I'm so grateful to Enrique for giving me the opportunity to read the scripture and speak to you this morning. Let's pray before we hear God's word. Our God, our heavenly father, we pray that as we hear your word today that your spirit would work in our hearts to sanctify us by your truth, to draw men and women out of darkness into your marvelous light. And Lord, that through our hearing of this word, we might be your obedient children, and that you might help us live as becomes those who are followers of Christ. We ask in his precious name, amen. Our scripture reading today is from 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verses one to 11. I invite you to turn in your Bible to that or in the pew Bible in front of you, First Corinthians 15, verses one to 11. The Apostle Paul writes, 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 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, 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 toward 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. Well, this passage gets into the very heart of the gospel. It deals with the basics of the Christian faith. And the basics are important. Let me tell you a story which illustrates the importance of basics. Years ago, I lived in South Florida in Fort Lauderdale and I traveled with a group of musicians from the east coast of Florida to the west coast of Florida to play a concert with the famous pianist Roger Williams. And we had packed all of the various musical instruments we needed into kind of a dilapidated old van and we were driving across Alligator Alley and we got to the west coast of Florida and still had about 45 minutes or an hour to go and our van broke down. Much to the consternation of the lead musician who was there. and responsible for getting us to the gig on time. Well, he immediately jumped out of the van and opened the hood and began looking for problems in this old van. And he was getting his elbows dirty and everything. And meanwhile, the owner of the van was standing by and watching and sort of quietly began saying, you know, we might actually be out of gas. And our friend, our music manager, he didn't want to hear that. He felt that there must be something else wrong, so he was checking all kinds of things. And then another couple minutes, this other fellow spoke up and said, you know, Gary, I think we might actually be out of gas. And this went on for a little while and finally somebody drove by and gave us a ride to the gas station and we came back with some gas and put it in the tank and sure enough, the van started up again and mercifully, we were able to arrive at our performance with just a few minutes to spare. Basics are important. A van will not run without any gas. With gas, it might run whatever so poorly. It'll continue to run, but it needs gas to run. The kinds of things that Paul is dealing with in this passage are things that are necessary for the Christian life. Not only that, they're necessary for us to know in order for us to become Christians. They contain the basics of the faith. Paul reminds us of the basics of Christianity. That the Christian message is in what we call the gospel, the good news. And the good news of this gospel is that Christ died for us according to the scriptures. And that he was raised from the dead. according to the scriptures. We might find it interesting that our Lord Jesus said very similar words at the end of his ministry. After he was raised from the dead, we read in Luke chapter 24, beginning in verse 44, then Jesus said to his apostles, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. So even Jesus taught the apostles the importance of knowing that the Messiah was to die according to the scriptures, that he was to be raised again according to the scriptures. This is the message of the gospel in its most basic form. So I'd like us to look at three things this afternoon. First, we're gonna look at the centrality of the gospel. Second, we're going to look at the essentials of the gospel, that Christ died, he was buried, and he was raised. And lastly, we're going to talk about the witness of the gospel. We're going to talk about the witness of the gospel. So first, the centrality of the gospel. Notice in verse one, Paul says, I preached to you which you received. And then again in verse three, I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. That means that the gospel is something which is given to us. And it points, importantly, to something that God has done. God has initiated the work of salvation. There's nothing that we could do to reconcile ourselves to God. If anything was to be done, God needed to do it. And the gospel is the good news of what God has done for us in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. John 3.16, God gave his only son. But not only does Paul say this is something we received, he says the gospel is something in which you stand. What does it mean for us to stand in something? Well, it's to be firmly committed to it in conviction or belief. It's to be unmovable. We hold on to the gospel. The gospel, the message of the gospel is our life. Without that message, we have no way to God. We hold it as the most precious of truths. Not only is it something that we receive from the Lord, and not only is it something in which we stand, but Paul describes the gospel as that by which we are being saved. We are being saved through the agency of the gospel. Isn't it amazing that the world has so little interest in the gospel, while at the same time The world is seeking to be saved from so many different things. How many commercials do we see about products which will save us from the effects of aging? Or other things which may help us in the... if we happen to succumb to a terminal disease, the kinds of treatment that are available to prolong our life and perhaps even save us for a while. Or products that are available to us to save us from being overweight. What about all of the things that are supposed to help us in terms of our, the many environmental concerns that there are, the pollutions that are in the air, the water which is dirty. All of these things which are good concerns to have, the world is seeking to be saved from these things. We want to be saved from COVID-19 and every other kind of pandemic that could exist. We want to be saved from the injustices that exist in this world. We want to be saved from poverty and all kinds of other troubles which we have in this life. And while the gospel and God's word addresses all of these things, in their own way, the central message of the gospel is about how we are reconciled to a holy God through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's about humanity which is dead in its trespasses and sin and is brought to life through the death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. And he says, we are being saved. The gospel is the agency by which we are saved. And that means we are saved through faith. We just considered for a little bit the question about how we are made partakers of the salvation which we have in Christ. And the answer it is through the effectual calling, through the working of the Holy Spirit who gives us faith. And that faith is through the message of the gospel. None of us are eyewitnesses to Christ's death and resurrection. We have to believe according to what has been written down and handed down through the apostles, through the word of God to us. We believe and are saved through faith. And it's the Holy Spirit that enables us to believe and trust in Christ alone for our salvation through the word of God, read and preached. As he works that truth into our lives and he gives us the ability to understand, he breathes new life into it so it becomes something which we can believe and hold on to. It's through the gospel we are saved. because we're saved by faith through the operation of the Holy Spirit. This also points us to the wonderful truth that we're saved through union with Christ in his death and resurrection. There'll be more about that in a moment. But faith is also grown in us through the means of grace. The means of grace are the reading and preaching of God's word, the sacraments, and prayer. The Holy Spirit uses all of these things to work faith into our lives, to increase our faith. So coming to worship is important because together we hear the Word of God, we pray together, we receive the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and these are the ordinary ways that the Holy Spirit works in our lives, how he works salvation into us, how he works those things which Christ did for us into our lives and saves us. So the encouragement here then The end of verse two is that we would hold fast to the gospel, that we would hold fast to this message preached, that we would never let it go, that we would see it as the foundation for our life in Christ. So that's the centrality of the gospel. Next, we need to look at the essentials of the gospel. The title of the sermon today is Things of Most Importance, or of First Importance. Verse three, for I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received. What are those things? That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Now this is wonderful. And each of these words or little phrases needs to be savored by us. First of all, we need to see that this is speaking of Christ. This is an act of God the Son. The eternal Son of God. who was with the Father and the Spirit before the foundation of the world, through whom the universe was spoken into existence. This eternal Son of God took upon His own person the frailty of human flesh so that He could be the bearer of the sins of the world. Eternal God cannot die. Human flesh can die. It is Christ, the Son of God, who became incarnate. We contribute nothing to our salvation. This is an act of God the Son. Secondly, this Christ died. The scriptures teach that the wages of sin is death. Think back to that first scene in the Garden of Eden. God says to Adam and Eve, you can eat of all these different trees that I've made, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the day you eat of that fruit, you shall surely die. What did Satan come along and do? He said, oh, you shall not surely die, but in the day you eat of it, you'll become like God, knowing good and evil. And what a tragic step the next step was as both Eve took and ate and then she gave to her husband who was with him and he took and ate. Then their eyes were opened and all of their shame and guilt was exposed before the Lord God and before one another and there was nothing they could do but run and hide from the presence of the Lord God. The wages of sin is death. but thanks be to God. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Jesus had to become flesh because he had to die for our sins. Nothing less than a death would satisfy the justice of God. He had said, in the day that you sin, in the day that you disobey my word, you shall surely die. And it's not until we recognize the immensity of our sin, that we come to appreciate the necessity of why the Son of God would have to die for us. No other sacrifice could satisfy for sin but Christ's alone. So Christ died, and the next little word is a wonderful word, for. Christ died for, meaning Christ was our substitute. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. There was a debt to be paid that we owed, that we could not possibly pay, that only Christ himself had the merits to pay. And He did that for us by redeeming us through His blood on the cross. The next little word, our. Christ is the way for all. to be saved. He's not just the way for some of us over here and not others over there. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the only way. He is the only way through which men and women might be saved. As Isaiah the prophet said, The Lord laid on Christ the iniquity of us all. Christ didn't come to redeem just a few, but he came to redeem a multitude, which is without number, more numerous than the sands of the seashore, as he had promised to Abraham. His descendants would be more numerous than that. So Christ came to redeem a multitude, a host, of men and women, boys and girls. He died for our sins. And he died for our sins. That's the reason he died. Oh, what a precious truth this is. Christ himself said, I came to seek and save the lost. Do you feel lost today? Did you come in today wondering if there was any hope for you? You alone know what lies in the secret recesses of your mind and heart, those things which you would shrink back and hide even as Adam and Eve did. You would hide if those truths were known to the rest of us in this room. I myself, if you knew all the things in my life that I've done, I wouldn't be standing before you right now. All of those things, all of those sins Christ came to die for, every single one of them, From the first time we say no to our parents in toddlerhood, the smallest of sins, we even laugh at it when it first happens. Oh, they learned how to say no. How cute. Wow. But what that no leads to, how tragic. Christ came to die for all of that. He died for our sins. Not one of them is left out. Not one of them is too great that the son of God's blood cannot cover them. What a great savior we have. While we were his enemies, Christ died for us. What act could be greater than to demonstrate God's love for sinners than Christ died for our sins? 1 John 4, 9 and 10, in this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice for our sins, to satisfy the judgment of God on our behalf. Christ paid in full that debt which we could not pay. As an old hymn writer, Augustus Toplety, wrote, payment God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding Savior's hand and then again at mine. If Christ's blood was shed for you, believer, there is no condemnation for you. You stand justified before God, even as the spotless Lamb of God himself. And there is no condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus. What security and safety the believer in Christ has. There is nothing like it in the whole world. What freedom. we have in Christ, what grace, what joy. How do we respond to this? Again, a well-known hymn from this time of year that we often sing. Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee, I will adore thee and will ever pray thee. Think on thy pity and thy love unswerving, not my. deserving. The posture of the Christian life is to live a life of gratitude and humility before the God who has given his only son for us. This is also the basic of our Christian ethic, is it not? The apostle John writes, beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. We're to love as Christ loved us. It's one of the basics of the Christian life. If we forget that, brothers and sisters, we'll never love one another as Christ wants us to love. We need to see that we've been forgiven. by Christ, and to the extent that we see and understand that we've been forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ, we will then be able to love one another as God is calling us to do. Well, Paul says that Christ did this in fulfillment of the Scriptures, in accordance with the Scriptures. Now we don't have a lot of time to talk about this this afternoon, but there are several different things in the Old Testament Scriptures which point to this. Let me just refer to a couple of them. First, Christ is called the Passover Lamb. Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. You remember the story of the people of Israel and God promised to take them out of slavery, out of Egypt, and into the promised land? and a series of plagues was sent upon the people of Egypt and it culminated in one last final plague in which God's avenging angel was going to come and destroy the firstborn of all the living. What a horrible, horrible plague. But he said to the people of Israel, if you will take a lamb without blemish and take its blood and put it on the doorposts of your homes, then that angel will pass over you and your firstborn of your household, your son, the firstborn of your livestock will be spared from this judgment of God. Christ is that Passover lamb. He is the spotless lamb of God, the one who had no sin, that when God looks down and he sees the blood of Christ sprinkled upon his children in baptism, he sees that blood and he says, I'm going to pass over them in judgment. They're safe in Christ, as safe as Noah and his family was through the judgment waters of the ark, his people are safe in him if the blood of the lamb is sprinkled on them. We also see the fact that Christ died fulfilled in the scriptures when we consider the suffering servant of God. And we read about the suffering servant in Isaiah chapter 53, that the Lord has laid on this servant the iniquity of us all. And the chastisement that brought us peace was upon him. And by his wounds, we are healed. But we need to move on quickly now to the resurrection. Christ died for our sins in accordance with scriptures, but he was also buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Now it's sometimes difficult to look at the Old Testament and find where this is promised. It's promised in a number of different places. And again, we don't have time this afternoon to go into all the different places, but let me point out one of them. that the author of the book of Hebrews talks about in Hebrews chapter 11. And this is the sacrifice of Isaac. And we read about this in Genesis chapter 22. And in verse two, God tells Abraham to take his son, he says, take your son, your only son Isaac, and this is the one who was promised to Abraham, through him all the nations of the world was going to be blessed, all of Abraham's hopes were in this one son that God had given. And God says to him, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. Then interestingly, the scripture goes on to say they packed up for the trip Verse four of Genesis 22, on the third day of their journey, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place where the sacrifice was going to be from afar. In verse six, we read of Abraham taking the wood of the burnt offering and laying it on Isaac, his son, even as the wood of the cross was laid upon Christ. And then Isaac asks this incredible question. My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. They go up the mountain and as Abraham's hand is raised above Isaac, ready to plunge the knife into his heart, God says, do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by the horns. Now the author of the book of Hebrews explains what this passage means. In chapter 11, beginning in verse 17, listen to these words. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, through Isaac shall your offspring be named. Abraham considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. Now Isaac was Abraham's beloved son, his only son. Christ is the only son from God the Father. His beloved son, as he's called in the New Testament. The one in whom the Father is well pleased. And he is the greater than Isaac. The one, though he was in the garden of Gethsemane and said, Father, if this is possible, take this cup from me. This cross which lies ahead for me, take this from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done, Lord God. And so, cannot help but imagine that Christ himself reasoned because he had said so. I have authority to lay down my life and I have authority to take it up again. He had told his disciples that he would be handed into the hands of sinners and they would crucify him and the third day he would be raised from the dead. Jesus is our greater than Isaac. who went to the cross and sacrificed himself on behalf of his people and was raised again for our justification according to the scriptures. We could place our faith in this gospel. We can place our faith and trust in these scriptures which have been given to us. Well then it says, Jesus appeared to Cephas and the disciples and more than 500 people at a time, why? So that they could be his witnesses. Do you know what? God has made you and I witnesses as well, a kingdom of priests, as his church is called, to go into the world to tell the gospel. to all the nations, to our neighbors, our friends, our families. We have the same message of life to give to the people whom we encounter. So let's do so boldly. What are some of the benefits that we receive? from all of this, from the fact that Christ has died for our sins and that he was raised. We're about to sing some of these benefits. So I'd like to read for you some of the text of the hymn that we're about to sing. You can open to it if you'd like. It's hymn number 706. Jesus lives and so shall I. And if there's one truth I want you to know that I want you to leave with We are saved because we're united to Christ in his death and in his resurrection. We're either united to our father Adam, who sinned and came under the judgment of God, or we're united to the second Adam, who died for that sin. and in whom we are justified. But then we receive these wondrous benefits. Listen to some of these things. Jesus lives, and so shall I. Death, thy sting, is gone forever. He who deigned for me to die lives, the bands of death to sever. He shall raise me from the dust. Jesus is my hope and trust. Verse three, Jesus lives and by his grace, victory or my passions giving, I will cleanse my heart in ways ever to his glory living. Me he raises from the dust. Jesus is my hope and trust. He gives us a whole new life, a whole new heart, a whole new way of doing things. We die to sin and live unto righteousness. We can turn away from all those nasty things we've done in our sin and misery, and we can turn to him in the gospel in faith, and we can begin doing those good works which the Spirit enables us to do. Verse four, Jesus lives and I know full well nothing from him my heart can sever. Nothing can separate me from his love. Life nor death nor powers of hell. Joy nor grief henceforth forever. None of all his saints is lost. Jesus is my hope and trust. Jesus lives and death is now but my entrance into glory. Courage then, my soul, for thou hast a crown of life before thee. Thou shalt find thy hopes were just. Jesus is the Christian's trust. Well, let's stand now and sing our praises to this glorious Christ and our wonderful saving God. Jesus is our hope and trust. Hymn number 706.