Sidney UMC - Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany - 02/06/22 - Sermon - “The Basic Gospel” (“1 Corinthians” Series: Part 4 of 5)

Sunday 02/06/22 - Sidney UMC 

Sermon Title:               “The Basic Gospel”                                                              (“1 Corinthians” Series: Part 4 of 5)

Old Testament Scripture: Psalm 138                                        

New Testament Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Gospel Lesson: Luke 5:1-11

          This morning, I am continuing with our five-week sermon series on the Book or the letter of 1 Corinthians. As I have said for the past three weeks, the city of Corinth is an actual city in the modern-day European country of Greece. The Apostle Paul went to the ancient city of Corinth in Ancient Greece and planted a Christian Church there. Most experts would say that the Apostle Paul did this around 50 AD. Most experts would also say that the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth or the Corinthians sometime between 53-54 AD.

          Since the Apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to instruct, to correct, and to encourage, we have had some really good readings the past three weeks from 1 Corinthians. So far, we have heard about spiritual gifts and the many gifts and graces that we all have in the body of Christ. We all have gifts and graces from God, and when we come together with all of our gifts and graces the church can then fully pursue its mission.

          Last Sunday, comparing our 1 Corinthians reading to the movie “The Grinch” the Apostle Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 13:13:

¹³ And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love (1 Cor. 13:13, NRSV).

          As Christians we are called to have faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. God is love. God is light. God is life. We get to share this love, light, and life with the world every day. A love so strong that it can even convert a grinch!

          This morning, we are talking about our scripture reading from 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, on “The Basic Gospel”. What are the basic things that the vast majority of Christians have believed for two-thousand years, regardless of the Christian denomination or the expression of Christianity?

          Before diving into this however, we hear in our reading for this morning from Psalm 138 once again, that:

⁸ The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands (Ps. 138:8, NRSV).

          God is with us, and God has and continues to fulfil his love and promises through Jesus Christ.

          Part of the problem though is that we sometimes over think things. Does anyone here ever over think something? I could be as simple as 2 + 2 equals 4, but then we add all sorts of variables and extra things to that simple math problem. Sometimes we know the answer, but we create all these other things that complicates what otherwise seems to be a simple solution. Sometimes we make compromises in our heads or in our lives that make an otherwise easy answer very hard.

          For example, has anyone ever asked you to do something very basic and very simple, and you then created something much more advanced and much more complicated? I know that I have. Sometimes, for certain things, there are simple answers and solutions, but we have at times created different variables and additional things that can make things more complicated.

          As I have been announcing, next Sunday is Scouting Sunday in the United Methodist Church. When preparing for Scouting Sunday every year, I often think of the Pine Wood Derby cars that I used to make with my dad in his shop in his basement. I mean you start with a block of pine wood, some nails, and some plastic wheels. Pretty easy right? Not complicated right? Well one would think so, as some complete their Pine Wood Derby Cars in short order. Then there are the kids who parents work for Nasa, and the making of the Pine Wood Derby Car takes twenty-hours, two pots of coffee, prayers, and high-tech computer equipment. Does it have to be so complicated? Do we intentionally take things that are simple, that are basic, and make them so much more complex and complicated? I know that many of us do. Sometime there are good reasons for this too.

          Take sports for example, when you think of major league baseball 100 years ago, do you think that all the variables in place now where in place then? Did people sign liability waivers? Did the baseball park need to carry millions of dollars of extra insurance? Was there the need to explain everything a million times? Where the players as worried about all of the protective equipment as they are today?

          Now maybe it is better that when you go to professional sports game that there are lot more factors, protections, or variables, but good or bad many people sometimes take something simple and make it much more complicated. Some things I think though are just simple and easy like 2 + 2 equals 4.

          With all of this said, many scholars believe that Jesus was probably born in 4 BC, and if Jesus was crucified and resurrected at the age of 33, then he probably was crucified in and around 29 AD. The Apostle Paul goes to the Ancient Greek city of Corinth in and around 50 AD, to plant a Christian Church. The Apostle Paul then writes 1 Corinthians around 53-54 AD.

          Within 15-20-years of Jesus’ crucifixion on the cross and his resurrection at age 33, the Apostle Paul begins traveling to various cities and places. The Apostle Paul is spreading and preaching the gospel and created Christian Churches in these various places. I tell you all of this, because the Apostle Paul this morning is telling us what the very first Christians believed. These Christian around 29-30 AD, who were mostly in Jerusalem and other places in Israel. What did they believe? Is what they believed complicated, or simple?

          We have every reason to believe that the Apostle Paul knew many or all of the original disciples of Jesus, and while Paul never meet Jesus when he was physically alive on the earth, Paul knew many or all of the original disciples of Jesus. As Paul was travelling to the city of Damascus, in modern day Syria in the Book of Acts, Christ appeared to him in a vision. Initially Paul, was Saul or Tarsus, a Jewish Rabbi who persecuted the church heavily. Jesus appeared to him, and he converted to Christianity.

          The Apostle Paul became a follower of Christ, but what do Christian believe? Is it complicated? Is it simple? Further, how do we know what the first Christians believed, and how do we know that what was written about Christ in the early church was true? Can we really know what those first Christians, who were originally called “The Way,” who then became known as Christians, what they believed, or is it all just lost to history? Further, do the majority of Christian Churches and Christian Denominations believe the same basic truths of the Christian faith? The answer is yes.

          So, what does the Apostle Paul tell us and the Corinthians this morning once again? The Apostle Paul once again says this:

15 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, ² through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain     (1 Cor. 15:1-2, NRSV).

          So, the Apostle Paul was converted to Christianity, as he had a vision of Christ. The Apostle Paul is then taught more about Jesus from the original apostles of Christ and the first Christians. The Apostle Paul is telling the church in Corinth that what he taught them about Christ, he himself was also taught about Christ. So, what is this set of teachings that the Apostle Paul was taught and that he then brought to many places like Corinth. The is what the Apostle was taught, and what he intern taught, starting in 15:3:

³ For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, ⁴ and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me (1 Cor. 15:3-8, NRSV).

          The Apostle Paul writes 1 Corinthians within approximately twenty-five years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Apostle Paul started as a persecutor of the church, and then converted to Christianity. The earliest leaders in the church and some of or all of the first Apostles of Christ told the Apostle Paul the simple truth. We see this basic truth or framework in historic creeds of the Christian faith, like the Apostle’s Creed, and the Nicene Creed. These basic and yet simple truths. God created, his son came to save, and the Holy Spirit fills us and sanctifies us.

          How can we really know who Jesus was, and what he did then? The Apostle Paul this morning tells the Corinthians and us, this is who he was and who he is. He died for us, he rose again, and hundreds of people saw him after his resurrection. The belief that Jesus was fully God and fully human when he was here on this earth, is not new. It was not created by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 300’s AD. Instead, this is what the very first Christians and Apostle believed, and as a result this what the Apostle Paul believed and taught. Further, this is what the majority of the world’s Christian have believed for nearly two-thousand years.

          The simple reality my friends is this, all of us within ourselves have the ability to do good and to do evil. How can we completely remove the evil within ourselves? Can we accomplish this daunting task on our own? The reality is that Christ came and died for us, so that we can be forgiven of our brokenness, and our sin. As we continue to fall and continue to turn to Christ, he continues to embrace us. Yet, we are forgiven if we but ask for it, and every day we can walk in the light, life, and love of Christ. In doing this, we are being spiritually resurrected to be more like Jesus. The light grows and the darkness fades.

          In completing our reading for this morning from 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells the church in Corinth how he once persecuted the church and hated Jesus. Picking up in 1 Corinthians 15:9 it says once again:

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been 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. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe (1 Cor. 15:9-11, NRSV).

          The Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians and us that he has done wrong in the past, like we all have. Yet the Apostle Paul was saved and changed by Christ, and the simple truth of Christ can change us all. It is not complicated, it is not super elaborate, instead it is God loving us and the world so much that would die for us. It is grace and mercy beyond all human comprehension. It is being offered exactly what we do not deserve but is offered freely. It is here and offered if we are willing to ask for it.

          In fact, in our gospel of Luke reading for this morning once again, Jesus in a very simple way calls three of his first disciples. Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and people were crowding in on him. Jesus saw two empty boats on the shore and got into one of them. Jesus then asked Simon or Peter to put this boat out a little form shore, and this helped with the crowd pushing in on Jesus. Jesus then taught the crowd from the boat, to give himself a little more room. This may have been one of the first examples of social distancing. When Jesus was done teaching the crowd, he asked Simon or Peter to take the boat out to deep water. Then Jesus told Simon Peter to put his fishing nets into the water to catch some fish. Peter told Jesus though that they fished all night and caught nothing. Even so, Simon Peter trusted Jesus and cast out his net. When this happened, there were so many fish in the nets that the nets began to break. Other fisherman then came to help, and two boats were filled with so many fish that they began to sink. At this point Simon or Peter tells Jesus to leave him as he is a sinful man. Yet on this day, Jesus called Simon Peter, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Jesus said, you were fishing for fish, but he said he would make them fishers of men, and fishers of women.

          It is not complicated, it is not extremely elaborate. Jesus restoring lives and souls, dying for us, and raising again. Not complicated, not hard to understand, but so many of us have a way of complicating something so basic and so simple. In our broken and incomplete state, the endless grace of God in Jesus Christ reaches out to us, so that we may be forgiven, and daily become more and more like Jesus. This my friends, is “The Basis Gospel” that the Apostle Paul taught the Corinthians, and that he teaches us. Amen.