I have a question for you. What’s most important in life? What’s the most important thing you can do with your life? What’s the most important thing you need to know in life?
We could spend hours discussing all the ideas that come to into our minds concerning the question, what’s most important? For some, it’s their career. For others, it’s their family. Still, others will tell you that the most important thing in life is to be happy and to enjoy as much of it as you can. That sounds like advice from Solomon’s advice.
But the question goes beyond what’s the most important thing. I’m also interested in what’s the most important thing to know, talk about, and live for. For each of us, the answer, in reality, may be different, but should it be? And take it one step beyond us as individuals. What’s the answer for the people of God? Is there one answer or many different answers?
The Bible teaches us that there is one thing that is of first importance in life – for individuals and God’s people. It also teaches that it is universal to everyone. The most important thing for me to know, talk about, and live for is the same for you and for all people.
So, what is it? To answer that question, let’s read our sermon text, 1 Co 15:1-11.
Why Was the Reminder Needed?
Ok. Paul starts here with a reminder. We’ll soon learn that the reminder is about the gospel. But, the first question is WHY does he need to remind them? To get that answer we have to jump ahead to verses 12-14. Paul writes,
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
1 Co 15:12-14
So, the problem is that some people in Corinth were saying that the dead would not rise, and because some of them believed this, he felt it necessary to remind them about the gospel.
There are a few possible reasons why some of the people of Corinth held this few.
One possibility is that they accepted the teaching of Greek philosophers who taught the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Essentially, they believed that the body was a prison from which death released it. If that is the case, the purpose of death is to separate the body from the soul and destroy the body. It would be a bad thing for the body to be resurrected. That would be like sending us back to prison.
Another possibility is that some refused to believe that dead men can come back to life. We encountered these people in Mark 12. They are called Sadducees, and they say “There is no resurrection.” It was their opposition to Jesus and Paul’s teaching about the resurrection that caused them to persecute Paul in Caesarea, where he was questioned by Felix, the governor (Acts 24:21).
Another possibility and the most likely of the three is that some of them believed that the resurrection had already happened and that they had already arrived spiritually. Paul talks about two such people in his second letter to Timothy. He tells Timothy,
…avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some.
2 Tim 2:16-18
Note that Paul seems to equate saying that the resurrection has already happened with irreverent babble. I wish he would tell us how he really felt!
This may be the belief that caused Paul to accuse the Corinthians of believing that they already had all they wanted; that they’d arrived! (1 Co 4:8) Nothing is more evident to me that we are still waiting for the resurrection than the suffering we experience in our lives and witness around the world. Paul felt the same way. He said, while you’ve arrived, we “to the present hour…hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.”
No, the resurrection hasn’t happened, and thank God it hasn’t, for it is our hope and it is the root of the gospel. If the resurrection has already or will not ever happen, we have no hope. The suffering of this life will not be assuaged by what little good we can squeeze out of it. So, we must go back to the matter of first importance – the fundamental facts and principles of the gospel.
So, why is it so important that Paul remind them about the gospel?
Why Was the Reminder Important?
First of all, it was good news, and he received it from God. It was delivered to him, but not to hold in secret. God gave him this good news with the mandate that he share it. When it looked like the people with whom he shared this message were forgetting it, he couldn’t help but remind them of it.
It is like our hearts to forget the good things that we are taught, especially the good news of the gospel. That’s why we so easily fall back into a pattern of sinning and then performing good works to try to atone for those sins. It’s why we so easily revert to worrying about things instead of trusting in God.
Our hearts are deceitful. The last thing we need are deceitful teachers. That is what the Corinthians were dealing with…deceitful hearts and deceitful teachers.
So, just like a parent who often reminds their children of their values and expectations, out of love for their children, Paul reminded the Corinthians about the gospel. And, by extension, he is reminding us.
The second reason why the reminder was important is that they had received it and were relying upon it for their own good. Think about this. You receive a diagnosis from a doctor. He tells you that you have a disease, which will kill you if left untreated. But there is good news. He has a cure. You are going to have to trust him for the rest of your life. He is going to do things with you every day to help you get better. Eventually, you’ll be 100% cured. Not every day will be great, but the promise of a cure, the promise of not dying gives you hope.
So you do two things if you want to live. One, you accept that what he says is true and put your trust in him. Two, you make his promise to you the foundation upon which you stand and persevere every day. You make it the thing that sees you through the tough days when his work seems worse than the cure. You stand on that promise as the ground for your hope!
That’s what the Corinthian people did with the gospel, but now they were doubting the reality of the cure. Had they received it in vain? Were they standing on a promise that they didn’t believe?
Oh, how we forget from what we’ve been saved. How we forget by whom we’ve been saved. And how we forget to what we’ve been saved. This is why we must hold to sound doctrine and preach the gospel to ourselves every day. We forget, we falter, we lose our way.
So, Paul sought to remind them of what they received in the past so that they could continue to stand firm in it into the future.
And that brings us to the third reason why the reminder was important. They received the gospel. They were standing on top of it as the foundation of their hope. And the gospel was saving them every day. But they were forgetting the gospel or worse, they were denying the gospel by denying the resurrection of the dead.
And if the resurrection of the dead isn’t real, then why do any of it? Paul says late in chapter 15 that if the dead are not raised,
“Why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
1 Co 15:30-32
We’ll put it this way. If you have received the gospel, then it is the foundation of your hope. And every day it is saving you. We must get this. We received it in the past. We stand upon it in the present. And it keeps saving us into the future.
Yes, when you accept Jesus, you are adopted into God’s family and secured by the seal of the Holy Spirit. Jesus will not lose you. But you are not yet Holy like your Father in heaven. That’s your goal, but you are not there yet. Neither am I. You’re probably further along than me, but neither of us is there.
So every day the gospel is saving us, crucifying our sinful nature, and making us more like Jesus! Some of those days are hard like gold being refined by fire or a pearl being formed by crushing pressure. But it is saving us.
But what if you’ve forgotten the gospel? Did you then receive it in vain? You might as well adopt the philosophy “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Why go on suffering for the gospel, if it isn’t true?
But it is true. You received it, you stand upon it, it is saving you, so hold fast to it. That’s one of the duties of every believer…hold fast to the gospel, which is even now saving you. Otherwise, you risk having received the gospel in vain. At this point, I’m reminded of the parable of the Sower in Luke chapter 8. Jesus says,
A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.”
Luke 8:5-8
We want to be the good soil in which the gospel grows and yields much fruit for the kingdom. And good soil holds fast to the seed that is sowed into it. But how do we hold fast?
How Do We Hold Fast?
In the simplest terms, we put the right thing in the place of highest importance in our lives. We make that which is of first importance the most important thing for us. We value it the most. We seek to understand it the most. We talk about it more than anything else.
Here are Paul’s words again…
I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you…. 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
1 Co 15:1-4
This is the most important thing, the fact that shapes all of life, and the truth that you should never forget, but instead hold fast to. Jesus died for our sins, was buried in a tomb, and was raised three days later. C.K. Barrett puts it this way, “Christ died, but he is not dead; he was buried, but he is not in the grave, he was raised, and he is alive now.”
I think most of us can feel the awesomeness of these words and the joy of their truth flowing through our souls. But perhaps not all of us can or do. Maybe their power has grown cold in your soul, or it was never there. And you’re asking the silent question, “Why does that matter?” I’ll try to answer you.
I don’t think you would deny that it is remarkable that a person named Jesus died, was buried, and three days later was seen living, breathing, and walking about. And there is eyewitness testimony to this fact. Peter and James, Mary and Martha, all the disciples, and according to Paul, 500 more people saw Jesus alive and well after his confirmed death and burial.
But that’s not the most remarkable thing. Why he did it and that he succeeded…that’s remarkable.
At the core of the gospel are two truths. First, Jesus died for our sins. Second, God raised Jesus from the dead so that everyone who believes in him will one day rise with him into an eternal life of peace, joy, and holiness. So that’s what we must receive and never forget.
And that involves realizing that we are all sinners subject to a just penalty of death, both spiritual and physical. Paul puts it this way in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Later in our letter he says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (15:56).
I am afraid that for many Christians, this truth is buried deep, far away from the forefront of their memory. It is a truth that sounds harsh and unkind to our sensitive modern ears. We will tell people that they can have a better life if they believe in Jesus, but we won’t tell them that they are sinners subject to God’s wrath, which ultimately results in eternal damnation. And thus, we will tell them a lie, because believing in a Savior who doesn’t save us from our sins won’t give us a better life. It will make us more miserable and pitiable than the others who refuse to believe.
We certainly don’t like telling people that even now they are dead in their trespasses and sins, without hope in this world, but that truth is at the very core of the gospel, and Paul would not have us forget it. And that brings us to the second core truth of the gospel, that God raised Jesus from the dead.
There is something important to note here. When Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day” he describes a passive event. He didn’t raise himself any more than he buried himself. Dead people can’t do these things. Joseph of Arimethia buried him, and God the Father raised him. And here’s the great news. If God can raise Jesus from the dead, he can raise you and me from the dead.
If we’ve received the gospel, he’s already raised us from our spiritual death, and we are now hoping for our physical resurrection to eternal life. And God can do that.
But all that isn’t true if Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead. If Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, we would still be dead in our sins and without hope. In another letter to the Ephesians, Paul calls for a clear memory again. He says,
“remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh,…were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
Eph 2:11-12
And that is why the writer of Hebrews echoes Paul’s call to hold fast to the gospel. He writes,
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works…”
Heb 10:22-25
Now, you might have noticed that the writer of Hebrews adds something to his call to hold fast. First, he gives the grounds for holding fast – the gospel is a promise from God and God keeps his promises. We’ve all experienced a broken promise, but we’ll never experience one from God. If he says he will save us from sin and death, then he’ll do just that.
Second, in addition to holding fast, he wants us to encourage each other to do good works. And that’s where the rest of our text comes in. Because the gospel just doesn’t save us, it changes us, and that change is the evidence that we didn’t receive it in vain…that we are saved!
How Do We Know We are Saved
After listing out some of the different people and groups that saw Jesus alive and well after he died and was buried, he confirms that Jesus also appeared to him. And then he becomes introspective about such an amazing thing. It is as if he can’t believe Jesus would appear to him.
After all, he was a persecutor of the church. He held the coats of the men who stoned Stephen to death, giving his approval to their murder. Before Jesus appeared to him, Paul was on a mission to seek and destroy all those of The Way. Yet Jesus appeared to him. He can’t believe it. Neither can some other people. But the proof is in the pudding, as they say.
Pauls says he was “untimely born” – like a premature baby. He wasn’t like the other apostles. He didn’t spend 3+ years with Jesus listening to him preach, watching him perform miracles, and serving alongside him. He wasn’t there at his betrayal or his crucifixion.
While the others were learning from Jesus, Paul was learning to oppose him. While the others were starting the Church, Paul was persecuting it. Like a baby snatched from a womb too early, Paul was snatched from his position as the chief persecutor of Christ only to become the chief proclaimer of Christ.
And the proof of his conversion was his zeal for the gospel and the fruit his good works bore for God’s kingdom. You see, the more convinced we are of the truth of the gospel and the more captivated we are by the grace of God, the more diligently and tirelessly we will work for the glory of God and the good of His kingdom.
This is how we know that we have not received the gospel in vain. We, by the grace of God, keep the matter of first importance always before us and do gospel work with zeal.
That’s why Jesus saves. He told the disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide…” (Jn 15:16). And we bear that fruit by the grace of God, and the power of the gospel.
I’ll just close with one final note. We know what’s important. We know that it must be preached. And we know, as Paul said in Vs. 11, it doesn’t matter who preaches the gospel. It only matters that it is preached. Preaching is the means by which a person will hear the good news of Christ raised from the dead and be saved.
So the question is this. Have we received the gospel of Jesus crucified, buried, and raised to save us from our sins and give us eternal life? Are we standing on it today, relying on it to finish its work? And are we willing to faithfully proclaim it, to encourage each other to live it out, and to call unbelievers to receive it?
