose from the Grave
Christ not only died and was buried, but He also “rose again the third day.” It is awesome that Jesus died for us, but His death alone would not have conquered sin. Sin is what sent Jesus to the grave; not His sin, but ours. Death is the end result of sin, and if Jesus had only died and that was the end of the story, then Jesus would have been defeated by sin, and we too would still be trapped in sin. However, Romans 6:9 shares the following good news: “Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him.” His death was not the end of the story, because He rose from the dead on the third day; and Jesus defeated sin by rising from the grave.
When Christ arose He showed Himself victorious over sin and death. Not only was Jesus victorious, but we too are victorious. If we will believe in Him as our personal Lord and Savior, then we too will one day rise over death. Paul tells us in Romans 6:5, “For if we have been united in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.” If we will choose to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ, and crucify and bury our former life of sin, then on the day that our physical body passes away, our soul will be resurrected with Jesus to live with Him in the kingdom of heaven forevermore.
Time of Reflection
What we have come to understand from the gospel message is that if we know Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, then 1.) all of our sins will be erased, and Jesus will become a bridge to bring us back to God; 2.) all of our sins will be buried in the ground and forgotten; and 3.) we will one day rise into eternal life in God’s heavenly kingdom.
How do we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior? Romans 10:9-10 tells us, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” If you will sincerely believe with all your heart that Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and raised to life from the grave in order to conquer sin and death, and if you will confess your belief in Him, then you will receive eternal life.
NOTES
(1) Steven Curtis Chapman, Speechless: Living in Awe of God’s Disruptive Grace (Zondervan, 1999).
(2) K. P. Yohannan, Revolution in World Missions (GFA Books, 2003), p. 91.
(3) Ron Mehl, Love Found a Way (Waterbrook, 1999).
