Homemade! Week 4: The Gospel is the Glue | 1 Corinthians 15

Hi, it's Pastor Jonathan, and thanks for downloading the FBC El Dorado Sermon Podcast.

In today's message, we will conclude our current series Homemade as we consider the idea that the gospel is the glue.

This morning I have, you know, a confession to make.

I've got something I gotta get off my chest.

I love pizza.

Um I love thin crust pizza, and I love deep dish pizza, and I love hand-tossed pizza.

I love just like a plain cheese pizza.

I also love a pizza that's piled high with meat.

I love a pizza that has is loaded down with vegetables.

My love for pizza, it started all the way back in elementary school.

I took my lunch almost every single day in elementary school, except for pizza days.

Yeah.

There was just something about that rectangular slice of pizza and the way it fits so perfectly in the lunchroom tray with that side of whole kernel corn and that soggy, sad side salad that just like made my day.

And then like my love for pizza, it went to a whole other level when I went to Waschita.

Because in the Washita cafeteria, pizza's like manna from heaven.

They serve it daily at lunch and dinner.

And then as a newlywed, um, Lauren and I, there was this little pizzeria close to our um apartment in North Carolina, and this little pizzeria served up delicious slices of New York style pizza.

And now, as a 40-year-old father of two, um, I I gotta tell you, I still love it.

I love frozen pizza, I love pizza from like Little Caesars, I love pizza from Main Street, like a chain pizza, especially local pizzeria, uh, something from the freezer section.

I'm good with all of it.

Like, there is not a bad pizza in my book.

And recently my love for pizza uh took another step forward because I discovered I not only love to eat pizza, I actually love to make pizza.

And the pizza I make in my house is way better than anything I get out of the freezer section, any way better than anything I buy at a restaurant.

Because what did we learn three weeks ago?

Homemade is better than store bot, and it's certainly true when it comes to the pizza I can make in my kitchen.

Now, a great homemade pizza, it starts with a good crust.

Like you can't buy the crust in the can.

You don't want to buy a pre-made uh crust from the refrigerated section.

You want to make the crust at your house.

And it really just takes a few simple ingredients.

Uh, there's four dry ingredients that I use for my crust.

It's just a couple cups of flour, a packet of instant yeast, a teaspoon of kosher salt, a teaspoon of sugar, and then to that you add a tablespoon of olive oil, and then you add three-quarters cup of warm water.

And make sure it's warm, guys.

Has to be warm.

If it's cold, what won't happen?

The yeast won't activate.

And then if it's too hot, what are you gonna do?

You're going to kill the yeast.

You see, cooking is a lot like science, right?

And what you do is you mix all those ingredients in a in a in a bowl and it makes this little dough ball.

And yesterday I made a dough ball and I just want to show it to you.

Because you put it in a bowl and then you let it rise, and this is the dough ball I made yesterday, so everybody can see it.

This this is making excellent pizza crust.

So here's what I'm asking.

I'm asking no one come and touch my dough ball after the service so that I can use it later today and make myself a pizza.

And this dough ball is a perfect starting point for a homemade pizza.

It's gonna make an amazing crust.

But here's the thing.

Yeah, that that dough is that perfect starting point for a homemade pizza.

But more importantly, and that's saying a lot because we're talking about pizza this morning, um, this dough can actually teach us a very important lesson about homemade disciples.

Again, what did I say?

This dough is just the mixture of four dry ingredients and two wet ingredients.

And then those ingredients, those six ingredients, they have been combined and now they make a shape.

They've been given a shape, the shape of a ball.

And then if you get out your rolling pin, you can give it a whole other shape.

You can make it into a rectangle, you can make it in into a circle.

Or you can think of it this way: those six ingredients, four dry and two wet, they were all separate at the beginning when they went into the bowl, and now they've been mixed together and they are united with one another.

They cannot be separated, they cannot be taken apart.

So here's the question then.

What gives shape to this dough?

What unites those six ingredients so that they can never be separated ever again?

Maybe you think it's the mixer.

Yeah, the mixer that gets going, you leave it on about three or four minutes and suddenly you've got this dough ball.

It's not the mixer.

The mixer is not what gives it shape.

The mixer's not what unites the ingredients.

Instead, what actually unites those ingredients and what gives them their shape in that ball, then later on you can give it a different shape as you make that pizza, is something called gluten.

Who likes gluten in here?

Yeah, right?

And others of us, we can't like, yeah, I know, I know.

Some of us, Phil, I'm sorry, you can't enjoy the wonder of gluten uh for health reasons.

Uh gluten is this protein that's found in wheat and barley and rye, which means it's found in all sorts of flour that we use uh for baking.

Uh so it's important gluten is when you make any type of dough, because gluten is the glue.

It's what gives the ingredients their shape, it's what unites them.

It's the glue that allows you uh to roll out a pizza crust.

And if I were way more talented this morning, it would allow me to toss a pizza crust, like, hey, hey, there we go, and I toss it up in the air and spin it around.

It's the glue that shapes and unites those six ingredients so I can bake another homemade pizza crust.

And the the principle of this crust that it requires a glue.

It's a principle that also applies to the church.

If you and I, if we want to make another batch of homemade disciples, we need a glue that holds the ingredients together, that gives them shape, that unites them, and not just any glue will do.

Today we're wrapping up this series called Homemade.

And over the last three weeks and today in week four, we've been thinking through the complementary roles that our homes, your family home and your church home play in the process of making disciples.

And in today's message, we want to identify the glue that gives the disciple-making process shape, the glue that unites your home with your church family home.

Or think of it this way: if you desire everyone who lives in your family's home to have a growing, thriving relationship with Jesus, you're gonna need the right glue to shape and unite your home.

Or think of it this way, if we desire our church family to be a family that truly fulfills the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, we need the right glue to shape our life together and to unite us together.

Or think of it this way: if we desire the dozens of families that are represented in this sanctuary and online and on the radio, if we desire for those dozens of families to be part of one big local church family that works together for the sake of making homemade disciples, we need the right glue in place, we need the right substance, the right thing that holds us together, that unites us and gives shape to us.

And if gluten is the glue for a homemade pizza crust, then the gospel is the glue.

The gospel is the glue that must be present if we want to produce another batch of homemade disciples.

The gospel is the glue, the gospel shapes and unites.

When we say the gospel is the glue, listen, we are in agreement with the apostle Paul.

Listen to what he says in Philippians chapter one, verses three and five.

He says, I thank my God every time I remember you.

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

The gospel is the glue that unites Paul.

Remember, Paul, when he writes this letter, he's living in house arrest in Rome.

And the gospel unites Paul, who's living under house arrest in Rome, to a church that is about a thousand miles away in Philippi.

Even though Paul and the church at Philippi are separated by this vast difference, because of the gospel they could work towards and seek to achieve the very same goal.

In each of their own contexts, house arrest in Rome, a city in Asia Minor, Paul and that church, they were each seeking in their context to make another batch of homemade disciples.

And the glue that united them, the glue that shaped them was the gospel of Jesus Christ.

They were partners in the gospel from day one.

They were working towards the same goal.

But here's the really important question: What is the gospel?

What is the gospel?

Again, the Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

He says, Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.

By this gospel you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you.

Otherwise you have believed in vain.

Verse 3, for what I received I pass on to you as of first importance, 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 that he appeared.

1 Corinthians chapter 15, much like Philippians chapter 1, reminds us that what?

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention Philippians 1 · chapter mention

The gospel is the glue.

And in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul emphasizes and he teaches us just how sticky and strong the glue of the gospel actually is.

If you look about halfway through verse 1, my translation in the NIV, it uses the phrase, the gospel I preach to you, you could quite literally translate that phrase, the gospel I preach to you this way.

It could be the gospel I gospeled to you.

Or then at the end of verse 2, uh the NIV uses this phrase, the word I preach to you.

You could literally translate that phrase, and it would not be an overstatement to say the word I gospel to you.

And it wasn't just that Paul taught or preached that gospel.

That is now the gospel on which the church at Corinth stands.

It was the gospel that they received, it was the gospel that is saving them.

So here is a 100% simple observation about 1 Corinthians 15.

It's all about the gospel.

The gospel is the glue, it shapes and unites.

The shaping begins as the church at Corinth what?

Receives it and is saved by it, and it brings unity to that church because now that church in Corinth, what do they do?

They stand on the gospel they've received.

It shapes them, it unites them.

But back to that question: what is the gospel?

To answer that question, pay attention to these key phrases in 1 Corinthians 15.

Christ died.

He was buried.

He was raised.

Notice those four phrases.

Each of those four phrases, what does it do?

It names a critical moment in the life of Jesus Christ.

A critical moment that without that moment you cannot tell the story of Jesus Christ.

So here's a definition of the gospel.

What is the gospel?

This is how Scott McKnight, he's a well-known New Testament scholar.

Listen to his quick statement about the gospel.

He says this.

What is it?

The story of Jesus Christ is the saving news of God.

The story of Jesus Christ is the saving news of God.

That definition reminds me of a hymn I grew up singing at my home church.

Those words that Fanny Crosby wrote so long ago.

Tell me the story of Jesus.

Right on my heart, every word.

Tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard.

Listen, friends, the gospel is the glue that can shape your family and shape our church family.

The gospel is the glue that can unite your family and this church family because only the gospel tells the story of Jesus Christ.

Listen, it's only the story of Jesus, it's only the gospel that guides us and leads us to a place we otherwise would want to avoid.

Everyone in the ancient world would want to avoid a cross.

But because the gospel is the story of Jesus, because we are people who are glued together by the story of Jesus, it's what shapes us, it's what unites us.

We have to go and travel to a place that otherwise we would want to avoid.

And at the cross, one of the things we realize is that Jesus identified with you and me.

At the cross, Jesus experienced, listen, the full pain that comes with the human condition.

Just how deep and extreme that pain can be.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And at that point, here's how the gospel shapes your family.

How the gospel can shape our church family.

We are not people who run or hide from pain.

We don't run or hide from personal pain.

We don't run or hide from the pains of the world because we know that we can tell God all about it.

Because He has already seen it, He's already experienced it.

We can tell God about the personal pains of our life.

We can tell God about the global pains that ravage our world.

We can tell God about the pains that leave us feeling vulnerable.

And the pains that wake us up in the middle of night in a cold sweat.

And when we tell God those pains, because Jesus at the cross identified with us, we find comfort in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We realize when we confront pain, we don't have to self-medicate, we don't have to run away, we don't uh have to uh look to some addiction that will destroy us.

Instead, we can run to the God who wants to save us and we can be honest about the pain.

We don't have to act like it's not there.

It's there.

And the gospel comforts us in that moment.

Because the depth of our pain, it will not surprise God, nor will it catch God off guard.

And it's also at the cross that Jesus died instead of us.

Jesus, he stood in our place.

He shouldered the punishment due to our sin.

And according to Scripture, that punishment is double.

There's both the physical death and a spiritual death.

But Jesus went in our place.

He shouldered that.

He carried that.

He carried the shame and the guilt of our sin.

What does that mean to let the gospel then shape your home?

Shape this church home?

Shame and guilt have no place in homes where the gospel is the glue.

We don't shame people for an obvious mistake.

We don't shame people for an obvious choice.

We don't shame people and let their past hang over them.

We don't shame people and tell them that they are their, they are defined by their worst moment in life.

Shame and guilt have no place here.

Because Jesus bore the shame, he bore the guilt, and he offered us grace.

That love we don't deserve.

So we offer that to one another.

We offer that in our homes.

And then the gospel becomes the glue that shapes our life.

And it's at the cross that Jesus did something for us, too.

His death offers a word about the forgiveness of sin and an opportunity to be reconciled with God.

So in our homes, if we want the gospel to be the glue, we have to be people who freely forgive.

Seventy times seven, Jesus says.

He says that he was went to the grave, that Christ was buried.

By entering into the tomb, Jesus entered in fully into our death.

Jesus goes into the tomb, and when he enters into the tomb, what does he take with us?

He takes with him the sin that brings about death.

He puts the sin to death.

He puts it in the ground.

He puts it in the grave.

So in the gospel, at this point, this chapter of Jesus' story shapes us.

It tells us because of what Jesus has done, there is no reason if you are a follower of Jesus, if you're empowered by the Holy Spirit, there's no reason to continue to be enslaved to sin.

You can be free.

Within our homes or your family's home and our church home, this means that we can be people who what?

Who take captive every wicked thought, who are people empowered by the Spirit because of the truth of the gospel can flee from every temptation, no matter how alluring it might be.

But praise God, the story of Jesus.

Listen, it doesn't just leave, it doesn't just go from cross to tomb and leave him in the tomb on the third day.

Jesus walked out of the tomb.

This chapter of Jesus' story shapes your family's life and it shapes the life of our church because we are people who tell and testify about the reality of new creation.

Death has been defeated.

Practically, here's what this means.

We refuse to be people who live by the mantra that's just the way that the world works.

Why would we want to live according to the way that the world works?

In all seriousness, why would we want to live and accept the way that the world works?

The world rejected Jesus.

The world crucified King Jesus.

Instead of saying that's just the way the world works, we should have this joyful defiance in our hearts and say, that's the way the world works, but not the way that God works.

That's not what God is up to in this world.

And so we are people who, in every moment, in every instance, we exhibit love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

We are people who defy the way of the world because Jesus has overcome the world.

Jesus walked out of the tomb.

He's alive.

Listen, for the gospel to be the glue in your family's home and in your church home, we have to draw upon the story of Jesus.

All the stories about Jesus, we need to teach those stories.

We need to use those stories as words of encouragement in our life.

We need to use the stories of Jesus and see them as words of challenge to our hearts.

Every parable, every miracle, every teaching, every conversation is a story we need to read, we need to cherish, and we must apply.

And the parts that we don't want to read, the parts that we don't want to cherish, those parts that we're like, I'm not applying that, that's the place we need to read and we need to cherish and we need to apply, and we better pay attention to it.

Because that's the gospel where it challenges everything we think is right and true in the world, and it says, that's not God's way.

The gospel and only the gospel is the glue that will allow us to make another batch of homemade disciples.

Because only the gospel tells the story of Jesus.

And this gospel, listen, it not only has the power to shape us, to shape your family's home, and to shape the life of this church.

It also has the power to unite us.

Check out that final phrase that Paul uses.

Here it is.

And that he appeared.

And that he appeared.

It's a reference to the final 40 days of Jesus' earthly ministry, the 40 days between Easter and Ascension.

During those 40 days, what Jesus does is he publicly announces to the world, I'm alive.

Death did its best, but God had another plan.

He tells them, Don't worry about me, I'm the crucified Savior who is now risen again and will come again.

But before that day comes, church, you have a mission to fulfill.

You see, over those 40 days, Jesus spends time with his disciples and he commissions his disciples to take his story to the world.

During those 40 days between Easter and Ascension, Jesus unites his disciples around a single message: the gospel.

The gospel is the glue that unites God's church throughout the generations, around the world, across denominational lines.

And what the world and what our country needs now, more than anything, is a church that is united around the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I don't have to tell you, we live at a moment in our country, in our culture, and just really around the world that everything feels fractured and divided.

Where everything feels like everyone picks aside on very divisive topics and we just put our heels into the ground.

And I, you can have an opinion, and it's fine to have an opinion.

It's fine to have a strong opinion, it's fine to understand your opinion.

I'm not telling you not to have an opinion, but I'm just reminding you that if we are followers of Jesus, what unites us must be stronger than what divides us.

And the gospel is stronger than what could ever divide us in this world.

It means, you know, churches, we don't want to see one another as competitors.

Trying to like get our market share.

Divided along denominational lines.

Instead, we just focus on the kingdom of God and we are united by the gospel message.

And it doesn't mean our differences are going to disappear overnight or ever disappear before the coming of King Jesus.

Once again, unity is not uniformity.

Unity in the context of the church consists of possessing a common allegiance to the same core beliefs and values.

A common allegiance to Jesus and the gospel, even if there are differences among us.

The well-known pastor and author Tony Evans puts it this way.

Listen to what he says.

If a choir is singing in great harmony, it's not because they are singing the same parts.

It's because they're adding their part to the same song.

It is the goal that produces the unity.

Unity is not sameness.

Unity has to do with the same purpose.

Our common purpose is to declare the story of Jesus, to live according to the story of Jesus.

And we, listen, we must work together, even with people we disagree with, because we agree on the gospel.

The gospel and the gospel alone is the glue that can unite disciples.

Some folks, due to health complications and for other reasons, maybe just wanting to live a healthy life, they opt for a gluten-free diet.

Sounds pretty terrible to me.

Cut out many things in life that I enjoy.

So if that person who has a gluten-free diet is craving a pizza, they have to look for alternative crust options.

They sell these things called cauliflower pizza crust.

Sounds very uninteresting to me.

How can you ruin such a good thing?

No.

Now, my friends who are gluten-free, they actually tell me they're delicious.

And I've decided I'm going to trust them because what?

We all have differing opinions on things that don't really matter in life.

And maybe it is true that you can uh get by with a gluten-free crust and your pizza life will be okay.

You can still enjoy a pizza and watch the football game.

But let me tell you what you can't get by with.

Let me tell you something that won't survive.

Yeah, you can have a gluten-free crust, but you cannot have a gospel-free church.

There is no substitute for the gospel.

If we desire our family homes and our church homes to make homemade disciples, the gospel is the only glue that can shape and unite us because only the gospel declares the story of Jesus.

And says the story of Jesus is the saving work of God.

And that's why the gospel is good news.

It tells the story of Jesus, the only Son of God who came into this world to fulfill God's promise, to announce the coming of God's kingdom, and to offer salvation and reconciliation to the entire world.

This morning I'd miss the boat, though, if I just told you about the gospel, explained the gospel, and didn't say, do you need to respond to it?

Are you ready not just to make a decision for Jesus, but to become a disciple of Jesus?

By saying, Jesus, I want to step inside your story.

Jesus, I want to put my faith and my trust and my allegiance with you.

And I want to begin to live according to your way in the world.

I want to believe that you are the one who will fulfill all my deepest desires and emotions in this world, that you are the one and the one only who can forgive my sins, and I know my sins are many.

Jesus, I want to follow you because I know you will lead me to the places God has designed for me to go.

The gospel is good news, listen.

Because it introduces you to Jesus Christ.

Do you need to meet Jesus this morning?

I promise he's ready to meet you.

Let's stand together and pray.

Almighty God, faithful Father, we thank you for sending Jesus.

We thank you for giving us your word that tells us and recounts for us the story of Jesus.

That through his story we see how you are saving, you are rescuing, you are redeeming people, you are healing them, God.

Father, send your Holy Spirit in this place to let the gospel seed and bloom.

That the gospel seed would put down deep roots among us.

That the gospel would shape homes, that the gospel would be what unites us.

Forgive us, Lord, when we put other things above the story of Jesus.

And God, I pray that as you minister in this moment, that you would draw those who are far from you, close to you, through the story of Jesus Christ.

In his name we pray.

Amen.