Sunday Sermon: Reminded of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-2)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book.

On Thursday is our Old Testament study, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday. Each Sunday, we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the letters to the

Corinthians. This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit. Here's Pastor Gabe.

First Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 1. Paul says,

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

If you hold fast to the word that I preach to you, unless you believed it 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 five hundred 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.

Let us pray. Lord, as we come to these scriptures this morning, I pray that you would continue to guide our hearts and minds in an understanding of your truth and your word, that you would sanctify us, draw us closer to you, shape us more like Christ, guide us in your steps, remind us of the blessed truth of the gospel of Christ, the greatest hope that we have in this world in which we walk, that when our body dies, because Christ conquered death, we will also rise together with him on the day of glory.

We have nothing to fear of death, nothing to be anxious about concerning the grave, for Christ has conquered the grave.

And though the body might die and go into the ground, our spirit will be forever with the

Lord in glory if we hold fast to this gospel that has been proclaimed, unless we believed it in vain.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated. I am kind of,

I'm rather weak this morning, and I apologize for that. We got sick over Thanksgiving.

This is the first Thanksgiving that I can remember where I didn't even eat anything.

So Thursday, I woke up sometime in the late afternoon. I ate a couple of rolls.

That was about the extent of my meal on Thursday. Then on Friday, I had a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

And then yesterday, I had some French fries. That's all I've eaten over the last three days. So I've been ill.

I'm rather weak, a little unsteady up here. I don't even know how I'm functioning, having eaten so little. But I thank you for your prayers for my family as we've kind of been battling illness for the last two weeks.

I know you have as well. We have people that are not here today because of illness and other reasons. So remember them in your prayers that this time of flu season will pass us quickly.

A week ago yesterday, I had taken my children to Manhattan during a time when a couple of our kids were sick.

Becky stayed at home with two of our kids, two of our daughters. And I took

Zieg and Aria with me to Manhattan, and we intended to eat some Chick -fil -A and go to a museum.

And so the kids wanted to take Chick -fil -A to the museum and eat at the tables up front. I don't know why they consider that a treat for whatever reason.

So we grabbed the food to go, and we took it over to the museum.

They have some tables out there in the lobby. And so we sat there and we were eating our food. The kids finished eating, and then they went and played with an interactive map that was over by the front door.

I got on my phone. So I still had a few bites of my sandwich left because I was helping the kids eat and was kind of there on my phone.

And a man came walking in the front door, and I looked up, and immediately I knew this man was holding a gun in his hand.

He had a gun in the front of his belt, didn't pull the barrel out, but he's holding onto the handle, and I could tell that's what it was he was holding onto.

And I made eye contact with him, and he saw me, and he reached out his hand, and the first thing he said to me was, don't draw your gun.

And I just held my hands up, and I said, okay, why don't we just talk then?

And he said, don't pull your piece on me, man. Don't pull your piece. You've done this to me before. You've played with me before, man.

He's talking to me like we know one another, like I've conned him sometime in the past. And I said,

I'm not going to pull my gun. Why don't you tell me what it is that you need? What can we do for you?

And he said, I just need help, man. I just need some help. I said, okay, well, what can I help you with? And this kind of chatter went on for a little while.

He wouldn't tell me exactly what it was that he needed. He was very jittery, very paranoid, acted like we knew one another and that I had harmed him or fooled him at some time in the past.

And so I said, you said you needed help, so what do you need help with? And the whole front of the museum is glass windows, so he's looking around all the time.

I can tell maybe this guy's running from the police, somebody's looking for him, something's going on. And he said, my wife,

I need my wife. I need you to call my wife. I said, okay, do you want me to call her number now?

This is my phone right here. I can call her number for you. And he said, don't play with me.

Don't mess with me. I said, just tell me your number. I'll call her right now on my phone. So I punched the number in and the phone started ringing.

And about that time, my kids who were right there off to his right, Aria fell off the stool that she was standing on.

Now where he comes in the front door, my kids are kind of behind him over this direction. They're not like directly off in his peripheral view.

He didn't know they were there. And so when she fell off the stool and started crying, it caught his attention.

He looked over at Aria who just fell on the floor and I don't want to run over to her and alarm him. And so she started crying and his eyes glassed over like they watered over with tears and he started rolling his head around.

And I could tell that whatever he had come in there to do, he did not plan on doing in front of children.

And when he saw my kids, it made him all the more jittery and I could tell by his demeanor, he just wanted to get out, but he didn't want to turn his back on me.

And so somebody on the other end of the phone answered and I said, I said to the man, what's your name?

And he told me his name. And I said, do you know this man? And she said, let me guess.

He's running around all over the place, acting all crazy. And the museum attendant, one of the attendants had kind of come up to my left and I looked at her and she's rather shaky herself.

And she said, do you want me to take your kids? I said, sure, let's get them and we'll kind of move them into the museum.

So I went over to Aria, picked her up off the floor. And when I turned my back on the man, he bolted out the door, was gone, ran around the front of the museum and it started running toward the mall.

And so I immediately hung up on his wife and called 911 and told the police there was a man that was just here with a gun.

The address of the museum was right there on the front window. So I told him exactly where we were at. They were there very fast. I think within the next 15 to 20 seconds, we saw a patrol car come around the corner.

So they got him. He was in front of the mall. The police came to me and took from me a statement and I had to leave my kids with the gal from the museum.

And Aria didn't like that very much. Zej and Aria didn't quite understand what was going on, but they knew something tense was happening.

And I've said to you before a situation that happened to us in the mall about a year ago that my son has become quite a crisis manager.

And so he really does hold himself together in the midst of a crisis. So he was great, wonderful mood, happy, tried to keep

Aria's spirits up. But she just didn't want to be separated from dad. So the police came to me and I gave a statement to them.

And honestly, throughout the entire ordeal, I was very calm. My heart was never racing.

And I never felt like, I never felt like I was in danger at all.

And the seriousness of the situation did not really hit me until I got home and I was telling

Becky about what had happened. The one thing I didn't know is that when you dial 911 on your cell phone, it locks down.

So it goes into emergency mode and you can't contact anybody. So I couldn't tell Becky, hey, if you hear about a guy with a gun in the vicinity of where we are, we're fine.

So I couldn't even contact her and tell her that. But when I got home and was telling her about everything that had happened, it was kind of like, as I'm recalling the story,

I was going, boy, that could have been really bad. But I said to her,

I was calm the entire time. And I can't attribute that to anything else but the Holy Spirit of God, that I had no fear of death or whatever this man was going to do.

I confronted him for the sake of my children and for the two women that were standing behind me there in the museum.

And by the blessing of God, what could have been a very, very serious situation was avoided.

There are often times in my life where I have wondered how deeply I believe what it is that I believe.

Sometimes I wonder how deep into my subconscious does it go? Like I can preach a sermon and I can say the words with my lips, but when

I go to sleep at night, do I still believe the same thing I believe when I'm awake? Like how deep does that belief go?

I got a kind of a clue of this, an answer to that prayer, so to speak.

About nine years ago, I was living in Abilene. Becky and I were just dating at the time, but I lived in Abilene, Kansas, about 20 miles from here, and I lived next to railroad tracks.

Now, when you say that in Abilene, somebody's going to say, which railroad tracks? Because there's like 20 different railroad tracks in Abilene.

But the apartment that I lived in was right next to the tracks. And you had trains that would blare through there every hour.

So horns, the cars clacking as they go by. Sometimes they would even load and unload cars in the middle of the night.

That would be extremely noisy. And I learned to sleep through that. But when I first moved to Abilene, and I wasn't used to sleeping through train horns,

I would be asleep, you know, two, three o 'clock in the morning, a train would come through. Horns would be blaring, and not kidding.

I would wake up going, Jesus is coming. I thought the trumpets were sounding.

I was like, this is it. I'm going home. And when I would react that way, it was like assurance to me.

Oh, wow, I'm still even thinking about the return of Christ even while I'm sleeping.

And that's good to know, that what I believe goes that deep into my spirit. But we often, you know, we'll put together these scenarios.

If somebody were to hold a gun to your head and say, do you believe in God? Would you be able to answer that person and say, yes,

I believe in Jesus, even if it might cost you your life? But those situations are so incredibly extreme.

Who's ever going to find themselves in that sort of a situation? Especially living in the

United States, we don't find ourselves in danger for the gospel that it is that we believe on an irregular basis.

Every once in a while, the blinders will come off, and we'll see just how horrific the world really is.

Like when something happens in Sutherland Springs, Texas, a few weeks ago, there were worshipers that went into a church in a small town in Texas, half of whom wouldn't even go home that day when a gunman decided to come into that church and open fire on its congregants.

So in those sorts of situations, whenever the news turns that direction, that's kind of when our comfortable

American middle -class life, the blinders come off and we realize, boy, it can get really bad out there.

Mankind is still sinful and wretchedly depraved, and it is only by the gracious hand of God that he's not worse than he is.

And so in a situation like I was in a week ago, and the calmness that I felt and the praise that I gave to God for his spirit that was upon me was another one of those assurances that God gave me of the deep -seatedness of the truth of the gospel that I believe in my heart.

That even if I would lose my life today, I have nothing to fear, for I will be with my

Lord forever in glory, who conquered death and is the only one who can give us eternal life.

The Apostle Paul lays down for the Corinthians here a very pastoral, apologetic argument for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And we're not going to go through 1 Corinthians 15 very quickly. In fact, today we'll only get through the first two verses.

But Paul says here to the church in Corinth, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel

I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word

I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. This is the gospel in six parts.

Okay, this is Paul reminding the Corinthians of the gospel message that he preached to them in six parts.

So it's my six -part sermon. Number one, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel

I preach to you, two, which you received, three, in which you stand, four, by which you are being saved, five, if you hold fast to the word

I preach to you, I can count, I promise. I'm weak, but not that bad. And six, unless you believed in vain.

So those are the pieces that we're going to be looking at this morning concerning this gospel that Paul proclaims to the

Corinthians. And if you happen to grab a bulletin this morning, then you'll notice the thesis statement of Paul's letter to the

Corinthians is right there on the front. 1 Corinthians 1 .18, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

This is like the thesis statement that Paul gave to the Romans in Romans 1 .16,

I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

And so everything that Paul has been sharing with the Corinthians over the course of this letter flows from that thesis statement in 1

Corinthians 1 .18. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

It is the gospel that saves us. I would remind you brothers of the gospel

I preach to you. It's interesting that Paul has confronted so many other issues in this letter up to this point, and here he comes to a reminder of the gospel.

It's almost like in chapter 15, he's saying, I'm going to leave you with this, because we're getting very close to the end.

We get to chapter 16, and it's basically, here's what you need to do before I come. And he gives his final instructions to the

Corinthians before he arrives there at his next visit. And that's almost kind of a threat, but it's a

Christian threat. Not like you have reason to think that I'm going to come and harm you or that I'm going to verbally tear you down or something like that, but that all of these things

I've instructed of you, I'm going to come and see if you're actually doing what it is that I've said for you to do. So when he says,

I'm going to be making my way there, that would unnerve the Corinthians a little bit to know, hey, we need to step up our game a little bit.

And so in the close of this letter, as we get closer and closer to the end of the letter, he saves his biggest apologetic presentation for last.

His argument for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, because there were people in Corinth that did not believe in the resurrection of Christ, and nor did they think it was even very important.

They still had a Greco -Roman understanding of death, that when the body died, the person just went into the ground.

The soul was not eternal. It did not go on and live. When Jesus died, same thing.

His body went into the ground. Who has ever heard of the resurrection of the dead? That's ridiculous. It's foolishness. It's silly.

We saw the Athenians respond to Paul that way in Acts chapter 17 when he spoke about the resurrection of the dead.

It's kind of like he got to that part in his sermon there at the Areopagus and everybody responded, resurrection of the dead.

But yet there were some there who were still intrigued by what it was that he had to say about the resurrection of Christ and said, we want to hear more about this from you.

And they're the ones who became Christians, who heard the gospel of Christ and believed it and stopped worshiping their false gods and began worshiping the true

God. So this gospel message, once again, Paul brings to the Corinthians. Here as he closes this letter, he says, here is the most important thing that you need to remember.

And then every other instruction that has been given, all of it flows from this.

As Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, 3, he says that the gospel leads to godliness.

It produces godliness in the hearts of those who believe it.

And so of all the instructions that Paul is given in this letter, and he gets to this presentation, this huge presentation of the gospel in verses 1 through 58, he is saying to them, everything that has come before this flows from this.

This is the most important thing. The rabbis during Jesus' time, they had a saying that they would have among themselves in which they would say, say it on one foot.

So they might ask a question of someone else and say, say it on one foot. That means give your answer quickly.

How long can you stand there on one foot before you topple over? So that's what that would mean between rabbis.

They're not asking for a whole huge theological treatise on the question that is being asked. Just give me the quick answer.

And it was probably the nature of that question that was asked of Jesus when the lawyer said to him,

Lord, what is the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus said, the greatest commandment is that you love the

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Deuteronomy 6 .4. But there's more to Deuteronomy 6 than just that part.

But it was Jesus answering, basically standing on one foot. That concept of giving that answer quickly.

And so Paul has given glimpses of the gospel all the way through this letter, including 1

Corinthians 1 .18, which we talked about. But it's almost as if he's been presenting the gospel standing on one foot.

He's answering a question in a broader context and then ties the gospel in with that.

But now we get to chapter 15 and it's Paul giving the gospel standing on two feet. This is a long, apologetic, drawn out, deep presentation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And anytime you study the resurrection of Christ, boy, 1 Corinthians 15 has got to be right there in the midst of your study.

I consider it the most important chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians, though many would probably say chapter 13 is the most important chapter because that's the one everybody knows.

Love is patient, love is kind. The love chapter, right? We love love, so give me the love chapter.

But our hope is here in the resurrection of Christ. Paul has said in chapters 12, 13, and 14 over and over again to the

Corinthians, all of this means nothing if you don't have love. And now it's as though he gets to chapter 15 and says to them, let me show you the source of where love comes from.

It is from Jesus Christ, our Lord, who died for us and rose again.

So here we have this six -part introduction to the theology of the resurrection that Paul is going to lay out in the remainder of the chapter.

I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach, and I love at least the way that this comes out for us in English.

1 Corinthians 15, what's the first word there? Now, right? Have you ever been giving somebody a list or a series of instructions or something like that, and then you go, now?

And then you get kind of to the nitty -gritty of it, right? That's where Paul is at here in this presentation to the

Corinthians. Let's get down to brass tacks. This is an essential doctrinal issue.

If you don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, your faith is in vain and your hope is in vain.

And we are above all men the most to be pitied, as Paul is going to go on to talk about here in this chapter. I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel

I preach to you, which you received. If you've been following my teaching on the podcast, not a requirement for anybody, by the way, but I had recently finished up 1 and 2

Thessalonians and am now starting to teach in 1 Timothy. But at the start of Paul's letter to the

Thessalonians, he says the following. We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our

God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our

Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by the Lord, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the

Holy Spirit and with full conviction. So he says, we know that you believe the gospel.

We know that you're brothers that have been chosen by the Lord for this salvation in Christ because when we came to you with the gospel, you believed it.

So we know you're our brothers. How can you look around in this congregation and know that the people that you are sitting among are your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Because they've heard the gospel, they turn from sin, and they believe it.

As Paul would go on to talk about with the Thessalonians, testimony about you has been spread all throughout Achaia and Macedonia, that these people who once worshiped false gods are not worshiping those idols anymore, but have turned to the one true

God. And this is a testament to the genuineness of the faith of those who believe, that they turn from false teaching.

They turn from worldliness. They turn from worshiping idols to worshiping

God. And remember, whenever we talk about idols, we're not just talking about a dumb mute statue that is carved out of stone or wood or metal.

We're talking about anything that anyone would exalt to the place of God. As Paul says with the

Colossians and also with the Ephesians, that coveting is idolatry. Wanting anything above what

God has blessed you with, wanting anything more than Christ, we have made an idol of something. And so all of us who believe in Christ worship

Him as preeminent, for He is King of kings and Lord of lords and deserving of our praise.

What is the gospel that Paul preached to the Corinthians? It's the same gospel that we preach here.

For 2 ,000 years, the Church of Jesus Christ has been preaching this gospel. It has not changed.

No matter what the skeptics or the critics want to say, oh yeah, well, there was these manuscripts that were rolled up.

They were in this place. They were hidden for a long period of time. People pulled those manuscripts out. They decided they liked those manuscripts more than these other manuscripts.

These manuscripts contradict. So we need to burn all of these so that there won't be any evidence of these other manuscripts, so that we only have these.

And this is how we're going to create our religion. And over years and periods of time, there was all this formatting and all of these corrections that were being made, ultimately coming to the

Bible that it is that we have today. That is not how the Christian faith came about. And I find that explanation absolutely ridiculous, because if all the other manuscripts that were not supposed to be included in this manuscript were destroyed, then why do you even know about it?

Apparently, they didn't do a very good job of putting together this word of God that we have today that apparently took centuries to fashion into the

Bible that we have now. This is the same message that was being proclaimed by Paul and the other apostles 2 ,000 years ago.

What is the gospel that Paul proclaimed? Well, standing on two feet, it's the gospel of Luke.

What you read in Luke is the gospel exactly the way that Paul preached it. Standing on one foot, the gospel is this.

As Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter one, or chapter two, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom

I am the foremost. That's the gospel on one foot, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That though we were wretched sinners who had fallen far short of the glory of God, and were deserving of his wrath because of our rebellion against God, God in his divine grace and mercy did not leave us dead in our sins or the objects of his wrath.

He sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sin. He took our sin upon himself on the cross, and he gave us his righteousness.

Clothed us in robes of righteousness, as is described in the book of Revelation, so that all who believe on his name stand before God justified.

We are being sanctified, growing in holiness, and on the day that we die, we will be glorified and be with our

God forever in heaven because of the work that Christ has done. This is the gospel of Christ.

So all of your sins, the lying that you do, the disrespect that you show to one another, wrath, malice, disregard, hate, vitriol that you throw to your fellow man, murder that we are all guilty of, as Jesus pointed out in Matthew chapter 5, if you even hate somebody in your heart, you've murdered them in your heart before God.

If you've even lusted after somebody in your heart, you've committed adultery with them in your heart before God.

We've coveted things above God. We have disobeyed his law, even when we specifically knew what his command was, we yet deliberately disobeyed it.

This is the rebellion that every single man, woman, and child has perpetrated against the high king on the throne of all of creation.

What we deserve for that kind of blasphemy and treason is to be separated from that eternal and most holy

God forever. And yet it's by his grace that he sent his son to die for that sin, shedding his blood for you, that through Christ, your sins would be forgiven.

You have been adopted into the family of God and can now call upon him as father.

As Paul talks about with the Romans in Romans chapter 8, if God is for us, who can be against us?

There is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. And the reason why you know that nothing can separate you from the love of God is not because you came to church on Sunday.

It's not because you listened to Gabe's podcast or you did your Bible reading today, or because I keep and obey the 10 commandments.

That's not why the love of God rests upon you. The love of God is on you, not because of any work that you have done, but because of the work that Christ has done and is doing through you even now.

Our confidence is not in ourselves. And praise God for that. Because there are plenty of days when

I don't have a lot of confidence in myself. I can fake it, but I feel my inadequacies all the time.

I feel the enemy and Satan creeping into my mind all the time, saying, you're not good enough. You can't do this.

Remember that sin that you did this week? How dare you stand before the people of God and proclaim the gospel when you're guilty of this sin?

That's why I need reminders of the gospel, the refreshing of my mind and the renewing of my heart that Christ has paid for my sin.

And it is not my word that I preach. It's God's word for the edification and the sanctification of his people.

This is the gospel that was preached. It's the gospel that Paul preached to the Corinthians. It's the gospel that we preach in the church of God today.

It's the gospel which you received and in which you stand.

So here we're back on the standing on two feet metaphor again. Standing on the promises of God.

So this is our present state as Christians. We stand on the gospel.

Why did you come to church this morning? I hope it is because you stand on the gospel of Christ. Not because there's a religious duty that you think that you need to fulfill on Sunday morning, but because you know the gospel is true.

Jesus really lived. He really died. He really came out of that tomb.

I had someone online just yesterday say to me, Jesus is dead, man.

Trying to, I don't know, mock me for being a pastor. I'm not sure what his reasoning behind that was.

And I responded very specifically. I said, no, the tomb is empty.

Jesus is alive. It's a proven historical fact, which we're actually even going to go through as we go deeper into Corinthians.

Talking about, into chapter 15, rather. Talking about all the different people that observed Christ alive in the 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven.

You can be more sure of what we're reading here in 1 Corinthians 15 than you can be sure that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.

This is true. It is established fact. It is done. It is witnessed. It has been written down and proclaimed throughout the ages.

Jesus is risen. Hey, it's not Easter Sunday, but let's do it anyway.

He is risen. He is risen indeed. This is the gospel in which we stand.

Our present state as Christians is. I believe the gospel.

I believe the good news that Jesus died for me. He rose for me.

He is interceding for me at the right hand of the father. Verse two, and by which you are being saved.

So here we have a present tense and a future tense. Presently, we're in the gospel.

That's where we stand. And we're being saved by it. We've been saved by it.

We're being saved by it. This goes back again to 1 Corinthians 1 .18.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.

What does it mean to be saved? It means we're being sanctified. Paul and the other apostles were not concerned with strictly conversion.

And unfortunately, that's an American phenomenon that has been very common in the

Western world over the last 60 or 70 years. The obsession with conversion, but no evidence of a genuine profession of faith or growing in discipleship.

And so this is what gave rise to the different rallies and crusades. It started with Charles Granderson Finney, or Charles Finney.

I might be getting the wrong name, or the middle name wrong. But Charles Finney and his whole revival movement thing that he did.

He was a Presbyterian minister, but he kind of fashioned that whole concept of the altar call.

Come forward if you want to give your life to Jesus. And Finney considered it an enterprise.

When you actually read the writings of Finney, he thought he was doing a commercial work.

It's like he was applying entrepreneurial tactics to trying to convert people to Christianity.

You really have a tough time actually reading Finney and believe that he understood what the gospel really was.

But this tactic that he used, the altar call, would then become very popular and grow in American culture and American lore, and ultimately became most commonly used by Billy Graham, the

Billy Graham crusades. My grandmother was saved at a Billy Graham crusade, and she loved her

King James Bible all the way to her death. And so I know that this woman is alive with the

Lord forever in glory because she heard the gospel and she believed it. That confirmation that Paul gave with the Thessalonians there.

You could see that confirmation in her life. She heard the gospel and she believed it. She was a believer.

So she wasn't one of the false conversions, but the Billy Graham crusade itself did their own study of all of the conversions that they had been getting in these crusades over the course of the decades that Billy Graham had been calling for people to come forward and give their life to Christ.

Here is what they found, the statistics from the Billy Graham association itself. Only two to three percent of the people that confessed to give their lives to Christ were still in church five years later.

An altar call or a sinner's prayer doesn't save anyone. Conversion is no guarantee of salvation if you have some sort of momentary experience, but it doesn't continue for the rest of your life.

It is not enough for you to have professed at one point in your life that you believed.

You must go on believing it. You must continue in this belief. You must grow in it.

You must continue in obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The obedience doesn't save you, but it confirms that the gospel that you believe is true in your heart.

Consider what John wrote in 1 John 2 verses one through six. My little children,

I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the

Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, meaning that by his blood, he has satisfied the wrath of God that was burning against our unrighteousness, and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

And by this, we know that we have come to know him.

How do we know that we have come to know him? If we keep his commandments.

Whoever says, I know him, but doesn't keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.

By this, we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk.

In the same way that Jesus walked. When Kite's Bar and Grill was down here on the corner of 6th and Washington, it was not uncommon for me to do evangelism in the park right across the street and try to evangelize somebody who was drunk.

That doesn't happen as much anymore since that bar and grill isn't there anymore. But at the time when I would evangelize at Heritage Park, probably half of the men that I would talk to, you could tell, were a little intoxicated.

And I remember a drunk man saying to me, oh yeah, I'm a Christian. I gave my life to Jesus.

I prayed the prayer and I was baptized. I know exactly what you're talking about. You don't need to evangelize to me.

I even know all the lingo. I could tell you the whole thing. I'm a Christian too. And I would quote to him, 1

John 2, 4, if you think that you are a Christian but you don't keep his commands, you're a liar.

The Bible says so. And almost always the response when

I would say that was this, you mean the prayer I prayed mean nothing? But the baptism that I had, it meant nothing?

And they thought they were catching me in some sort of an argument. Like I know the theological game here. I know how to catch you in this.

And I would respond to him, right, I'm telling you it means nothing. If you're walking in sin and disobedience and your life has not shown any genuine transformation in the following of Jesus Christ, whatever it was you did when you were 7 or 8, 12, 20 something years old and wrote that date in the back of your

Bible, it means nothing. It is not enough that you professed

Christ at one point, but that you're still professing Christ. That repentance and faith is something that is ongoing in your life.

That's the confirmation of your faith. That's how you know that it is real and true.

You're not saved by your works, but your works will confirm that the salvation that you claim that you have is true.

Paul says you stand on this gospel and by it you are being saved. We're being grown in the gospel.

We are being shaped in the image of Christ. And this is the doctrinal word that goes with this is sanctification.

It's a Bible word. It's in your Bible. In fact, Paul has talked about this once already. Back in chapter 6, he talked about sanctification.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.

Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified.

You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the

Spirit of our God. Now here, Paul even uses that word sanctified in the past tense.

And the writer of Hebrews in chapter 10 does the same. I'm going to read in Hebrews 10, starting in verse 8.

When God said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings.

These are offered according to the law. Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will.

Christ speaking. He does away with all the first in order to establish the second.

And by that, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

So you heard sanctified twice in that section that I read. The first time was in verse 10.

By that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And then verse 14. For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

We have sanctified in a present tense and sanctified even in a future tense. And like there is something that we are being shaped into, which we are not yet.

The point that the writer of Hebrews is making is this. Christ has bought and has rightfully purchased our full perfection and sanctification, which

God in his good time is bringing about in our lives in the present in which we live.

That's what the writer of Hebrews is stating. If you are in Christ, guess what, folks? Your perfection is already sealed in the

Holy Spirit. Does that mean you're perfect right now? No, it doesn't. But your perfection has been sealed.

The perfectly sanctified self that you will be with God in glory is sealed in the

Holy Spirit. Hope and a promise that is given to us by the Word of God right there. But right now,

God is working in time and in your life to bring about that sanctification which you have not arrived at yet.

The holiness that you must be growing in. So here's what I mean to say to you.

When you obey the commands of Christ, it's not in vain. It's leading to something.

It's doing something great in your heart. Have you ever in your Christian walk come to those days where you have asked and wondered, why am

I still doing this? What is this ultimately getting to? I just feel like I'm adding another thing into my schedule.

But where does this go? If you are doing it to the glory and greatness of God, it's going somewhere.

It is by the Spirit of God making you more like Christ. So praise

God in the midst of whatever circumstance that you are in. Philippians chapter 4, do not be anxious, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.

This is the sanctification in which we are in and which is ongoing in the life of every believer.

We stand on the gospel. It's by it we are being saved. And then Paul says, if you hold fast to the word that I preach to you, can you lose your salvation?

No, you cannot. As I just said, the guarantee of your glorification is sealed in the

Holy Spirit. And as we read in Romans chapter 8, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ, our

Lord. Jesus says in the book of John that God who is greater than all has given these sheep to me, and no one can snatch them out of my hand.

No one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. So if you are held fast in the hand of Christ, you cannot lose your salvation.

But Jesus said to his disciples, it is those who endure to the end that will be saved.

And as we hear him teach in his first parable, the parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13, there are those who might receive the word with great joy, and they'll rejoice in it, and they'll walk in it for a time.

But they're like the seed that falls on the path and are eaten up by the birds. This is the devil that has snatched the word out of their heart.

Or they'll be like the seed that falls in the thorns. It's choked out by the thorns. The plant is never able to grow up and flourish.

This is like one whose joy for the gospel was choked out by the cares and concerns, and even the temptations and the materialism of this world.

Or there's those that fall upon the rocks. There's no root. They don't actually have root established in the gospel, and so there's no growth in their life at all.

But then there's some seed that falls on good soil, and it grows up and produces a bountiful harvest.

What Jesus is showing in this parable is those who are genuinely in the faith and those who are not.

On the surface, they may have proclaimed faith in Christ for a time, but if they did not endure to the end, they were never saved in the first place.

It was just a religious experience that they had in their life for a time that served a particular purpose for that particular chapter of their life, but if it didn't endure to the end, then they don't still have it.

It wasn't real, just like that man I encountered at the park.

Oh yeah, I'd been baptized before. I know all the church lingo. It was never real.

It's never genuine. It was seeds that had fallen on a path. And finally,

Paul puts this point before the Corinthians. He says, hold fast to the word that I preached to you.

Those who endure to the end will be saved. And then he says, unless you believed in vain. And what

I appreciate about this last part that gets tacked on to the end of this introduction to this chapter is it's almost as though Paul is presenting this question to the

Corinthians, and I present this question to you as well. Why do you believe?

Why are you a Christian? Are you a

Christian because you need religion? Are you a

Christian because you know that people need morality? And I like the teachings of Jesus.

It's what I grew up with. And so that's what it is that you follow, because you need morality.

Are you a Christian? Do you believe because it just sounded good, or like with the

Corinthians, the way that they had received it? Was extra philosophy made them sound smarter?

I sound like an intellectual? When I say that I know this universe actually came from someone instead of just poofed out of nothing?

At least I sound smarter because I'm a Christian. I don't sound like fools like the rest of those guys. Because that was the same approach that the

Corinthians had as well. Are you a

Christian? Do you believe because you need a social club to be a part of? And the church doesn't really demand too much of me.

I can do that pretty simply. Are you a Christian because you were born into it?

My parents raised me this way. This is what I've been taught from before I was a little child. And so that's why

I'm a Christian. None of those reasons that I've given you are legitimate reasons to be a believer in Christ.

When you know that because of your sinfulness, you are separated from God and what you deserve is his wrath, what you deserve is death, what you deserve is hell and to be separated from him for all eternity.

And you know that your body will die because the wages of sin is death and you will go into the ground.

And what is thereafter that? But God who is gracious and merciful to me sent his son and died for my sins.

And my sins are paid for by the blood of Christ. And so by faith in Jesus, in his finished work on the cross and his resurrection from the grave,

I know that I will rise from the grave as well. If that's why you believe, then you believe.

Then you understand what it means to be a Christian. We don't believe the gospel because we need religion or because we need a moral code or because our parents raised us in it.

We believe it because it's the truth. And we need salvation from death. And no one can give that to us but Jesus.

And let me add this on to that as well. That's not only why you're a believer, that's why you need to tell somebody else about their sin and the gospel of Jesus Christ, which will save them from the wrath of God.

Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, growing together in Christ when we understand the text.