Back To Basics

Good morning. It is good to be with you all this morning.

I'm excited to be here this morning and preaching God's Word this morning.

As you may notice when I'm reading our passage, it is not Genesis this morning.

We are in the New Testament today. The Genesis series was great.

I know I've talked to a lot of people who really, really liked it, and it was a lot of fun.

But we have finished that series. And so we will come back to Genesis at some

point in the, you know, next year. At some point in time, we'll come back to that.

But we're, and then as Mario mentioned this morning, we're gonna start another series next week.

So we've got a standalone sermon this morning where we're gonna jump into 1 Corinthians 15.

So let me start by reading that to us.

Now, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you,

which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

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, then he appeared to more

than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive,

though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all,

as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Let's pray as we begin here.

Jesus, God, I pray that you would speak to us today.

God, I pray that you would open our ears to hear what you have to say to us.

You'd open our minds to perceive what it is that you're communicating to us.

You'd open our hearts to receive what you're saying.

God, I pray that anything of me today would be forgotten.

But God, your words are eternal. God, your words are life to us.

So God, whatever it is that you speak to us today, your grace,

your mercy, your truth, I pray that it would go deep within our hearts. and change us.

So we thank you, God. We thank you for bringing us here today.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

So there's another scripture passage that's in the New Testament.

So we've been in Genesis in the Old Testament, and today, 1 Corinthians,

what we just read, is in the New Testament.

There's another passage in

Luke 24 that I've always found really interesting and kind of inspiring.

It's often titled, The Road to Emmaus, or the Emmaus Disciples, or something like that.

And you have these two disciples of Jesus, and they're walking along the road.

And Jesus has been resurrected at this point in time in the story,

but they don't know it yet. They don't realize that yet.

And they're talking about the events that have happened. They're arguing about

the events that have happened.

And while they're doing that, Jesus comes up alongside of them and starts walking

with them. But they don't realize that it's Jesus.

And so he's walking along there with them, listening, and he's talking with

them. And he's having conversation.

And he even says that, Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,

he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.

I mean, that'd be kind of cool, right? To have Jesus doing that.

Even if you don't know that it's Jesus, like that would be pretty cool to experience that.

And so as they're walking, though, it's getting late in the day.

And so like, hey, you shouldn't be out on the road anymore. Why don't you come

in and stay with us for the evening?

And so he goes in with them and he stays with them having a meal and everything.

And they're having more of a conversation.

And the way the Bible kind of portrays it is kind of interesting.

It's almost like the moment that they realize who it is that they're talking

to, he disappears and he's just gone.

And that would be kind of wild in and of itself, just for somebody just to disappear like that.

But as he disappears, the two disciples, they said to each other,

weren't our hearts ablaze within us while he was talking with us on the road

and explaining the scriptures to us?

And it says they got up at that very hour. Jerusalem is about seven miles from Emmaus.

And so they've already invited Jesus in because it was dark and it was getting

late. You shouldn't be out on the road.

And yet, this conversation they had with Jesus inspired them so much that at

that very hour, they got up and left and returned the seven miles to Jerusalem.

And I've always been drawn to the part where it says, weren't our hearts ablaze

within us while he was talking to us?

And that they're so moved that they would do something that's kind of seemingly

irrational to get up and go seven miles on foot back where they had come.

But I know what they're talking about. I know that feeling.

And I know that many of you know that as well, what that's like.

When we first met Jesus ourselves and heard the gospel, it was like something

inside of us was awakened that we just hadn't known before.

And we couldn't have seen before without God opening our eyes to it.

I remember I was 19 years old when I encountered Jesus. After spending most

of my life in the church, it finally sank in.

And I found that freedom and that beauty and that life that Jesus had for me.

And it impacted me so greatly. It changed me.

It was a number of years later that I was gripped again, just listening to a

gospel message, hearing a gospel message preached and I went, oh my goodness.

Gosh, I need that. I need more of that.

And so Jess and I, we packed up when we moved to New York City because we wanted

to be there where that was happening and learn more about that.

There's this principle in physics called resonance, and I think it's kind of

a really interesting thing. Here's a description of it.

So resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when an object or system is subjected

to an external force or vibration whose frequency matches a resonant frequency of the system,

defined as a frequency that generates a maximum amplitude response in the system. You guys get that?

We good? Yeah.

Good. Just wanted to make sure.

I think an example is probably better to understand what resonance is.

Resonance, so you go home and you get two wine glasses. The ones that have the

stems on them seem to work the best. Maybe you did this as a kid.

Pour some water into one of the glasses, you get your finger wet,

and you rub it around the rim of that glass. And what happens when you do that?

It makes a noise, right? It kind of sings, as you might say.

So what's cool, though, is you can take the other glass and you can fill it

up with about the same amount of water.

You might have to mess with it just a little bit. same amount of water,

and you do it again to that glass.

Let's do it again to that one glass, and what you'll find is that the other

glass starts making noise as well, because there's a frequency that they both

share, and they both begin to sing at that moment.

So why have I given you a brief and imperfect physics lesson here?

I think it's such a great picture of what happens when we see the gospel,

when we really encounter Jesus.

Not the Jesus who we think he is, but the Jesus and who he really is,

our hearts begin to sing.

Our lives take on new meaning. We begin to walk in a way that we haven't been able to walk before.

But all too often, I think we're living not in resonance, but in dissonance.

We struggle to connect with God, to see Jesus properly, and to live out the

gospel message in our everyday lives.

We struggle sometimes, don't we?

And that's the kind of story that the church of Corinth was struggling with

and that Paul is writing to here in 1 Corinthians.

They're living more in dissonance with God than in resonance with him.

They're more out of step with Jesus and his ways.

Corinth itself as a town was an extremely diverse city. Lots of cultures that were there.

It was between two major shipping ports, which means that it just brought in

all of this diversity into that area.

And they kind of oversaw these ports that are on either side of it.

And so because of that, you have all of these different religions,

all of these different people groups that are there, all of these different

ways of life that people are living.

You've got temples, you've got idols everywhere all over the city.

They've got all of these pagan practices that are happening.

And a lot of these things are kind of making their way into the church a little bit as well.

And so you've got this church that's there that's just super divided.

And they've already written Paul, one letter that we have evidence of,

where they're asking questions.

And we see that in this letter, Paul's writing to them again.

And he's just saying, we've got to deal with these issues that you have going on here.

It even starts off, the book starts off with him reminding them,

hey, listen, it's Jesus that you follow.

It's not Paul. It's not Apollos. It's not Cephas or Peter.

As you might say, Cephas means Peter. It's not any of these. it's Jesus.

Let me remind you of this. It's Jesus, guys. You seem to have forgotten.

It's Jesus that you follow.

And it just gets worse from there when you start looking at the church.

Paul comes on pretty strong in 1 Corinthians as he's talking to them.

What you find is, I mean, this church is messy. There's sexual immorality just

rampant in the church all over the place, including incest at one point in time, apparently.

They're dealing with issues of meat sacrifice to idols.

It's almost like they're asking, like, how far can we, like,

dip our toes into the world and, like, still be okay? Like, keep doing what we're doing.

They aren't approaching the Lord's Supper properly. There's issues of injustice in the church.

There's social discord, unbiblical forms of just classism, the wealthy are mistreated,

taking advantage of the poor.

I mean, it's a mess. It's a mess.

And one of my study Bibles, I thought it actually kind of, you know,

encapsulated it pretty well.

It says, at the root of their disunity lay an arrogance that was incompatible

with God's free gifts to them in Christ, wisdom, righteousness,

sanctification, redemption.

In addition, self-centered insistence on their own rights at the expense of

the weak and marginalized revealed that their own social advancement rather

than the gospel's advancement was their top priority.

Their own social advancement rather than the advancement of the gospel.

The gospel was was too inconvenient for them.

They wanted their own social advancement. It kind of reminds me today of the

social media culture that we live in, the promoting of ourselves over God and His ways.

The assistance of our own rights at the expense of others. Can't we just let love be love?

Isn't this my body to decide what I want to do with it and how I live?

I mean, it sounds a lot like the culture that we're living in today.

I've heard people say that the church today could use another letter from Paul.

I think we already have one. Maybe we just need to read our Bibles and meditate

on it a little bit more. Amen.

So Paul is addressing all of these concerns, and we get towards the end of this

letter in 1 Corinthians 15, and he says this, now I would remind you,

brothers, of the gospel I preached to you.

I think it's appropriate that it comes at the end of the letter.

He's addressed all of these things, and then he says, no, let me remind you

what's going on here. Let me remind you what's important.

And so he says, I want to remind you of the gospel. Gospel means good news.

We're going to get into this, you know, a lot more here in just a moment.

But at its root, it means good news, which would probably be a really good name

for a church. Someone should do that.

But we're going to get deeper with that in a second. And Paul has preached this to them.

He has come to them and told them, it's this good news of Jesus and what he

has done for us, his saving of us.

And he's telling them, he's reminding them of which you have received.

They've received this gospel.

It's been there, they've received it. They have believed this already.

And he's been there, he's preaching, he knows them. He knows what they believed.

He knows that they have said, we're going to follow Jesus. This is what we're going to do.

And so you've already received this and you've taken a stand on it.

You've taken a stand on it. To follow

Jesus is to take a stand and not to acquiesce to the world around us.

It's to take a stand for what he says and the way that he's taught us to live.

We don't live by our own feelings, our own desires, our own rules.

We live for Jesus and his ways.

His church here on earth shouldn't look like the rest of the world around us.

You take your stand that there is a better way to live, and even if it costs

you your social standing, even if it costs you money or your reputation,

even if it costs you the pleasures that this world offers. You follow Christ.

That's what you have taken your stand on.

So Corinthian church, you've believed a different way, but now things are messed up. You're arguing.

You have to remember you've received this. You've taken your stand on it and

you're being saved by it, being saved.

Not you were saved, you are being saved. They already were saved,

but this gospel is not just for the past.

It's not just one time thing that we get, but we get to be saved today and we

get to be saved again tomorrow.

It's for the past, the present and the future.

As God refines us, as he moves in our lives, and as he changes us.

And so as Paul says, I want to remind you, brothers, of the gospel,

this thing that you've received and taken your stand on and are being saved by. You need a reminder.

I remember a number of years ago listening to a pastor who was preaching on

the gospel, and he said something to the effect of, you know,

I have to be reminded of the gospel all the time.

I have days where I just need to have a call with a friend and say,

tell me the gospel again.

I need to hear it again. Remind me.

Because like the Israelites in the desert, we so easily forget. We forget.

The church at Corinth needed to be reminded. And so he begins to remind them,

for I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received.

For I delivered to you as a first importance. The gospel is a first importance.

It's the foundation of our faith. everything hinges on this,

which you'll see as we get into this a little bit more.

The gospel is the foundation. It's the most important thing.

In many ways, what Paul is saying to the Corinthian church is,

guys, we've got to go back to the basics here.

We've got to go back to the foundation of which you first took your stand on, the basics.

I used to be a musician. I played the French horn in high school.

I went to college initially to play the French horn as a music major.

And do you know what was still assigned as part of my first year?

And then even with that final exam, that first year, this was assigned to me.

Scales. That's it, scales. I could walk in that exam, they could ask me any

scale and I had to know it right then and play it for them.

Any scale they gave me. Why is that?

Because just about any piece of music that we play is going to be based on one of those scales.

And so to know those scales is important.

The basics. I was talking with some real estate agents just this week,

and we were talking about the fact that you can have all of these amazing technologies

right there at your fingertips.

But if you're not doing the basics, the foundation, the fundamentals,

your business is going to struggle.

The gospel, this good news, is the basic foundation. for the Bible and for really for our lives.

And so we've been talking about it now, this gospel. What is this gospel?

What is this good news exactly?

So 1 Corinthians 15, three through four. For I delivered to you as a 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.

So it begins with Jesus, that Christ. And so who is this Jesus?

Who is he? And we could say a lot here. We could spend our entire time on it

this morning. I'm talking about who Jesus is.

But it's very briefly, he's God.

So the Bible tells us that he's God. He's a part of the Trinity,

this Godhead, as we might say.

And we look at the Bible, we find that Jesus is part of this Trinity,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

He's a Son of God that we find in the Bible here.

And when Paul talks about him, it's well recorded that Jesus walked on the earth.

Even if you're not a Christian, we know that, that he walked on this earth.

The question is, was he God or was he not?

And so what Paul tells us though, is that what did he do here?

Paul says that Christ died, that Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

So when Paul says in accordance with the scriptures, what exactly is he referring to there?

There's two basic schools of thoughts that we can look at. And it's good to

remember that Paul is talking here.

And so he doesn't have the New Testament there with him.

I mean, he is going to write a lot of the New Testament. So maybe he has letters

already in his pocket. So maybe he does have part of the New Testament with him at the time.

But no, what we're talking about, Paul's going to be referring to the Old Testament generally.

And so when we look at the scripture passage, we look at what Paul's saying here.

We can look and we can find a few scriptures in the Old Testament,

like Isaiah 53, Psalm 22.

That fit pretty well with, especially with the part about Jesus dying on the

cross and dying for our sins.

We can find those and go, oh yeah, that really matches pretty well.

I however think that he's referring to the fact that these gospel themes seem

to be pointed out quite often all over the place in the Old Testament.

And at the time, they might not have realized it. Actually, at the time,

they wouldn't have realized it if they're in the Old Testament.

But Paul, from his perspective and from our perspective as well,

after Jesus has come, after the resurrection, we can see it all over the place.

Do you remember just last week, Doug was preaching up here, and he talked about Abraham and Isaac.

And he related it to Jesus going up a mountain with a cross on his back.

Abraham and Isaac going up a mountain with wood on their backs for a sacrifice.

And talking about three days as well. It's all over the place.

Other scriptures point toward Jonah being in the belly of a whale for three days.

Being in the belly of a whale, a place of death, and then being spit back out

onto the earth, kind of resurrection.

It's all over the place. And if you want some really great examples,

if you want to see it, there's a really great Bible out there that we've read

to our kids. It's called the Jesus Storybook Bible.

It's a book for kids and for adults, if we're being honest.

Read it to my kids. And what's fantastic about this Bible is that the author,

she wrote into it all these different stories from the Bible,

all these Old Testament and New Testament stories.

And in every single one of them, she points to Jesus in there. It's phenomenal.

I highly recommend Go get it, it's awesome.

But the Old Testament, and even when we see, he's talking to people on the road

to Emmaus, he showed himself to them in all of scripture.

Jesus in all of scripture. So when Paul is saying that according to the scripture,

I think he's pointing out that Jesus is all over the place.

He's had his fingerprint all over the place.

That Jesus died for our sins and rose on the third day was being prepared for

us from the very beginning of humanity.

I mean, look at the very first sin that happened, Adam and Eve,

and they sewed fig leaves together.

And God comes and goes, nope, nope, we can't do that. What did he give them?

Animal skins. And where did he get those?

From the animals that they had been naming.

The sacrifice had to be made. Blood had to be shed.

And it's setting us up for this ultimate good news that Paul is referring to here.

And I want to take a look at this phrase that Paul chooses for us,

good news, because I think that we hear that often.

Even if you're a new Christian, you've been around the church a little bit,

you maybe heard this phrase, good news, the gospel, that word means good news.

But I think it means a little bit deeper than maybe what we think about it sometimes, times.

Because we get good news, we get bad news, but we're familiar with that,

right? We can have good news.

Congratulations, good news, you got an A on that exam.

Good news, you're going to have a baby. Good news, you made the team.

Good news, you got the job, right? And those are all examples of good news.

Those are great things that happen in our lives.

But this good news that Paul is talking about is different.

And I think he uses the word very deliberately. The word gospel comes from the

Greek word euangelion. How about that?

Euangelion. And if you look at it, you can kind of see the word.

It kind of looks like evangelism, doesn't it?

So we kind of see there's some roots that are going on here.

Euangelion, this word gospel. And N.T. Wright helps us a little bit as he talks

about the history of this word. It's quite interesting.

So in the Greek world, as well known among scholars, and this is N.T.

Wright's quote here, euangelion is a regular technical term referring to the

announcement of a great victory or to the birth or accession of an emperor.

And we have historical examples of this proclamation, this good news is going

out as victories are won.

A messenger would be sent to a town to say, good news, a victory has been won.

And so we see that word being used. Now we might hear it today in a different context.

We hear it in the Bible, that's the primary word where we hear the word gospel.

We might hear it said like, oh, and that's the gospel truth, right?

We've heard that. That's how we kind of heard the word in our cultural context.

But when that word's being used, they are not saying, and that is the good news truth.

Like, they're not saying that. They're more saying, like, this is the undisputed

truth, which doesn't really fit with the way that the word gospel is used.

In ancient history, a gospel proclamation was a proclamation that a great victory

had been won, or that there was a new emperor or ruler.

And so when you think about it this way, when your people have won a great victory,

that's way better news than you getting an A on a test.

Because that means that you don't have to worry about an invading force heading for you.

You don't have to worry about being attacked and you now having to fight for your life.

This is really, really good news. Or that a ruler, a new ruler is coming into power.

And we know like this is subjective to rulers, but every ruler pretty much thinks

that they were the best one. So they're coming along, good news.

I am your new ruler. You get to now obey me and what I'm telling you to do.

But we see how it's been used. It's very different than how we might think of good news.

A victory has been won.

And here's the thing. If you're the one hearing about this, it also meant that

you weren't fighting the battle. You weren't there.

It's a victory that has been won on your behalf.

A new ruler has taken the throne, which means that you now have new rules to obey.

This has a massive impact on your life. This isn't just good news.

This is huge news that impacts the very way we live.

So when we hear that Christ died for our sins, it's this proclamation that a

new ruler is in town and he's won a battle for you on your behalf that you didn't have to fight.

And frankly, a battle that you couldn't win anyway. I mean, think about this,

what Jesus said. There's a section of Scripture, Matthew 5 through 7, called the Beatitudes.

And in this Scripture, Jesus is teaching the people there, and he's referencing

a lot of different things.

But he talks about some of the rules they would have been familiar with,

with like the Ten Commandments.

But he takes these things, and he makes them far more applicable to their hearts

and what's going on in their hearts.

And so he says things like, You have heard that it was said,

Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.

But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

And whoever says to his brother, fool, will be subject to the Sanhedrin.

But whoever says, you moron, will be subject to hellfire.

Probably some of us said, you moron driving here to church today,

looking at traffic around us, right?

I mean, is this really good news? Let's keep going. You've heard that it was

said, do not commit adultery.

But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed

adultery with her in his heart.

So if you've ever struggled with lust, yikes.

You've heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that

you'll be sons of your father in heaven.

There's a whole bunch more of these phrases just like this. all over the place

in the Beatitudes and other parts of the Bible, the New Testament.

And they don't really sound like good news to us, do they? When we just read that.

And we take them for what they are. It kind of sounds like terrible news.

Why? Because we've all done these things.

I mean, probably just in the three that I read there, and there's a whole bunch

more, you've probably done one of those three, at least, probably all three,

for really looking at it. Thank you.

So what do we do? I am a rather large J.R.R.

Tolkien fan, and in his work, Lord of the Rings, one of my favorite books,

there's this hobbit creature, and he's really not the strongest.

He's not the bravest. He's not the biggest. He's not the most adventurous,

but he's tasked with carrying this all-powerful ring to destroy it.

And as many have said, many commentators on the books have said,

this ring almost looks like the burden of sin that we have in our lives.

And it's his to bear and it's his to destroy.

And you realize as you're watching this that it's against all odds.

He's got to go to Mount Doom and it is against all odds that he is ever going to get there.

I mean, there are entire armies that are coming for him.

There's entire evil forces that are trying to come and attack him and take this

ring back for themselves.

And you read it and you're like, there's no way. There's no way he's going to make it. He can't.

I mean there's just too much but against all odds he gets there and what happens

when he gets there to the fires of Mount Doom to throw the ring in and destroy it,

he can't do it he can't do it it's taken hold of him he's traveled all of this

way to do this one task and when he gets there he can't do it,

isn't that like our sin,

we can't get rid of it.

We can want to get rid of it, and we seem not to be able to.

We can try, and we can try, and we can try.

And if we're honest, sometimes I think we kind of enjoy our sin.

We like to hold on to it. We kind of like it.

But maybe we get to that point where we want to get rid of it,

and so we go, I'm going to get rid of it. Okay, I'm not going to sin anymore.

And so often we just turn around, and there it is again. We just did it again.

We really can relate to Paul in Romans 7 when he says I do the very things that I do not want to do.

Jesus in the scripture has this way of helping us to see that it's not just

that there's a battle to fight. There's a battle against sin.

We can't win on our own. We can't do it.

In fact, it seems like we lose the battle before we even really begin to fight. So what do we do?

Well, let me tell you, I have some euangelion for you today. okay.

Christ died for your sins. He did what you couldn't do for yourself.

He fought the battle for you.

This message of good news that you've been waiting for has arrived. Jesus is the victor.

He's done it. He's won. He came toe to toe with sin and he won.

But we might look at it and go well it doesn't really look like he won I

mean it looks like he died taking on our sin and so what do we say to that well

Paul continues that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture

that he was buried that he was also raised on the third day in accordance with

the scriptures Jesus died for our sins and was buried but on the third day,

well he didn't stay dead and I think that sometimes we forget that the resurrection

is part of the gospel message.

We focus so much on Jesus dying for our sins, which is great.

And I think we do that because sin looms so large in our lives.

And we look at it and go, oh my goodness, he died for our sins. This is fantastic.

But why is that part of the gospel message? Why is that?

Later in 1 Corinthians 15, 17, Paul says, if Christ has not been raised,

your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. So what Paul is saying

here is that if Christ hasn't been raised from the dead, then we've got a big

problem because he isn't who he says he was.

He just wasn't. Or maybe he was who he said he was. Maybe he was God and he

took on sin on our behalf, but then it got the best of him.

It overpowered him. And if it overpowered him, then what does that mean for us?

But as Paul continues in verse 20, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

And as if to prove it towards the end of our passage that we read this morning,

he creates a list of people who are witnesses of the resurrection.

And that he appeared to Cephas, again, that's Peter, then to the 12,

then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still

alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles.

Last of all is to one untimely born, he appeared to me.

The resurrection proves that he is who he says he was and that our sins are truly taken away.

It's not just Paul saying this. There's a whole bunch of people who witnessed

it, who were there, who saw it.

This is real. He really did it.

Christ died for our sins and was raised on the third day.

And this euangelion, this message, this proclamation, it's all throughout scriptures.

Just a couple. 1 John 3, 5. You know that he was revealed so that he might take

away sins, and there is no sin in him.

Romans 8, 1 through 4.

Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus. That's good news.

Because the Spirit's law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did.

He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own son in the flesh like ours

under sin's domain and as a sin offering in order that the law's requirement

would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh,

but according to the spirit.

This gospel, this good news, the punishment that we deserved was taken by him for us.

And as humans, and I think this is just in general, not just for Christians,

I think in general, as humans, we long for this.

We want it, we desire it. We desire the news that someone has come to help us.

Someone has come to rescue us. I don't know if you've noticed,

but life can be a little bit exhausting and stressful at times.

Just in this room right now, there are people, maybe you're doing great,

but there's still probably a little stress somewhere. in your life.

There's also people here today who are just under the crushing weight of burdens

in your life with crazy amounts of stress going on.

How often do we wish that someone would just take care of it for us? Just deal with it for me.

And look at the stories that are told in our books, our movies, our TV shows today.

So often we see a people needing to be rescued. I mean, the best moneymakers

in the box office are the ones where a civilization is needing to be rescued

and you have a hero that comes along.

Oftentimes a great sacrifice to themselves to save others.

I mean, this message is just woven everywhere within humanity.

I think we all long for it. We're hardwired for this gospel message.

We desire it so deeply within us.

And when we see it, when we truly see it, we realize that that's what we've

been waiting for this whole time,

that we're in need of him, in need of a savior, in need of rescue. We're in need of Jesus.

Some of my favorite scriptures echo this need that we have.

When we are weak, he is strong. His power is made perfect in what?

Our weakness, our need.

Trusting and looking not to ourselves, but to Jesus, our Savior,

our gospel. He's our good news.

In the great hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, the hymn writer begins,

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace.

Tune my heart. I like that. It reminds me of this idea of resonance,

that our hearts need to be fixed.

But when they are, when we allow Jesus, even as it says here,

not that I'm going to tune my heart, but tune my heart, Jesus. Tune my heart, God.

Because when it's tuned, and it gets aligned with you, That's where the song

really starts to matter.

Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be.

Let that grace now, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above.

God wants our hearts to sing of his goodness, of his rescue,

of his salvation. of his resurrection.

And Paul's reminding the Christians that are there. We know that there's a lot

of Christians in this room, but not everybody's a Christian that's here.

There's people here who have never believed, who have never taken that step.

What the Bible says is that we believe in Jesus, we repent of our sins.

We follow him. We follow his ways. We follow what he calls us to do.

The scripture tells not not out of an obligation to follow rules but out of

an obligation because we love him because of what he's done for us and out of

that we get to follow him and obey what he tells us to obey,

but sometimes we forget and when we do we need a reminder of the gospel the

good news that Christ died for our sins was buried,

and was raised on the third day let's pray,

Jesus I thank you for your word this morning I thank you for leading us today,

I pray this gospel message you would remind us of it you'd remind us of who you are,

we just thank you God we thank you for all of these things for coming and saving

us in the name of Jesus Amen.