True Good News

Hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. It's where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2022, Lord willing, we'll make it from the book of Acts through the book of Philemon. And we're at First Corinthians, Chapter 15, the first roughly 11 verses. Let's have some coffee, pray and get into God's Word.
Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this beautiful day. Thank you for your word. We pray that as we read your word that you would attend to it by your Holy Spirit. Please, God, teach us this morning what you would have for us to believe in Jesus's name. Amen. All right. We're at First Corinthians chapter 15. First Corinthians chapter 15, and we're at the first 11 verses. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the first 11 verses.
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. and that he was seen by Cephas and then by the Twelve.
After that, he was seen by over 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all, he was seen by me also, as one born out of due time.
For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed."
Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what are the best verses or what's the best verse to summarize this section? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words, right? What do we do about this? So A, what is this about? Well, Paul's going to tell us a couple things here.
First, he's going to tell us about the gospel. And he's going to tell us about the veracity of the gospel. And then he's going to tell us how he became a minister of the gospel.
So first, what is this gospel? What is this good news? Well, he says, I declared to you the gospel, which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand. What is this good news? That's what gospel means. Evangelion. What is the gospel? Well, he. He kind of summarizes it, doesn't he?
Verse three. that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Verse 3. Verse 4, and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. The Messiah has come. And the Messiah died for your sins and for mine, according to the scriptures, according to the prophecies given in places like Isaiah chapter 53. And he rose again from the dead, just like the sign of Jonah was going to be fulfilled. And so he died and he was raised again from the dead. This is the heart of the gospel, the incarnation the active and passive obedience of Christ and his resurrection from the dead.
This is according to the scriptures. This is the hope that verse two, it says that you hold fast to the word, which I preached to you. Right? This is, this is what they're clinging to, that the Christ has come according to the scriptures and the veracity of this. The truth of this is what he points out. and that he was seen by Cephas and then by the twelve.
Cephas is the name for Peter, right? When Jesus was first risen again from the dead, it was John and Peter after Mary, right? They ran to the tomb and there Peter goes in first. John beats him there, but Peter goes in first and he sees the risen Lord. But it wasn't just to Peter.
What does it say? After that, he was seen by over 500 brethren at once. And this is historically true, right? He says some of these people are still living. Hey, people in Corinth, get on a boat, go over to Jerusalem, and you'll meet a whole bunch of people who saw him with their own eyes. Some of these people have fallen asleep, right? Some of them are dead, but many of them are still alive. This is a true account. This is not some fable or fairy tale.
He says after that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles, right? Jesus then appeared to his own brother, to James, and James becomes one of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem. He says, and then he appears to the rest of the apostles. Then last of all, who's the last apostle that Jesus makes? Who's the last one he appears to? What does verse 8 say?
He was seen by me also as by one born out of due time. Paul says that I am one who wasn't in line with all the rest, right? Everyone else saw Jesus in his earthly ministry and immediately at the resurrection. But later on, like a child of Sarah, I was born out of time, but still he appointed me an apostle. Notice it's those who see Christ who are the apostles. It's those who have been sent out, apostolos, apostoli, means those who have been sent out with the good news.
And so Paul is the last one that Jesus commissions with this. But he's humble about this in his own seeing of Christ and his own ministry. And this is where he finishes up in verses 9 through 11 when he speaks of him being the least of all the apostles.
Why? He persecuted the church. He tried to destroy the church. He went into homes and he was ripping apart families. He still sees the tears in those people's eyes and still hears their screams of horror as he knocked on their doors ready to rip apart their families and drag them to prison. He says it was a gift of God that he was saved and not just saved, but commissioned to be an apostle. So he doesn't care, right? There's this very first Philippians chapter one ask, right? He doesn't care how the people in Corinth heard the gospel. Maybe it was by Paul when he was there with them. Or maybe it was by Apollos. Maybe it was by Cephas. Or maybe it was by anyone else.
Doesn't matter to him. Are they clinging to Christ? I got a real hard problem here. I don't know what to underline. Let me know. I'm going to lean heavily on you. I need you to let me know down in the comments. If you're on Facebook, YouTube, come to find out somebody left a comment on Sermon Audio the other day. Let me know down in the comment section.
What would you underline in your Bible as the best verse to summarize this? We'll see calling what are we called to believe? I'm going to point you again to verse two, by which also you are saved. If you hold fast that word, which I preached to you, hold fast.
I don't know what's going on in your life. Maybe you're surrounded by people who are going through this fancy deconstruction stuff. Fancy way to say apostatizing. They're questioning everything about their faith. They're questioning the incarnation of Christ. They're questioning the scriptures. They're questioning the truth of the things that they've been taught.
My call out to you to believe the things that you have been taught. They are historically verifiable. The resurrection is true. Eyewitness accounts time and time and time and time and time and time and time again. He says over 500 people at one time saw this. This wasn't some type of fable. And people might say, well, why aren't there other accounts of it? How many more accounts do you need? Right? We think of the Bible as a one account, but there, you got Matthew, you got Mark, you got Luke, you got John, you got Acts.
You got Paul's testimony in his own letters. You got Peter's testimony in his own letters. You got John's testimony in his own letters. Each of these are independent documents that are held together, yes, in the canon, but each one of them are verifiable truths. We have witness upon witness upon witness. But I'm going to encourage you to cling to the Holy Spirit. For his test, his spirit testifies to our spirit that these things are true. Cling to him. Hold to him.
Remember the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ, the Messiah died for our sins and was raised again from the dead according to the scriptures. The words have been fulfilled. Our Savior reigns. I can't wait to spend the most of this next week examining with you and reveling with you in the truth of the resurrection of Christ.
May you rejoice in your risen Savior. May you cling to Him. Let's pray. Father, we pray, thanking you for sending us our King, Jesus. Thank you. for the truth of his resurrection. And thank you for the work of your spirit, God, I pray in my heart and in the hearts of those listening and watching this. Father, that we might know who you are, cling to who you are and love you. In Jesus's name. Amen. May God bless you. May you rejoice in the Holy Spirit. May you believe in the resurrection because the hope we have for all eternity. I'll see you see you tomorrow. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.