Amen. Turn with me please to 1st Corinthians chapter 15. 1st Corinthians chapter 15. And we will read in God's Word verses 1 through 4. This is the Word of God. 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. Let's pray. Father in heaven. We thank you for your son, our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have confessed our faith in him as the only redeemer of your people. We have sung our faith in him that we believe in Jesus, in the name of Jesus. We have sung all glory, laud, and honor to him. We have sung hail to the Lord's anointed. Would you focus our hearts and minds to think about Jesus and to strengthen our faith in Jesus and to grow us in our love for Jesus for the time that we spend together in your word this morning. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, you may be seated. little disclaimer up front. I have, this is kind of personal but it might explain things, I have like a sore on the side of my tongue in the back and it's been there for the better part of the week and I need to stay well hydrated to keep my mouth from being in pain. So I'm not gonna wear the mask, because that dries out my mouth. And even as I was singing, it was getting painful, so. And if I drink more water than usual, or if I make a funny face every once in a while, if I'm looking in your direction and I make a funny face, it's not about you, it's about the left side of my tongue, which is driving me crazy. But anyway, we'll pray for the Lord's blessing on that. Alright. The best football coach in the history of professional football was Vince Lombardi, who led the Green Bay Packers to five titles in seven years, including three consecutive championships in 1965, 66, and 67, something no other coach has ever been able to do. Lombardi was known for two things, a strong commitment to the Lord in his personal life and to football fundamentals. At the start of training camp in 1961, as he began his tenure as head coach of the Green Bay Packers, he gathered his men, professional football players, into the locker room. And he said what would become one of the most iconic quotes in sports history. He said, gentlemen, this is a football. I'm not a prop preacher, and I was not planning on bringing this, but as I was putting my bag in the trunk this morning, this was sitting there, and I thought, okay. This is a football. And with those words began the most successful dynasty in the history of football, the 1960s Green Bay Packers. In every area of life, putting first things first is important. After he showed his men the football and said, this is a football, the first thing he taught them was the football stance and how you stand in football and how every move has to be from that grounding, that position of you know, leg shoulder width and knees bent and weight balanced and you're ready to make any football move from the football position. You've got to get first things first. You can't do all the playbook, you can't do all the fancy trick plays unless you know what a football is and you know what a football stance is. Every area of life has its priorities of first things first. In cooking, first things first means the right ingredients and There's a practice among certain chefs of mise en place, which means you've got to have your things in place. You've got to have all your ingredients measured out, put in place, ready to go. That's why in a recipe they give you that list of ingredients first. Don't do it the way I do it. which is you get to the next step in the recipe like what's the next thing I need oh where is that how I can't find it do we have any of that Beth do we have any of that I mean you got to take care of your ingredients first right and then the thing's boiling over and you're wondering where the next ingredient is that you need I someone told me one time about baking and they weren't really paying attention and they put salt instead of sugar in their baking recipe. That will make a huge difference. It doesn't matter if you follow all the steps correctly. You have to get first things first. Many marriages get off track because husband and wife get more focused on their kids and on their roles as father and mother. than they do on husband and wife, forgetting that husband and wife comes before father and mother, and the best gift that we can give our kids is a strong and healthy marriage. But as believers, and in our life in the church, all of these other things, sports, food, marriage, parenting, all these other things are far less important than the things that we are given as of first importance, and the things that we must always keep as of first importance. The Apostle Paul, in the letter to the Corinthians, he's been dealing with a lot of issues. There were lots of messes in the church. And he had to address them, one by one. We've been through this letter now over the past year or more, and we've seen the problems. A factionalism that's driven by personality cults. A selfishness that would lead believers to sue one another in court. A worldly compromise. that would have people eating food, sacrifice to idols, or even going to the temple courts and eating in the outer courts of the temple, and they say, well, I'm not technically participating in the worship of a false god, but I'm getting my toe as close to the line as I possibly can so I can fit in with the rest of the world. or a spiritual boastfulness that would have them proud of their spiritual gifts rather than humbly using them to serve one another, or a selfishness at the Lord's table where people are being gluttonous and drunk at the Lord's table and not even sharing what God has given them with one another. But with all of these secondary issues, It strikes me that where Paul begins and where Paul ends in 1 Corinthians is with the things of first importance. the things that the reason why the Corinthians were having all of these other problems is because they had forgotten and neglected the things that were to be the things of first importance. So in chapter one, as he begins to address factions within the church, He focuses first on who is of most importance, the man of first importance. And that's what he says here in verse three, for I delivered to you, as of first importance, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins. Christ. Back in chapter one, he had said to them, Each of you says, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. It's not about Paul. When he comes back to this subject in chapter three, he says, I fed you with milk and not with solid food. The milk of the gospel has to come before the solid food of other doctrines. He said, I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you were not ready for it, and even now you are not ready because you're still of the flesh. In other words, until you get the first things right, the things of first importance correct, you can't move on to second things. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything. but only God who gives the growth. And so, when Paul wants to address this issue of making too much of mere men, he's about as strong and clear as he could be. Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I planted Apollos' water, God gave the growth, neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God give who gives the growth. And here we sit 2,000 years later. And thankfully, the church no longer has a problem with overly focusing on celebrity pastors. We've fixed that. Oh, maybe we haven't. And one of my pet peeves in this whole department is the habit that we have within Christian circles of referring to a church as being pastor so-and-so's church. And I know we do it as sort of a shorthand way, but especially if that pastor is a celebrity pastor, you might say, well, you know, she used to go to Alistair Begg's church. Or, you know, he went to R.C. Sproul's church, or he went to John MacArthur's church. You know, as somehow the church belonged to that man, and somehow sitting under the teaching of that man, you know, basked them in such brilliance. Every true church, and all of these men would say this as clearly as I'm saying it, every true church is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. and the church has no other head, and Christians have no other savior, God has called and set apart elders to help shepherd the church as undershepherds of the Lord Jesus Christ, and some elders are uniquely called and gifted to labor in preaching and teaching, and yes, the Bible does say that elders are worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching, But it's really talking primarily about adequate financial compensation for those who give their lives to the Gospel. The honor, the glory, the praise belongs to Christ, and Christ alone. Christ is of first importance. Christ is the Savior, the Head of the Church. He is the Groom, and we are His Bride. And while the Groom may have groomsmen, imagine going to a wedding. where the bride walks down the aisle and she's going to get married to her groom and all she's doing is eyeing the groomsman. What would you think? This marriage is not going to go well. This is really bizarre. And yet that's sometimes what we do in the church. We have our eyes on men instead of on the Lord. Christ, Christ is the anointed one. He is our great prophet, priest, and king, and in holding those three offices for the church, as prophet, he's the one who speaks the word of God with such power, because he alone is the word of God incarnate. God has spoken to us in these last days in his son. As our priest, he alone is the one who is the mediator between God and man, who is the one who made the once for all atoning sacrifice for our sins in his own body on the cross and who ever lives to make intercession for us. He pleads his blood and righteousness ceaselessly before the Father as our great high priest. It's his mediation we need. And as our king, he is the one, listen, he is the one who protects and leads his church. We don't need to be looking to put our trust in princes and in the son of man in whom there is no help. We need to put our trust in the son of man who is the son of God, who is king of kings and Lord of lords, who defends us and ultimately defeats all of his and our enemies. He is Christ, the anointed one. He is the mediator between God and man, the one who is true God and true man. He is the unique second Adam, the head of a new redeemed humanity, the only one who represents us before God and truly represents God to us. Only in Jesus do we find what we really need. which is complete forgiveness and perfect righteousness and peace with God. He's the one who fulfilled the law in every detail and has earned for us a perfect righteousness which he alone gives us through the cross where he took our sin upon himself and he made peace with God, he satisfied the wrath of God by his death in our place, thus making peace and giving peace to us. Righteousness and peace can be found in no one else but Jesus. Sometimes I think, now, I want to say this carefully. I really do wanna say this carefully. It has been frustrating to me as a pastor this past year, among other frustrations, right? That when people are in the hospital having surgery or in a medical crisis, I can't go and be with them because I like to go and be with and pray with and wait with the family and I hate that I can't do that right now and I'm looking forward to when I can do that again. But, If you are in the hospital facing surgery, you don't need your pastor to come and pray for you and pray with you as though somehow I'm some sort of magic mediator who's going to make everything turn out okay. You are in the hands of Jesus. and he never stops praying for you, and you're never outside of his protecting, loving care. It is my privilege to be able to be with you and to pray with you, and I love to do so, but sometimes we put our hope in things that, we put our expectation in things that we kind of know better when we check ourselves, but we can get caught up in the moment. Our heart's loyalty belongs to Jesus alone, and then to the priorities that Jesus has given us. Our hope is anchored to him in heaven, and we are waiting for his revealed glory. and our goals should be to glorify him and to see his fame spread in the earth. So when we think about who has our heart loyalty, right? What are we waiting for? What really is our hope? What are the goals that we are pursuing? Are those things centered on Christ? Or do we have all sorts of other things that we're trying to make happen, right? My, I won't go there. But imagine for a moment, my birthday was this past Friday, and I'm married to a wonderful wife, and you guys knew that. And she spoiled me beyond anything that I deserve. But imagine if my whole family woke up on my birthday and like, couldn't be bothered because they had lots of other things that they had to do that day. And it's like, run me here, take me there. I need to go do this. I need to go take care of that. I'm going to go do this. And then it was like, oh, yeah, it's your birthday. Happy birthday. Here's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. See you. Like, I wouldn't have felt particularly loved or cared for, right? I sound like a really pathetically needy person. I guess I am. But, you know, that's a kind of a silly illustration, but sometimes we do that with Christ. Like, I got a lot to do today. I'm really, really busy. I got a lot of other things on my plate. Let me just sort of, you know, throw a quick line up to Jesus in 30 seconds as I'm darting out the door and, you know, I'll get to church if I can make time for it in my schedule. I'll, you know, rather than saying, not only the church, but my life should be Christ of first importance. I must speak to my Lord. I must meet with my Lord first thing in the morning. I must meet with my Lord and worship the Lord first thing every week. I must because he's of first importance. My priority, my schedule, my loyalty, my hope, my goals, my life is Christ first and then whatever else Christ has for me. When we talk about Christ first though, what is it about Christ that is of first importance? What is it about Christ that is most primary and most central to our faith? Well, Paul says, 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. He says the death and burial and resurrection of Christ in accordance with the scriptures, in accordance with the scriptures is the most central thing. You see, there are lots of churches that talk about Jesus and that where Jesus would appear to be central. But the focus is not on the cross. The focus is not on his saving work that he uniquely did on the cross and in his resurrection. Here's why that matters. The teachings and the miracles of Jesus are wonderful, and we are certainly to focus on them. They're very important. But if we don't have a cross-centered view, we might get things skewed out of perspective, right? And so we might say, well, Jesus was first and foremost a great moral teacher. He taught us how to love our enemies. He taught us how to turn the other cheek. He taught us... by his own example, how to be generous to the poor. And yes, he did all of those things, but that's not primarily what he came to do, and if we make that primarily what Jesus is all about, then we become sort of a religious do-gooder society whose primary purpose is not to worship God and to proclaim Christ and his salvation, but rather to just do good works. in the name of Jesus, and there's lots of churches that are very busy doing good works in the name of Jesus, and they're not actually proclaiming Christ and salvation in Him. They're almost embarrassed to proclaim Christ and salvation of him. They would rather just do good works. And we should do the good works, but it ought to be the cross first, central, foremost. The miracles of Jesus are certainly important, but if we overly focus on them and make them primary, then we have a Jesus who's primarily a wonder-working miracle man. And yes, he did work wonders. But you understand there's some churches where the approach to God is all about come get your miracle. It's one of the guys I've talked to. In Uganda, Abdul, our van driver, who was a Muslim guy, we got to have good conversations about the gospel. He wanted to know why it is that all of the churches, the big, flashy, fancy churches in Kampala, were all like, come and get your miracle. That was the message. Come and get your miracle. And I said, there's no greater miracle than forgiveness. And you come to Jesus through the cross to get forgiveness of your sin. Because that's why Jesus came. Paul says that what is of most importance is that Christ died for our sins. According to the scripture, he was buried, and he rose again on the third day, according to the scriptures. This is where he did the work of salvation, to take away our sins, enter into death, and defeat death from the inside by the power of his resurrection. Don Carson, or D.A. Carson, in his book, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, he has this great quote. He wasn't the only one to say this, or necessarily the first person to say something like it, but I like the way he puts it in this book. He says, if God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. but he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death, and so he sent us a savior. All the world can talk about are those other four things, right? Economics, entertainment, politics, and health. as though somehow if you got all four of those, man, that's the good life. No, we need God. We need to be reconciled with God. We need to be made right with God, which means we need to have our sins removed and righteousness given and we're going to die. We need death defeated and eternal life brought to light and Jesus came to do that and that's why Paul said back in chapter two that he was resolved among them to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Again, I've said it, the teachings and the miracles of Jesus are not unimportant. They're vitally important for understanding who he is and how he reveals God's kingdom to us, but the mission he came to do was a mission of salvation, redemption through forgiveness, and that mission was fulfilled in the cross, in the tomb, and in the resurrection. That's why Paul says in Colossians chapter one, this beautiful passage about Christ, Colossians one, it says, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether things on earth or things in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross and you who were alienated in hostile in mind doing evil things he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you have heard." He made peace, not by teaching people seven steps to a more successful and prosperous life. He made peace through the blood of his cross. By his death, Jesus offered himself as an atoning sacrifice, a substitute in our place. In his burial, Jesus entered into death. Just as we will die and be buried, so he died and was buried to fully identify with us and to enter into death and the grave and to overthrow death from the inside. He rose again, and he has the keys of death and Hades, because he defeated death from the inside, and he is the victor who has conquered them, and he has eternal life in his own glorious resurrection body, the same body that we will see him in face to face when he comes again and raises us to be like him. And that's really what 1 Corinthians 15 is about, that resurrection body. You just think about that. That same resurrection body that appeared to the disciples in the upper room, that ate fish with the disciples beside the Sea of Galilee. that invited Thomas, come and put your finger here, and put your hand here. That same body sits now in heaven, representing us, the undying, resurrected, glorified Christ, and he will come again in that same body, and he will speak with such power that we will be raised to be like him forever. That is so much more important than a healthy economy, or a good joke, or a clever political solution, or being healthy. It's eternal life and it is found in Christ and in his death and resurrection. Third in the things of first importance that Paul lists then in order is the book of first importance. You see he says, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ, the man of first importance, died for our sins, the act of first importance, in accordance with the scriptures, the source, the book of first importance. And he was buried that he raised again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. All of the scriptures lead us up to Jesus. This is why I'm excited about this new Sunday school curriculum. is that it's going to walk us through and help us see how all of the scriptures from the first word of creation are leading us to Christ and to the cross, and that everything that comes after Christ and the cross, what we call the whole New Testament, is pointing us back to Jesus. The Bible is relentlessly Christ-centered, and so it is where we see Jesus, it's how we come to know Jesus. Some people will say, well, I believe in Jesus, and I love Jesus, and he's my Lord and Savior, and he died for my sins, and he rose again, but you know, the Bible, it's got some issues, like I can't necessarily accept everything it says, and maybe it's contradictory, and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, wait a minute, you don't even, what are you talking about Jesus for? You don't even know Jesus apart from this book. You don't know a single thing about Jesus apart from this book. And this book tells you the truth about Jesus and the whole truth about Jesus and it shows you Jesus from cover to cover. How can you say you love Jesus but you don't love the book that reveals him to us? There's lots of ways in which Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. We'll talk about some of them next week on Resurrection Day. The focus of the message is gonna be according to the scriptures and as seen by eyewitnesses, our confidence in the resurrection. But today we're in Palm Sunday. And we looked at Zechariah chapter nine. So if you have your bulletin, go back with me and take a look at Zechariah nine. And just consider with me for a moment that this passage was given 450 years or so before Jesus was born. And yet it says, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. Righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I mean, that's our great Palm Sunday verse, right? It's exactly what happened on Palm Sunday. Jesus rode in on the donkey, on the colt, the foal of the donkey. Matthew even explains to us how that worked. He had a colt that had never been ridden before that he was on, and it was being led by its mother because a colt that young would only follow its mother. And so it's perfectly fulfilled. And what did the people of Jerusalem do? They rejoiced. They shouted, Hosanna, which means save us, save now. And they welcomed their king. And what did he do? What did he come to do? He came to bring peace, to make peace. Colossians 1 says it. He makes peace by the blood of his cross. He came to speak peace to the Gentiles, to the nations. He takes the sin of the world upon himself. And he shall rule. He came to establish his rule. Hail to the Lord's anointed. His reign on earth begun. He established his rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. And here we are at the ends of the earth. You realize we live at the ends of the earth. from a Jerusalem-centric perspective. And we are a foreign tribe of weird people from a Jerusalem-centric perspective. And we are here worshiping Jesus because Zechariah 9, 10 has been fulfilled by Jesus when he rode into Jerusalem on that donkey 2,000 years ago in fulfillment of a scripture that was 450 years older than that. And then later we read In verse 11, as for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit, return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope, today I declare to you that I will restore to you double. Jesus himself interpreted this verse for us on that Last Supper Thursday evening that we're gonna remember on Maundy Thursday when he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. It is what Zechariah was talking about when he said, because of the covenant, of the blood of my covenant with you. This is the new covenant in my blood, Jesus says, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. And because he poured himself out unto death, We are set free from the waterless pit, and the waterless pit is an image of the grave. We're set free from death, and we are given life. We are given double from the Lord. Double, I believe, refers to forgiveness of our sins and eternal life, deliverance from the grave. So we're set free from sin and from death. And that's just one scripture. Jesus' death is foretold throughout everything in the Old Testament. The two most famous passages that I've preached on before are Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, which actually give us, in the Bible, the most detailed description of what Jesus suffered on the cross is in Psalm 22, and the most detailed explanation of what Jesus accomplished in his death on the cross is given to us in Isaiah 53. I mean out of the whole Bible, including the New Testament. If you were to say what's the one passage that most clearly describes the agonies of Christ on the cross in the whole Bible, it's Psalm 22, written 1,000 years before he was born. If you were to say what chapter in the Bible most explains to us what Jesus accomplished by his death on the cross, it's Isaiah 53, written 750 years before he was born. Every line, every word, I've preached on those before, you can look them up online, but it's amazing the stunning detail But not only that, not only in prophecies and passages, but even in systems and events. So the coming of Jesus and his death in our place was foreshadowed in the Passover lamb in Egypt and in the whole sacrificial system of priest and offering in the Old Testament tabernacle and the temple worship. Jesus is the fulfillment of the scriptures. And so he came and did everything he did in accordance with the scriptures. Just as the scriptures themselves point us to Jesus, Jesus, when we listen to him, where does he point us? back to the scriptures. The scriptures point us to Jesus, and Jesus points us to the scriptures. That's what he, in his teaching, he was unfolding scripture and rightly teaching it and applying it to his people. Over and over again, Jesus quotes the scriptures and teaches them. So if we combine these three things, that Paul says are of first importance, the man of first importance, Christ, the events of first importance, his death, his burial, his resurrection, and the book of first importance, the scriptures, we get here what is to be the first priority, the three in one, if you will, first priority for every believer, which is to live a Christ-centered, gospel-centered, scripture-centered life, and that should be our calling as a church. These are the things of first importance. What does that mean for us as a church? There's some practical things that means. It means that when we get together as leaders to pray and to plan for the church, we are not reading church growth books that are drawing on clever insights from the business world as to how to grow your church and be successful. We're turning to the scriptures. We may use other books to help us understand the Bible, but the Bible is the word of God, and it is our book that we are given for how to structure our lives. And when we look to the Bible, and when we preach the Bible, and we teach the Bible, we're not promoting some moralistic self-help therapy. You're not gonna get a sermon series on ordering your finances to the glory of God, as if when you put to the glory of God on the end of it, it somehow makes it appropriate. Now, if we go through Proverbs, we might pick up some things that are very helpful to us, right? But we'll do so by seeing first that Christ is the embodiment of wisdom and that all wisdom is found in Christ and that we live a life of wisdom best when we live it in line with Christ. We're not looking for dynamic leaders or gifted men for our hope and our help. We're looking to Christ and his word, his gospel. Now, I do want to say quickly that to say that these things are of first importance is not to say that these are the only things that are important. The Bible does have a lot more to say about how to worship God properly, about how to live obediently, about how to reflect Christ in our marriages, about how to raise our children, about how to live according to wisdom, about the future hope that we have. Paul addresses other issues in 1 Corinthians about loving one another and unity in the body of Christ and not compromising with the world and all sorts of other things, but all of those other things flow out from a Christ-centered, gospel-centered, from scripture, and they come back to Christ and the gospel in scripture. So what does this mean for us? Well, it means for us, first and foremost, that our lives are to be anchored in Christ as the hope of our souls and the center of our church. It means, secondly, though, that if someone believes in Christ as Lord and Savior and receives with joy the things of first importance, he or she is my brother or sister in Christ. We are one in Christ. We are members of the body of Christ. and I can give thanks for their faith in Christ and love them as my brother or sister who will spend eternity with me in the presence of our Lord and Savior. And we may disagree over secondary issues, but that does not change that. I have some dear brothers that I disagree with about the structure of church government. about the sacraments, what they mean, how to best practice them, about style of worship, or how to best order a worship service. A lot of these things are not very clearly, super clearly laid out in scripture because they're not necessarily of first importance, but they are important, they have an impact on how we do church. And so we try as best we can to be faithful to what the Bible teaches on these secondary issues, but we never make the secondary issues primary. Which means I don't look at somebody who disagrees with me on baptism and I say, well, then I can't have fellowship with you, because you, Think that we have to immerse only professing believers, and that's clearly not in the Bible, and they're probably saying, well, yes, it is, because we look at things differently, but we love each other. And that doesn't even get into things of third importance, which are things that are not even in Scripture, but that we're just drawing as an inference from Scripture, and boy, things get upside down when we take things of second importance or of third importance, and we try to make them of first importance, because here's what happens. When things of secondary importance become primary, it ends up dividing the people of God against one another, and it ends up lowering the things of first importance to a subservient status. So, I'll give you two quick examples. When we spoke about tongues and prophecy, we spoke about the fact that we don't believe that tongues, as it's described in the Bible, is a gift that God still gives his church today, that it was for the first century as part of that foundational era of the church when new revelation was coming from God, right? Now there are believers that I might disagree with about that. And we can have fellowship and we can love each other in the Lord as long as we keep primary things primary and secondary things secondary. but that particular strain of Pentecostal theology that says if you don't speak in tongues, you're not a real believer, that causes a fundamental problem because now we've ripped apart the body of Christ because we've lost sight of the primary things and we've made a secondary issue the test of whether you really are a believer or not. That's a problem. Another one is the Roman Catholic Church has said that church tradition. is really important. Now, there are Christians who really value church tradition, and there are Christians who don't value church tradition as much, and we can agree or disagree on that, right? But if you take church tradition and you say the official tradition of the church, as summarized in councils and creeds and official pontiff declarations, they are of equal level in the authority of the life of the Church as Scripture, well then you've made them of first importance. And what happens then? Well, undoubtedly, if you have two co-equal authorities, one of them is going to win when they disagree. And consistently, it's church tradition that wins and it's scripture that has to be subservient. So when you elevate something else, you know, when a celebrity pastor is elevated, right? They become more important, Christ becomes less important. So getting any one of these things wrong divides the people of God and diminishes the glory that belongs to Christ and the place that belongs to scripture. I do want to clarify one thing to make sure we're all on the same page. We do use the Westminster Confession of Faith, sometimes the Heidelberg Catechism, Westminster Shorter Catechism, we use it in our worship service, we use it in our men's study. It's not the Bible, okay, it's not the Bible. We don't use, where we put it in our worship service, we don't put it as we're going to hear from the Lord now. Mm-mm, it's we are going to confess our faith. And so when we confess our faith, it's appropriate to use human words that are a summary of what we believe the Bible teaches. It's not God authoritatively speaking to it. You're never gonna have me get up and say, okay, today's sermon is going to be on the 13th question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, thus says the Lord. No, because it's not scripture. It's a helpful guide to understanding scripture, but it is of secondary importance. And that's why to become a member of the church, for those who are going through the new member program, you don't have to subscribe to the Westminster Confession. It's not of primary importance. You do need to believe the Bible's the word of God. If you don't believe the Bible's the word of God, you can't be a member here. But you can be a member here if you think, well, the Westminster Confession, it's okay, but there's some parts I could take or leave. Okay, fine. It's not of primary importance. You're welcome. If you have the things of first importance, of first importance. Keeping the main thing the main thing. That is so important in all of life. And it takes a grace-empowered discipline to try to keep the main thing the main thing. But we are committed to it as a church. We are committed to sinking our roots deep in the word of God, not in the traditions of men, Not in the opinions of men, certainly not in the changing winds of fashion in the world. We want to sink our roots deeply in the Word of God. In drawing on the Scriptures, we want to focus on Christ and His Gospel. Because it is Christ in you that is the hope of glory. It is Christ in you that is your peace with God. It is Christ in us that is the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Sometimes we may touch on other topics and other themes, but much like a good symphony, for you non-sports people, I'm not gonna make a music reference, much like a good symphony, well-constructed, will have a primary theme that is developed early in that symphony. And then the symphony may depart from that theme, but you know it's going to return to that theme. And even the departures it makes from that theme are based on that theme. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go study some good symphonies, because they're great to listen to. The main thing is kept the main thing. It's established early, and it's returned too often, and everything else that draws from it is a play off of it. That's what it is for us as a church. We're an orchestra playing a tune, and the main theme of our symphony is Christ, and him crucified, and buried and resurrected according to the scriptures. When people come in the door, they ought to hear of Christ. When people have conversation with us, they ought to hear of Christ. And when they hear of Christ, they ought to hear of his saving work. that by the grace of God we would always keep our eyes on Jesus and the main things, the main things, because the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God for salvation and nothing else is. Amen? Amen, let's pray. Father, You are so good to us, so faithful and kind to us. And your goodness and your faithfulness and your kindness are seen most clearly in the gift of your son and in his gift of his life on the cross. So Father, draw our hearts to worship Christ and Christ alone. To anchor our hopes, our goals, our ambitions in Christ and his kingdom and his glory and his gospel. That we might be a church that glorifies you and reflects you to one another. and to the world that needs to see you. The world doesn't need to see us. We have nothing of ourselves to offer the world that is of any value whatsoever, but Christ is everything. So let our song and our prayers and our preaching and our message and our witness be of Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Our song of response is gonna be a song that celebrates scripture and scripture as it tells us of Jesus. So tell me the story of Jesus. Write on my heart every word. Let's sing this together. Tell me the story of Jesus Write on my heart every word Tell me the story most precious Sweetest that ever was heard Tell how the angels in chorus Sang as they welcomed His birth Glory to God in the highest Peace and good tidings to earth Tell me the story of Jesus Write on my heart every word Tell me the story most precious Sweetest that ever was heard Lasting alone in the night They laid him, tell how he liveth again. Love in that story so tender, clearer than ever I see. Say happy weep while you whisper, love paid the ransom for me. Shine on my heart everywhere. Tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard. The sweetest that ever was heard. The sweetest that ever was heard. There is no greater story, no more precious or sweet story, because there is no other savior but our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's rejoice to tell of him again, even this week as we remember again his final week in the saving work. Let us rejoice to hear the story, tell the story, sing the story, praise God for the story, for it is the story of our salvation and our eternal hope. And now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, amen. you you you