Getting the Gospel Right

Father, What a glorious privilege it is to not only be reminded of the salvation, the redemption that is ours in Christ, but to celebrate that, and not only to be reminded of it and to celebrated, but to celebrated in your presence, and to know that you delight in our celebration, and to know that because of Christ's finished work, our celebration is pleasing and acceptable in your sight, and that you rejoice over us as we rejoice in You. Grant by your grace that in our darkest days we would be reminded not merely of this moment, but of this truth. For this is indeed our greatest need. And we ask Lord that as we open your word together, that you, by the presence and power of your spirit, would speak truth to your people, for we spend in desperate need thereof We ask this humbly and boldly at the same time, because of Christ, our Lord, and whose name we pray Amen. My assignment tonight is to address the issue of getting the gospel right and why it matters that we get the gospel right. We hear much talk about the gospel. In some ways, the gospel has become a fad, and unfortunately, when something becomes a fad, there are those who jump on the bandwagon and have absolutely no idea why what it is that they are lauding is significant, nor in some cases what it is that is so significant. So there are those who speak much about the gospel, but when they say gospel, they don't mean what the Bible means by gospel. There are some who are excited about hearing so much gospel talk because to them, the Gospel is the means by which God levels the socioeconomic playing field in the world. And so when they say gospel and when they celebrate gospel, what they are celebrating is a social gospel. There are others, and when they hear gospel, they are excited about that because for them, the Gospel is all the moral teachings of Jesus, and so they celebrate the form of legalism. There are others who are more subtle in their form of legalism, because when they hear gospel, they simplified the gospel. And there's a phrase, there's a mantra that is going around now that is presumed to be a simplification of the Gospel, and it is love God, love people. The irony here could not be greater. Love God loved people is actually an abbreviation of Jesus teaching on the greatest commandments. Here's the great irony. Jesus, what is the greatest commandment? And it was a legitimate question. There were legitimate arguments, and some would have argued that the first commandment was the greatest commandment, and then all the others rested on the first commandment. Some would have argued that the fifth commandment was the greatest because it was the bridge between the first and second tables of the law. Others would have argued that the tenth commandment and covening was the greatest commandment because ultimately all of your sin arises out of your covening. So, Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? Is he gonna say one? Is he gonna say five? Is he gonna say ten? And Jesus looks at them and says, you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, which, by the way, is a summary of the first table of the law. Jesus, what is the greatest commandment? I'm gonna have to say one through four, and any others hue drops. He says, the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself, which is a summary of the second table of the Law. So here's how the conversation went. Jesus, which commandment is the greatest commandment? His response, I'm gonna have to say one through four, followed closely by five through ten. Folks, this ubiquitous saying love God, love people. It's actually a summary of the law, the whole law. It's not the gospel at all. It's what the Gospel freed us from. And two amen. So when we talk about gospel, we need to be clear. And as I think about clarity concerning the Gospel and fighting for that clarity, defending that clarity, my mind is immediately drawn to First Corinthians, chapter fifteen, because that's precisely what Paul does in One Corinthians chapter fifteen. He clarifies the gospel, and he does battle on behalf of the gospel. But he does more than this. I believe that if we look carefully, what we will discover is that he outlines really three different types of arguments, three different lines of argumentation. I'll tell you what they are, and then we'll walk through them. The first is an argument from authority, the second is an argument from evidence, and the third is an argument from logic, all of them important and useful in their own right. We know here that Paul is actually addressing, in one sense a kind of mixed multitude. You'll see that as we get further along in One Corinthians, chapter fifteen, and he actually addresses those individuals who are arguing against the very concept of resurrection. As he does this, he both shuts the mouths of those who oppose the Gospel and emboldens and strengthens the arms of those who preach it and defend it. Both are incredibly important as we consider our task tonight. We need to be emboldened. Amen, we need to be encouraged. We need to see an example of what it looks like when a Christian squares his shoulders and plants his feet and does battle on behalf of the Gospel. Because we live in the culture that does not celebrate the ten commandments, we celebrate the eleventh commandment, which is the only commandment, Thou shalt be nice. And so the idea of a vigorous defense is dismissed, regardless of its clarity or truth. If it sounds even ever so slightly, as though it's not nice, because, after all, if none of the other commandments matter, the eleventh commandment is the greatest commandment. Thou shalt be nice. You have to be like Jesus, who was nice, walked around with a lamb on his shoulders, had long flowing hair like a model in a magazine, pretty hands, that never did a day of work. Paul would beg to differ first the argument from authority. Look at the beginning of First Corinthians, chapter fifteen. Now, I would remind you, brothers, there's this audience 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 preach to you, unless you believed in vain. This is incredibly important for your communications majors out there. You know that we've just seen all the three major facets of communication that must be a sender, a receiver, and a message. And there we have it. Paul is the sender, the Corinthians are the receivers, and the message is the gospel that he preached to them. But there's something more here than just effective communication. He says, I'm reminding you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand. In other words, they are standing in standing on that gospel that Paul preached right now, and by which you are being saved. I love that phrase. Wall doesn't say by which you have been saved, although you have. He didn't even say by which you will be saved, although you will. He says by which you are being saved, this ongoing, sanctifying work of the Gospel. Amen. The Gospel is not just a message that you need to hear to get saved. The Gospel is the message you need to hear to stay saved, to be saved, to love saved, to live saved, to all kinds of saved, any kind of saved that saved could ever be, requires the Gospel. Amen. But then there's this if clause. If you hold fast to the word that I preach to you, unless you believed in vain, a couple of possibilities here. Possibility number one is that Paul just introduced the idea of Christian losing his or her salvation. That's possibility number one. That what he says here is if you keep holding on and you keep believing and you keep standing, then you'll be saved. But if you stop, then you won't be saved. Here I'll give you a simple answer and then a more complex answer. The simple answer suffices for me, but some of you may need more. The simple answer comes from John MacArthur, who says, as only John MacArthur could if you could lose your salvation, you would amen somebody. How arrogant does a person have to be to believe that it's possible for them to lose their salvation but they haven't. Who do you have to think you are in order to be saying I'm a Christian and I'm saved, and I'm on my way to Heaven when I die. Now there's a possibility that I can mess this thing up, but I haven't. You probably just did. But there's a second idea, and that's the idea that such theology would put Paul at odds, not only with what he teaches in the rest of this passage, but what he teaches everywhere else. He's not ashamed of the gospel. Why because the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It is the Gospel that is the power of God undo salvation, and not me not my apprehension of a retention of the Gospel. That's the power of God under salvation, but the Gospel and the God of the Gospel, to be more precise. But there is also this little phrase that he puts in Ephesians chapter one, which I believe puts all of this to rest. We could talk about the fact that we have as a present possession eternal life. Jesus makes that clear. We could talk about the fact that Jesus gives us the two fisted promise that he we're in his hand, and that's in the Father's hand, and that there's nobody who's gonna remove us from that. But beyond that, let me just read this for you from Ephesians chapter one one, which I believe settles this quite well. Fesis chapter one, they're in verse thirteen, we're just beginning verse eleven. And him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of His glory in him. You also, when you heard the Word of truth the Gospel, there it is again of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. I love the way that King James uses this word earnest. We still use that word when you give an earnest money co same concept. What is an earnest money contract? You come to a piece of property and you say, I intend to buy this piece of property. Here is a contract and a check. The check is my earnest money. If you sign the other part of this contract, this check is yours, and it's symbolic of the rest of the money that I will bring with me at closing. If I do not bring the rest of the money with me at closing, you get to keep your property and my earnest money. What does God put up as earnest money on your salvation? The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, which means if he doesn't show up on closing day, he loses. The third person of the Trinity, which means the only way you can stop being a Christian is if he stops being God. So no, no, no. Paul's not arguing here that somehow we lose our salvation if we are wavering on the gospel. What he is doing here is an argument from authority that we can't have salvation if we don't believe the right gospel. You don't get to reinterpret or reinvent or tweak the gospel and have the hope of salvation. Listen to it again. I'll remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand. You're standing on that gospel right now and by which you're being said if you hold fast, not if you can somehow muster up enough strength to hold on to it, because you can't. But if what you believed is something other than that was proclaimed, you have no hope of salvation. So, first and foremost, it's important that we get the gospel right, because if we don't, there are people out there, including ourselves, who will be duped into believing that they are right with God, when in fact they are at enmity with him. You believe the wrong gospel, it doesn't matter how sincere you are in your belief, you are merely sincerely wrong. So his first argument is an argument from authority as an apostle. He reminds them of the fact that he preached the gospel to them clearly, that they are standing on the gospel that he preached, that they are saved by the gospel that he preached. Remember the context here, the resurrection is being brought into question. After this argument from authority, he moves on to a second type of argument, an argument from evidence. Four. I delivered to you, as of first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins. Noticed the phrase in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures. So first he couches this argument from evidence, not in the things around them, or even in himself, but in the scriptures, in the prophecies of the scriptures, that God foretold that he would send forth his son, born of a virgin born under the law, that he would come into season, that he would live, that he would die, and he would raise again on the third day. One of my favorite passages in the New Testament is there in Luke twenty four, when Jesus is on the road to Amais. There's a number of reasons. Number one It's one of the funniest things that I read in the New Testament. I love it because they're talking about what happened, and they're all distraught, and Jesus basically is asking them what's wrong, and they look at him and say, are you the only man in Jerusalem who does not know what has happened here these last few days? You actually have the only one who does. He calls them foolish ones and so of heart to believe what Moses and the prophets. He doesn't say, you should have believed those things necessarily that I told you, But you didn't believe Moses and the prophets, and because of that you missed death, burial, and resurrection. According to the scriptures. That's the first piece of evidence. It's biblical evidence. That's where we begin with the authority of the scriptures. We've heard it here, have we not the authority of the scriptures, the inerrancy of the scriptures, the sufficiency of the scriptures. It always amazes me that we hang on to the authority of the scripture and the inerrancy of the scripture and everything else until we get to apologetics. Then it's reason. Don't argue from the Bible. They don't believe the Bible, so you got to go to something else that they believe, because they don't believe the Bible, to which I respond, that's like standing in front of a man with a sword, and the man saying, I don't believe in the sword. You putting down your sword to go right on a chalkboard. The mathematical equation that will prove to him through reason that if you cut him he will bleed. He begins his argument from the scriptures. We begin our argument from the scriptures. Why because there is nothing more certain and nothing more authoritative than the scriptures, alive and active and sharper than any two edged sword from the scriptures. But then he goes on 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. Now you have eyewitnesses. First, we have the evidence of what the scriptures have taught. The argument from authority is, this is what the apostles have told you. The argument from evidence begins with what the scriptures have taught, and then there is evidence that Christ has fulfilled what the scriptures have taught, because there are these eyewitnesses who saw him, most of whom remain until now, which means that if you do the math, there are over three hundred eyewitnesses to the resurrection still alive during the time that First Corinthians was written, which by the way, demonstrates the early, not the late dating of the New Testament. Paul is not talking about some secret that he and a few others know that nobody else knows. Paul is not speaking about men who are wielding their own personal authority because of information that they have to which others have no access. Paul is speaking about events that took place in public, in the open. The gospel that we preach is a historical gospel. The gospel that we preach is a gospel of things that actual took place. The gospel is real. It is historical enough already with the idea that the gospel doesn't necessarily have to be true if it just changes your life, these are historical events. In fact, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most well attested event in all of antiquity. If we can't trust the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We can't trust anything from antiquity. Over three hundred high witnesses still alive during the time of this writing. Not until then does he go to himself, 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 the 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 preached, so you believed. Connecting this argument to the argument from authority, what evidence scriptural evidence the Bible foretold these things that would occur? What evidence I witness evidence that there are individuals who saw this resurrected Christ after his resurrection? What evidence personal evidence that I saw this resurrected Christ after his resurrection. Note that Paul does not take his own isolated experience and argue solely from that isolated experience. That's not the power of the gospel. The one of the gospel is not that I've been changed. What's the difference between you and the thousand other people who've been changed by a thousand other things. What's the difference between you and the man who's been in AA for fifteen years and hasn't taken another drink? It changed him. What's the difference between you and the Muslim? Are you and the moral Hindu or the moral Buddhist or the moral Mormon? What's the difference? There is no difference if all we have is our own personal story. But that's not Paul's line of argumentation. Paul says, this is true. First piece of evidence, the scriptures that were fulfilled. Second piece of evidence, the eyewitnesses who saw this. Third piece of evidence, my own testimony. Now, be careful here. Here's what Paul is not doing. Paul is not giving us a pattern whereby we argue first from those evidences and then form our own testimony. His testimony is a little bit different than your testimony. But even so, watch this and Galatians chapter two. At the end of Galatians chapter one, Paul goes back to the other apostles. After three years of being instructed by the Lord and confirms his gospel. Watch this one of the most fascinating and most overlooked pieces of the New Testament. Galatians chapter two, just to the right a little bit. Then, after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation, and set before them the apostles, or privately, before those who seemed influential, the gospel that I proclaimed among the gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or not or had not run in vain. Same phrase, unless you believed in vain. He says, I want to make sure that I hadn't run in vain. But wait a minute, Paul, You've seen all this fruit from your ministry among the gentiles for twelve years. How could you possibly have run in vain. You've got all this fruit in front of you. If what I was preaching did not line up with what they were preaching, then my fruit would have been in vain. He does not point to himself as the authority, but to the Gospel as the authority. He points to himself as one in the apostolic life. He is defending his apostleship. Here, Paul is not saying that you have to somehow muster up your own personal experience that will be as powerful as my personal experience, because that's what's going to tip the scales. Now, what Paul says is this number one, there's the argument from authority, and the authority is I preach this gospel to you. You listen to this gospel, You're saved by this gospel. That's where you stand unless you moved away from this gospel that I preach to you. Then there's the evidence. What's the evidence, the scriptures that have been fulfilled, the eyewitnesses who saw and I myself, who have apostolic authority because God placed me in this line of eyewitnesses. This goes back to the authority of the New Testament. People. It's not about me and my experience. This is about the authority of the New Testament. Here's the problem. If we look at this and all we see is that Paul is saying, you tip the scales with your own personal experience, then our job becomes this, I have to have a compelling enough story to tip the scales so that men will be saved. Now, it's not the gospel. That's the power of God on the salvation. It's my story. That's why people start lying Amen. You can't say amen. You ought to say out. You ought to hear some testimonies and how they develop over time. Person gets in one fight in the third grade twenty years have to being saved. I fought every day. Person took a sip of whiskey when they were a teenager. All of a sudden, after twenty years of telling their testimony, I used to get drunk almost every day after school. Father looked at him disapprovingly. One day, twenty years later in their testimony, Daddy abandoned me. I had no But here's what's worse. You have Christians in church who listen to these inflated testimonies, who will say this phrase, and I just I don't know whether to hug him or hit him. I don't have a testimony. In other words, there are these powerful stories, these captivating stories, And what we're all about is these powerful, captivating stories. That's a testimony because it tips the scales, It gets people to respond, It makes people stand up and take notice of God and what he has done. All I have is God wrapped himself in flesh, died on a cross, nailed my sin. There too, was placed in the grave, rose again on the third day, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and is there making intercession for me until such time as my salvation is completed and he takes me home. That's all I got. Don't you ever ever fall into that trap. Paul is not making much of his own personal story here. Paul is making much of the fact that God has gone out of his way to present this gospel in an historic context that is verifiable and falsifiable. In other words, it could have been proven false, but it wasn't. That's the point. The argument from authority says, to those who claim to be Christian, you say you follow Christ, you say you believe the Gospel, but what you're preaching is not the Gospel. Something here doesn't add up. The authority from evidence says, this God went public with the Gospel and it's verified. It's real. As John says in First John one, what we have seen, what our hands have handled. I love that phrase. That's his argument. Then he makes the third argument, the argument from logic. Here's where he gets right into the face of his opposition. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead. There's the question. If Christ is proclaimed as being raised from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection of the dead. He didn't say, how can some of you say that Christ wasn't resurrected. Here's the problem. There are people who evidently are hanging on around the Corinthian Church and like some aspect of what they're experiencing, but they don't like this one aspect where the gospel that is being preached rubs up against their personal philosophy that doesn't allow for the concept of resurrection. So what they want is a resurrection lists Christian. They want a Christianity that will fit within the context and confines of their presuppositions. So Paul says, argument from authority, here's what I have preached to you as an apostle. Argument from evidence, Here's what God has verified and validated historically in the open. Now he gets to the argument from logic and he says, there are some of you who, on the one hand want to say that you are attached, but on the other hand, want to say that your personal philosophy doesn't allow for the concept of resurrection. Now you know you can sit here and before we sit here high in Mighty. Well, you know, I've never I would never question the concept of resurrection. Yeah, but you question something. We just don't like the idea of hell until we want a Christianity without hell. We don't like the idea of judgmentally, so we have a Christianity that doesn't speak the truth to sin. We don't like the idea of holiness or righteousness, so we have a Christianity that doesn't require it. We don't like the idea of the church, so we have a Christianity that's absent of it. And so on and so on and so on. What's what he does? It's masterful. Seven things that logically must follow if this one thing is correct, seven things that they must follow. You think you've just, you know, removed a small problem. You think that you can hold on to something meaningful while getting rid of resurrection. But there are seven things that must follow, as inexorably as night follows day. If the concept of resurrection is not true, here they are one. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. That is brilliant. Why Because he's just demonstrated from authority and from evidence that Christ has been raised. So what, here's so what. He's going to give you seven things that must follow inexorably. The first one can't follow because he just disproved it. You're saying there's no such thing as resurrection. There's a seven problems with that problem. Number one, I just prove to you that Jesus was raised. And if there's no such thing as resurrection, then not even Jesus was raised, which means you just we'll get to that in a minute. Number two. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain and your faith is vain. Here's what's interesting. There are people out there who want to pick the supernatural parts of the Gospel out. They don't like the supernatural parts, and so they don't believe in virgin birth, they don't believe in resurrection, they don't believe in this and that and the other. But at the same time, they say, but your Christian faith is good, your churches are good, you do great things in the community. Good for you, Go, preacher, go make those people better. Paul says, if there's no such thing as resurrection. Number One, Christ hasn't been raised already proved that one. So you've got huge problems before I can get past that. Number Two, our preaching is vain. In other words, it's empty and it's useless. So you cannot say on the one hand that there's no such thing as the resurrection or virgin birth or hell or whatever, and then on the other hand that it's a good thing that we preach. It's a useless thing. We're fools for preaching the gospel. Oh no, no, no, I would never say that. Yeah, but you did when you said there's no resurrection. Logically it must follow. Three. Your faith is vain, so much for all those who say you can still have a viable Christianity without this resurrection thing. No, your faith is vain. Your faith is useless. Our preaching is useless. Your faith is useless. If there's no such thing as resurrection. Why, because the resurrection is central to the gospel that we preached. You just gut it the gospel. You've got a gospel that's another gospel, which is no gospel at all. Not even Christ has been raised. Our preaching is vain and your faith is vain. Yes, preaching but my faith is strong, my faith to help me through your faith, help you through what? Because if there's no resurrection, you're not through that. Four. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we are testifying about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise. If it is true that the dead are not raised, for if the dead are not raised, that even Christ has been raised. If there's no such thing as resurrection. You just called me a liar. I like this one. I do. I use this one. Well, you know the Christianity stuff, that's fine, but you know, I mean the resurrection of the virgin birth. You call me a liar. No I would oh no, God, no, sir, No, absolutely no, no, sir. Yeah, actually you just did well. No, I'm a man of peace. I didn't. I didn't. I would not. I didn't go. Yes, you did. You said there's no such thing as resurrection, which means Christ has not been raised. My preaching is vain, Your faith is vain, and I am misrepresenting God. Not only am I a liar, I'm a blaspheming liar because I lied on God by saying he did something that he didn't do. Well, I would never say that but you did. Logically, it must follow. If you believe that there's no resurrection, I'm a liar for preaching resurrection. If you believe there's no virgin birth, I'm a liar for preaching virgin birth. Christ is not raised. Preaching is vain and useless, waste of breath, waste of life. Your faith is vain and useless. Go, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we all die. And I'm a blaspheming liar. That's what you believe, whether you admit it or not. If you don't believe this or any other supernatural aspect of the gospel. Next, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. If Christ has not been raised, there is no justification. He died for our sins. He rose again for our justification. If Christ has not been raised, there is no penal substitutionary atonement. If Christ has not been raised, then that means he went into the ground with something that would keep him there. The only thing that would keep him there is sin. If Christ has not been raised, he was a sinner, and no one has satisfied the righteous wrath of God on your behalf or mine, and you and I are still in our sins, and we are only waiting marking time until we face Almighty God and are consumed by him the consuming fire. You have offended a holy and a righteous God, and you have no hope. He will crush you. He must. Justice cries out for it. From the time that you were a child, one of the first concepts you learned was that's not fair, because everything on the inside of you cries out for it, and for God not to consume you would not be fair for God to give you a pass without the shedding of blood and the remission of your sin through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Finally, then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hoped in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. I want to hold on too, Christian, but I don't like this resurrection thing. You got seven problems. Number One, Christ is not raised. That's a huge problem, because I just demonstrated that he was back to that in a moment. Number two, are preaching is vain? Number three, Your faith is vain. Number four, I'm a liar, and everyone who preaches the resurrected Christ is a liar. Number five, you're still in your sins. Number six, everyone else who has died before you still in their sins. And finally, you and I are the most pitiful lot in the history of mankind because we have hoped and the greatest lie ever perpetrated. But if you remember number one, here's the wonderful thing that happens. Because of the way Paul situates his argument, if there is no such thing as resurrection from the dead, these seven things are true. The first one has already been proven, which means not only are you wrong, but all seven of these things are flipped. There is such thing as resurrection from the dead, which means Christ has been raised, which means our preaching is not vain, but it is the power of God unto salvation. Your faith is not vain, but by grace you are saved through faith, which means I'm not a liar. I am a truth teller, which means that you and I are not still in our sins. Christ died for sins, once for all the just, for the unjust, in order that He might bring us back to God. All we like sheep had gone astray. Each of us had turned to his own way. But God have laid upon him the iniquity of us. All I am not in my sins. I am redeemed from my sins. I am cleansed from my sins. Those who have gone on before me did not die hopeless, vain deaths, but absent from the body. They are present from the Lord. And I am absolutely not to be pitied. Don't you dare pity me, because somebody's gonna come to you one day and tell you a lie. They're gonna say, Hodi Baccam has died, he is no more. You look him in the face and say you're a liar. He may have died, but he is some more. The gospel matters. The content of the gospel matters. It all matters. Do I have to know everything there is about the gospel? I'll spend all eternity and not know everything there is about the gospel. But what does it mean to believe the gospel? Savingly, it means to believe what we have received and whatever it is that will continue to receive argument from authority. We believe it because the apostles have said it is so. Argument from evidence. We believe it because God did it in the open, and there is evidence verifying what it is that he did. Why do we believe it because logically it makes absolutely no sense to believe otherwise, because there are things that not only are we not willing to accept, but things that literally cannot be the case. Because Christ, indeed has been raised. The Gospel matters. What we mean when we say gospel matters, what we say when we preach gospel matters, and what we hold to when we come to the end of our days matters, because ultimately this Gospel is the only hope of those of us who will face a righteous God and have to give an account. It is only through the Gospel that the account we give is that our debt has been paid in full by the One who lived and died, and rose again, and is coming again to judge the living and the dead, and to redeem that which was put on deposit. Let's pray, Father, we are grateful for the truth that you reveal. That you have not left us to wander aimlessly in the dark, or to depend upon our own emotions, our own experiences, abilities, our own righteousness, but that your gospel has been preserved and proclaimed by your apostles, that you operated in the open and in history, that it might be witnessed and verified, and that the result is a hope that is not an empty hope, but a logical hope based in these truths that you've communicated through your word. Grant by your grace that we might hold firmly to this gospel, that we might preach it faithfully, and that Christ might have the fullness of the reward for which he laid down his life. For this we pray in his name, Amen attatatatatatas