Easter Sunday! This week we look at the Easter Story with an toward the grace shown to us as believers. From the story itself, to those the news was shared with, God's grace is evident everywhere in this story.
This message is based on Mark 16:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
This morning I’m using the same readings for both services, but the messages are different. My entire message this morning is really just based on the first few verses of the second reading, from 1 Corinthians. There is so much here to look into, so much that we can learn about the Gospel from these couple of verses, but I what to concentrate on is how we experience God’s grace in the message. He gives us a couple of keys here. I think we could easily spend weeks looking at what these verses say about the Gospel, but for this message I want to concentrate on what Paul suggests we do with the gospel message. We know it – What do we do with it? Before we can start, we have to understand what the Gospel is! What is the most important, the first importance, the gospel in a nutshell? And I think we get it in verse 3. The core of the gospel is “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” Jesus’ death for our sins, His burial and resurrection – this is the gospel message, this is the good news that we cling to. No matter what else we believe as Christians, this is the core of the message. We believe, most basically, that salvation is found nowhere else, but through the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the gospel. This is the good news. And I want to suggest that this is a gospel of grace, given by a God of grace. There are a couple of things worth thinking about here, just in the first two verses. And as we look at them, I want you to notice the grace involved… The first point Paul makes is that the Gospel is something they received. “I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received…” (v 1). The gospel isn’t something that we have to figure out by ourselves. It’s given to us, we just receive it. The good news is always something that comes to us from somebody else, from somebody else that has already received it. We don’t come to faith in Christ by ourselves, and I think there’s grace in that. It isn’t something we have to struggle with to try to figure it out on our own. We may mess up by ourselves, we may not understand it properly. But the good news of Jesus comes from somebody else. And it’s handed down from generation to generation, from family to family, from friend to friend. We hear the gospel, we accept the gospel, and we believe the gospel. We receive it like we would a gift – because God’s grace toward us really is a gift. Let me point out something else that a lot of people in the American Church today have seemingly forgot, and maybe we have, too. Passing on this gift, so that others may receive it, is one of the primary functions of the church. It’s the great commission: Go and make disciples. And the church isn’t just the pastor or the deacons – the church is the Body of Christ, all the believers that make up the church should be sharing their faith, passing on the good news. The church is like a reservoir of the gospel message, the message of God’s grace toward mankind. But we don’t hold on to it, we can’t just hold onto it for ourselves, because we are the source of the gospel for other people. People see us living out the gospel, and we share it with them so they can receive what we have received. Churches decline and fail when they stop doing this. We have received it, but we need to share it so others can receive, it, too. Are you sharing the gospel – the good news of what God has done for you? The second point Paul makes is that the Gospel is something in which we stand. Let’s look at verse 1 again, and we’ll look at the rest of the verse this time, “I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.” The good news gives us stability. It’s a foundation on which we can stand firm. In a dangerous and slippery world, the gospel gives us the power to resist. In a hurting world the gospel gives us the power to withstand our hurt and not to give in. Job 4:4 says, “Your words have supported those who were falling, you encouraged those with shaky knees.” We can stand firm in God’s word, we can stand firm on the Gospel. James Moffatt wrote a translation of the bible in 1926, and he translates this, “Your words have kept men on their feet.” That is exactly what the Gospel does. Even though we live in a fallen world, the gospel keeps us from falling. Paul’s third point is that the Gospel is something through which we are being saved. Verse 2 in the NIV, which is what I read, says, “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.” I think the NIV got it wrong, but so did the KJV and so many of the other translations. In the Greek, the word that means you are saved is given in the present tense, not the past tense, so the better way to translate this would be “you are being saved if you hold firmly.” The New Revised Standard got it right when they say, “through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly. The Common English Translation got it right when they say, “You are being saved through it [the gospel] if you hold on to the message I preached.” We are being saved, not we’re saved. This is an idea that comes out in verses like Philippians 2:12, where Paul tells them “to continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” We see the idea again in Philippians 3:14, where he says, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” He hasn’t already won the prize. I think we get it wrong today when we think we can say a prayer and be saved and that’s it. Because if we think that way, we’re apt to go back to our old lives and never really be changed, and as a result, never really be saved at all. But we experience God’s grace in the gospel in that as we live for God, He transforms us into the image of Christ. As we live daily by the gospel, God grants us grace upon grace – the grace needed to truly live by faith, even now in the 21st century. We experience God’s grace in the gospel when we can live every day in an ongoing and always deepening, always maturing, relationship with Christ. We are, everyday, being saved as we live in relationship with Jesus Christ. And finally, the Gospel is something to hold firmly. Let’s look at verse 2 again, “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.” We are being saved, if we hold firmly. A lot of things can happen in life. Things happen to us and happen to others we are close to, which can really baffle our understanding at times. And sometimes things happen that can really shake our faith. When these things happen, we can choose how to respond to them. We can choose to abandon a faith because something happens that shakes that faith so badly, or we can choose to get closer to God, realizing that even though we don’t understand it, it doesn’t mean God doesn’t understand it, and it doesn’t mean God doesn’t have a reason for it, and it doesn’t mean God isn’t working through it. There are problems in life that don’t seem to have a solution, there are questions that can’t be answered. There are times when all we can do is hang on. But in faith there is always a victory. We experience God’s grace in the gospel when we can hold on firmly even in the midst of the storms of life. Continuing to look at our second reading this morning, Paul went on to say that after His resurrection, Jesus appeared to Peter, then to the twelve, then to more than 500 believers, then to James, and lastly to Paul himself. As we look for grace in this reading, we’ll find it in some of those that Jesus appeared to after being raised. First, Jesus shows his grace by appearing to Peter – In our first reading from Mark 16, we see the earliest account of the Resurrection story, and if you remember that story, there was a man in a white robe sitting in the tomb, a messenger of the Lord, who told the ladies “But go, tell His disciples and Peter ‘He is going on ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” (v.7) In Luke 24:34 the two from the road to Emmaus have had their experience, and they run back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples, and the disciples say, essentially, they say “yea, we know.” Verse 34 reads, “It is true, the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” It is only in God’s grace that one of Jesus’ first appearances would be made to Peter, the disciple who denied him. There is all the wonder and love and grace of Jesus Christ here. Others might have hated Peter forever, “you weren’t there when I needed you the most.” Peter had denied Jesus, and Peter had wept his heart out; and Jesus’ one desire was to comfort Peter in the pain of his disloyalty. And so Peter was one of the first He appeared to, and He broke bread with him. There is another that Jesus appeared to that showed His tremendous grace, James – James is the brother of Jesus. We know from the Gospels that Jesus’ own family didn’t believe in Him and were even occasionally hostile to Him. Mark 3:21 “they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘he is out of his mind.’” John 7:5 says, “For even his own brothers did not believe in Him.” One of the gospels that didn’t get into the New Testament is the Gospel according to the Hebrews. They’ve only found fragments of it, but one fragment reads, “Now the Lord, when He had given the linen cloth to the servant of the priest, went to James and appeared to him. Jesus went to James and said, ‘Bring a table and some bread.’ And He took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to James and said to him, ‘My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep.’” We can only guess what lies behind this, but the legend goes that the last week of Jesus’ life, James began to believe in Jesus, some of the disbelief he felt turned into wonder and admiration, and that when the end had come, James was so torn with remorse for the way he had treated his brother, Jesus, that he swore that he would starve unless his brother came back and forgave him. And here again we see the amazing grace of Jesus. Paul tells us in our second reading, “Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also…” (v.7). Even though James had once thought Jesus was out of his mind, he didn’t believe in him, Jesus came to bring peace to him. He appeared to James, and he broke bread with him. He appeared to all the disciples. And he still appears to people today. Jesus continues to show that grace today. We may not see him in the flesh, but things happen and we know he’s here. I’ve seen Him a lot in the last few weeks especially. Come to Him, lean on Him, trust in Him, and see if He doesn’t appear to you too!
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