It is good to be with all of you this morning on this Lord's Day. We do welcome all of you and how good it is to be together with our friends, with our brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, with our local church body. It is good to be together. Well, if you have your Bibles, would you open to the New Testament, to the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. This morning we'll be reading verses 1 through 11. We won't get through all of these verses. There's a lot here. We're going to take our time through this chapter, but we'll read verses 1 through 11 and we'll spend our time focusing on verses 1 through 6 or 7 or so. But 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I'm going to read verses 1 through 11. This is God's Word written for you and for me today. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached 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. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy 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 towards me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would give us your Spirit, that you would give us insight into your Word, that you would teach us that you would teach us something about the gospel of our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen. Well this past week I sent out in our weekly newsletter, which if you don't get, I'll put a little plug, if you don't get or you don't read, I would encourage you to ask us, we'll put you on the list, and read it. Read the links when it comes. And one of the links that I sent was of a video testimony. of a young man, a young boy named Nathan. Nathan is the grandson of Philip Jensen. Some of you may be aware of Philip Jensen, the great Bible scholar, the great Bible historian, Philip Jensen, the Anglican Australian, his son Nathan. young teenager. It's a normal boy in this testimony. Nathan described how he was excited for life, excited to spend time with friends, play sports, thinking about the girl that he might marry, college that he might attend. But then came the diagnosis of cancer. And he tells of that day when the doctors told him, again, a young boy, an early teenager, 11, 12, 13, perhaps. Doctors told him, you likely will die. You likely will die. Of course, that is the reality that all of us face. The reality of living in a fallen world. Of course, it's uniquely horrific and uniquely tragic when parents and grandparents have to bury their children and grandchildren. But this is the reality of life in a fallen world. A world where the odds of death are 100%. One out of every one. Now, much of our world tries to escape this reality. In fact, there are entire industries based on escaping this reality and pushing back the effects of the fall and the tragic reality of death. Recently, I read an article that described our generation, this current generation, as the, quote, virtual reality generation. A generation that seeks to escape life and to escape the reality of what is to come. But, of course, we live in God's world and we can't do that. But as Christians, as believers, we have a firm resting place. We have a firm foundation. Psalm 40, the psalm that we confessed together this morning, talked about the psalmist's feet being taken out of the miry pit and placed on that firm rock. We have a firm rock, a firm resting place as Christians. We have absolute truth from the absolute creator of the universe. And it is this truth that gives us joy and peace in life and in death. And this truth is the truth of the gospel. The good news of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. And it is this gospel that the Apostle Paul highlights in the passage that we are studying today. This morning we move to the final main section of 1 Corinthians. It's been a long haul. We've traveled some difficult terrain. But we come this morning to the final main section. Chapter 16 is glorious. Paul wraps things up in chapter 16. This is the final main section of the letter. It's a section where Paul deals with the doctrine of the resurrection. Now we might ask the question, why would Paul spend an entire chapter, it's quite a complex chapter as we'll see as we work our way through it, why would Paul spend so much time, so much mental energy on the resurrection? Isn't this pretty basic? Jesus rose from the dead, that seems pretty basic. Well, yes and no. Paul addresses it because there were some denying it in the city of Corinth. And we'll talk about why they denied it and what those denials were, what they look like as we work our way through chapter 15. But we are thankful that he did. We are thankful that he did address this problem, this erroneous teaching that was going on in Corinth. Because 1 Corinthians 15, much like Romans 8 or John chapter 6 or John chapter 3, is one of those grand, towering, Mount Everest, glorious chapters in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 15 is a jam-packed, loaded, chapter, and by God's grace we'll work through it together, section by section, mining its riches. And Paul begins in this chapter, in the first few verses, with the basics. He goes back to the ABCs of Christianity, of what we believe. Look back at the first three verses. Now I would remind you brothers, verse 1, of the gospel. I preached 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." He references the gospel. I'm going to remind you of the gospel, the very same gospel that I preached to you when I was with you and was planting this church, and I'm going to give you those things of first importance. The gospel is primary. It is central. These truths that we're going to think about in a few moments are primary. They are central. They are non-negotiable. These are things that we must be willing to lay down our lives for. Well, what is it? What is the gospel? This is a question we ask every new member coming into this church. Many of you have probably had this question asked to you by me or by one of the elders. What is the gospel? We might phrase it a little differently. If you're walking down the street and someone comes and asks you, what is the gospel? What do you believe? How are you going to answer? Just a little hint, there's certain things we're looking for. There's certain things that we're listening for. The things that Paul mentions in these first few verses. What is the gospel? Well, the word literally means good news. Okay, well what is the good news? There's three things I want us to think about as we look at these first few verses this morning. Three things about the good news. First, it is Christ-centered. Secondly, it is biblical. And thirdly, it is historical. It is Christ-centered, biblical, and historical. So first, the Gospel of the Good News is Christ-centered. Look what it says there in verses 3, 4, and 5. It references Christ, who died for our sins. He was buried, He was raised. Christ died for our sins, Christ was buried, and Christ was raised on the third day. This is similar to what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1. In Romans 1, the first few verses, Paul begins again with the basics, with the ABCs. In Romans 1, verse 3, Paul talks about the gospel of God concerning His Son. The gospel is concerning his son. It is all about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, these are the ABCs, the cross, the burial, the death, the burial, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. These are the same truths that were written down in the most ancient creed that we confess, the Apostles' Creed. We confess it every so often, every month or so here. We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. crucified, died and was buried. And the third day he rose from the dead. This is nothing new. Believers have been confessing these truths for the past 2000 years. And I want to take a few moments and think about these three facts, these three truths about Christ. He died, he was buried and he rose from the dead. So first, Christ, it says, died. This takes us to the cross. This takes us to Calvary, to Golgotha, to what happened on the cross. That the death of Jesus Christ was not just any other death. It was not just any other crucifixion. It was not just any of hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions, I'm not sure, of crucifixions that the Romans Employed Romans were experts at that they knew what they were doing But Jesus on the cross the death of Christ was not just another man on the cross. It was not just another one of thousands of crucifixions But rather it was the death of the very Son of God and note that little phrase For the sins of his people he died for our sins great early 20th century New Testament professor, the founder of this denomination, J. Gresham Machen once said that to say Jesus died is history, to say Jesus died for our sins is theology. That little word for It's a big word. There's a lot of weight. There's a lot of force. That word carries a lot of weight with it. Jesus died for our sins. He died as our substitute. He took our place. He took your place. He took my place. He died in place of you and me for our sins. He is our sin bearer, our substitute. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He took the penalty that we deserve. And of course, what is assumed in that is that we have a sin problem. And we do. Paul makes that clear all throughout the New Testament. Romans 1-3, what we're reading, Paul makes it very clear, slicing and dicing up the human argument as a good lawyer might do, he makes it very clear that we all have a sin problem. But here's the glorious solution. Christ died for, in place of, as our substitute for our sins. Now this truth is all over the New Testament. I have about 10 or 20 verses written down. And let me just give you a couple. We'll just look at a few. Turn over to Romans 5, 8. Romans chapter 5, verse 8. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, for us, in our place, as our substitute. Turn over to Romans 8.32. Romans 8.32. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. Again, for us all in our place. Galatians chapter 1 verse 4. We'll just read a couple more. Galatians chapter 1 verse 4. This is to the right of 1 Corinthians. Galatians 1 verse 4. The grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age. One more, Ephesians chapter 5 verse 2. and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, there it is again, for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. And of course we could go on and on and on. But dear friends, if we do not see the cross, as that place where the Lord dealt with our sins once and for all. If we don't see what happened at the cross, that the death of the Son of God as a substitute, as our redeemer, our sin bearer, laying his life down, if we don't see the cross like that, we do not understand the gospel. There's no way around it. If you don't see the cross, as the place where God dealt with our sins in the person of His Son, you simply do not understand the gospel. That's one of the things we're listening for when we have our new member interviews. We're listening for that, for that understanding of the cross and what happened there. So first he died, then secondly Paul goes on and talks about he was buried, the first part of verse 4. But he was buried. He really died. And he really was buried in a tomb. One commentator talks about the significance of this little phrase that his burial serves to verify the reality of his death, that a human corpse was laid in a tomb. The human corpse of the Lord Jesus Christ was buried and was placed in the tomb, of course, of Joseph of Arimathea. His death was an objective reality. The body that died was the same body that was laid in the tomb and was the very same body, the very same corpse that rose again victoriously on the third day. And so move on to that third statement, that third truth. He was raised on the third day. And here is the climax of what Paul has to say. Here is the climax of all that Paul has to say. And he is going to unpack this phrase, this little phrase, that he was raised on the third day, is like a trampoline, a launch pad, to the rest of the chapter. The rest of the chapter Paul is going to unpack the glorious significance of this little phrase. He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Now, interestingly, our English translations can't quite capture the full nuances of what Paul is getting at in these verses, in these first few verses. Paul's doing something with some verb tenses. If we understand what he's doing, it brings out even more the significance of what he's saying. So look back at these three phrases in verses 3 and 4. Christ died. He was buried, and he was raised. The first two, he died and was buried, are what we call simple pasts. That is, they describe a past event, a one-time past event. Interestingly, and significantly, Paul shifts to a different kind of verb tense when he talks about He was raised. Paul uses a tense of the verb that describes something that happened in the past and then that state continues to the present. Something that happened in the past and ushers in a new state of affairs. So it's as if Paul is saying he was raised and he continues even today as the resurrected one. He was raised and by His resurrection something new happened. He ushered in a new state of affairs, the age of the resurrection. He is today the resurrected one. The poem makes a little shift that has a lot of significance to it. He died, he was buried, and he was raised, and he is today the resurrected one. He continues in that resurrected state, ushering in the age of the resurrection. So when we see that, and we dive down deep, the passage explodes with meaning. and with significance. He conquered sin and death. He ushered in the kingdom, the glorious day and age of the resurrection. And we will have much more to say about that in the weeks to come. And so the gospel is all about Christ. It's the good news of fundamentally and primarily what He did, not what we do. It's about Him, His death, His resurrection. It's first and foremost about Christ and not us. Jesus prays in the great half-priestly prayer, John 17, Father, I have finished the work, the gospel work of what you sent me to do. And these are the foundational truths that form the heart of apostolic preaching. If you want to know what Peter and Paul preached, this is what they preached. Two quick examples. Turn over to Acts chapter 2, verse 23 and 24. This is Peter's great Pentecost sermon, and look at what forms the heart of Peter's sermon. Acts 2, beginning in verse 23. Delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed. There's his death. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up. There's his resurrection. loosing the pangs of death for it was not possible for him to be held by it. Skip down to verse 32. This Jesus God raised up and of all that we are witnesses. There's Peter's preaching. What about Paul? Turn over to Acts 13. Here's Paul's first great sermon. Acts 13 verses 28 through 30. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. There is his death. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. There is his burial. Verse 30. But God raised him from the dead. And for many days he appeared, here's his appearances, he appeared to those who had come with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to his people. This is what formed the heart of apostolic preaching, and this is what must form the heart of preaching today. It is for good reason that Paul says I determined to know nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified." That's what we declare, that we would know nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified. So first, the gospel is Christ-centered. It's about Christ, who He is, and what He did for us. Secondly, the gospel is biblical. Now you might be asking yourself, What do you mean by that? Of course it's biblical. Is that what we came here to hear? That the gospel is biblical? Well, yes. I want us to focus on that little phrase, in accordance with the scriptures. He died in accordance with the scriptures. He was raised in accordance with the scriptures. So what is Paul doing here? Paul didn't have to write that little phrase. He could just as easily have said he died, was buried, and was raised. He just as easily could have said that. Why did he add that little phrase in accordance with the Scriptures? And the answer I would suggest is simply this, that Paul is connecting the Gospel, the death and resurrection of Christ, to the overarching story of the Bible. He is connecting the gospel to the overarching plan of God to save a people for himself. The Jesus event, we might say, that the person and work of Christ is not some random event. But it is central to the very plan of God to save sinners. A plan that was birthed, if I can even use that term, that was birthed in eternity past. In the eternal counsel of God. And that began to be realized in history all the way back in the garden. All the way back in the garden. We talk about this verse a lot. Genesis 3.15. enmity I will put between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. That first historical gospel promise. And then the plan begins to unfold, and the plan begins to unfold, and slowly but surely the lights begin to get brighter and brighter. As we turn the page to the gospels, there's an explosion of light as the Lord Jesus Christ steps out of the shadows, so to speak, and into the blaze of noonday sun. So what we're reading about, these three events, death, burial, and resurrection, are not random. But they are the climax of God's plan, again, it birthed in eternity past and realized and unfolded in history all throughout the pages of the Old Testament. And as you read your Old Testaments, we see prophecies, both in word and in picture, what we call types, prophecies in word and in picture, pointing us forward to the coming reality, the Lord Jesus Christ. All the way back in the garden, God's provision of a covering for Adam and Eve, small, faint little seed of the gospel that was to come of the death of Christ. The entire sacrificial system One giant picture pointing to the coming Redeemer. And again, we can look at passage after passage after passage. Isaiah chapter 53, Psalm 22. We could go on and on all throughout the Old Testament. His death also all throughout the Old Testament. We see pictures of the coming resurrection. We'll just look at one example. Psalm 16. Psalm 16. Note verses 8 through 11. Psalm 16, verses 8 through 11. This is David talking. I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand. I shall not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your Holy One see corruption. You make known to me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Focus on verse 10. You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your Holy One see corruption. In Peter 2, Peter says that's talking about Jesus. That is talking about Jesus and the resurrection. So all throughout the Old Testament we see hints and prophecies and pictures of the coming death and resurrection of the Messiah. Acts chapter 26, verses 22 and 23. Listen to how clear Paul makes this. Here's Paul, Paul preaching before Herod. Look at what he says. To this day, I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing, and this is fascinating, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass. It's the Old Testament. What did they say would come to pass? That the Christ would suffer and that by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to Gentiles. Moses and the prophets, they were pointing us forward to the suffering, the death, and the resurrection of Christ. And Paul is simply making that explicit. when he says Jesus died in accordance with the scriptures, and he was raised in accordance with the scriptures. So first, the gospel is all about Christ. Secondly, it is biblical. That is to say, it is part of, in the climax, of a plan of redemption from eternity and all the way back from the garden. And then thirdly and finally, the gospel is historical. It is historical, and we see this unpacked in verses 5 through 8, when Paul talks about all the various appearances that Jesus made in between his resurrection and his ascension. You know, it's interesting how Paul emphasizes the historicity, the reality of the resurrection of Christ, that it is a historical fact. All four Gospels go out of their way to make it clear in talking about the empty tomb. All four give us detail about on that first Sunday morning, the tomb was empty. And then they go on and describe various appearances, that Jesus appeared to the women, to Mary Magdalene, He appeared to the apostles, He appeared to Peter, He appeared to the Twelve, He appeared to James. And then it says, this is amazing, He even appeared to 500 at one time. Why is Paul saying that? What is the implication? The implication is, go and ask them. Go and talk to them. If you don't believe me, which you should because I'm inspired, but if you don't believe me, go and talk to them. They saw him. They touched his hands. They touched his feet. We had breakfast with him. Go talk to them and see for your own eyes and see for yourself the reality of the resurrected King. Christianity is an historical faith. And brothers and sisters, this is one of the distinguishing marks of the Christian faith. That it is historical. That it is built upon and grounded upon events that happened in objective time and space in history. That Jesus was born in history. That Jesus lived in history. He made footprints in the sand. That He died in history. That He rose in history. That He ascended in history. The Spirit was poured out in history. that he will return in history, in time, and space. Again, this is what separates, I would suggest, one of many things that separates Christianity from every false religion. Take away Muhammad from Islam. Take away Joseph Smith from Mormonism. Take away all the various New Age gurus in that their system still stands. It's not dependent upon history because it's simply systems of various ethical teaching and bad ethical teaching. by the way. But you cannot take away Christ and have anything left. Christianity rests and depends on the historicity, the objective acts of Christ in time, in space. This is why The unbelieving world, unbelieving scholars put so much effort and aim all of their guns to debunk the historicity of the Lord Jesus Christ. every Christmas, every Easter, here it comes again, some kind of special, some kind of book, casting doubt on the historicity of the birth, life, death, and the resurrection of Christ. That's for a reason. There's a demonic reason behind that, because Christianity stands or falls with the objective historical person of the Lord Jesus Christ. J. Gresham Machen, one of my favorite theologians, listen to what he says about the connection between history and Christianity. It's a little longer quote, but we're wrapping up this morning, and so listen closely to what Machen wrote about a hundred years ago or so. Machen says this, the center and core of all of the Bible is history. The separation of Christianity from history has been a great concern of modern, liberal theology. It has been an inspiring attempt, but it has been a failure. But be perfectly clear about one point. If you remove the history, you can never retain the gospel. For the gospel means good news, good tidings, good information about something that has happened. In other words, it means history. A gospel independent of history is simply a contradiction in terms. The Bible contains a record of something that happened. Something that puts a new face upon life. And what that something is, is told us in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is the life and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel is Christ-centered. It's about Him, ultimately, not us. It is biblical. It's part of an unfolding plan of redemption. And it is historical. It is grounded in objective time and space history. And so as we close this morning, let me leave you with four brief things to take with you. First, dear friends, we can never outgrow the gospel. Look at what Paul says back in verses one and two. I would remind you of the gospel that I already preached to you. This is not something the Corinthians had never heard, but they needed to hear it again. because they were being tempted by the world and tempted by sin. They needed to have the Gospel preached to them again. We can never outgrow the Gospel. Yes, we grow in our understanding of it. We grow in the depth of understanding its riches, its fullness. The more you study the person of Christ, the more you grow in your understanding of the Gospel, the more you study His life and the significance of His miracles and all that's going on, we don't learn something altogether new, we're simply growing deeper in this fundamental ABCs of the gospel. We need to hear the gospel every day. We need to be pointed to Christ each and every day. Secondly, if the gospel is primary for the Christian, it is also primary for the church. This is the message that we fly, this is the flag that we fly at this church, at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church. This is our focus. There are lots of things, lots of fads, lots of causes, lots of trains that a church can jump on, and many of them are good in and of themselves, but so often they distract us. from the person and work of Christ. This is the flag that we will fly at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church. And I would determine to know nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified. Thirdly, this is the message that we take to others. We live in a broken, fallen, sinful world. We live in a world filled with evil. As David prayed on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we live in a world filled with evil and atrocity. What message do we have to give to people? We have a person to point them to. A person who lived and died and rose in history. He's not some phantom. He is a real person who lives now in heaven at the right hand of his father. And then fourthly and finally, this is a message that gives us hope today in this world as we persevere until the Lord brings us home. Nathan Jensen, a young teenager diagnosed with cancer, little boy knowing that death was near, what was it that gave him hope? Well, there's one verse that he talked about that uniquely gave him hope, and that verse was First Peter 318. What does First Peter 318 tell us? Listen to what it says. First Peter, chapter three, verse 18. For Christ also suffered once for sins. There it is again. the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. Philip Jensen, Nathan's grandfather, in a letter that he wrote about his grandson, said these words, and we'll close with this. His grandfather said this, I know that Nathan is with Jesus in glory. For his confidence was not in himself, but in his Lord who died for him. Christ had to bear all the horror of our death to bring us eternal life. We may have victory over death in him. Praise God for his word. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this glorious passage. We thank you for the gospel, for the good news that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and that he rose again from the dead on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. O death, where is thy sting? O death, where is thy victory? But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ who gives us life, who gives us hope, who gives us joy. Father, I pray that this good news of the gospel would give us joy and peace in life and in death. That this would be a message that humbles us every day. This would be the message, the person that we share with our neighbors, that we share with others. And that gives us hope as we persevere until you take us home. Give us your spirit for the week ahead, oh Lord. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.