What is Church About?
We all come to church for various reasons. Kids come because they have to. Grown-ups come because they want to. Why we want to varies from person to person, and from Sunday to Sunday.
I am so glad each of you is here! You are each made in the image of God and loved by Jesus, and by this church. But I want you to consider why you come to church, not just on Easter, but any Sunday? What is church all about for you? Why do you come to church?
Maybe you come to meet people, make friends, or find a spouse. Maybe you come to fulfill your obligations to serve, because the church is a good place to raise your kids, to make business connections, to fight back the bad things of our culture, or as a nostalgic throwback to the years of your childhood. What is church about for you?
Some of these things are okay in themselves, but what’s the most important thing about church? Jesus! What brings us to Jesus? The gospel! The news of what God has done in Jesus is therefore the most important thing in the church. The church is about the gospel because the gospel brings us to Jesus.
The text we’re looking at this morning says the gospel is the most important thing for any church to be about (1 Cor. 15:1-5). In this text we see the importance of the gospel, the substance of the gospel, and the result of the gospel. Another way to say it is to say that the gospel is the most important thing because of what it is (substance) and what it gives (result).
The Importance of the Gospel
First, we see the importance of the gospel. In verse 1 it says that Paul is reminding them of the “gospel he preached to them,” then in verse 3 it says that this gospel is “of first importance.”
This comes at the end of a long letter about all sorts of things, things like unity, preaching, wisdom, sexual immorality, lawsuits, marriage and singleness, matters of conscience, idolatry, head coverings, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, love, and worship. Yet of all the things Paul teaches on he says the gospel is the most important.
Why is the gospel more important than anything else? Because the gospel is what brings us to God. The beginning of verse 2 says that the gospel is “by which you are being saved.” The gospel itself doesn’t save. God saves by the gospel.
The gospel is a message about a Person. The message brings us to Jesus, and Jesus brings us to the Father. The gospel is the most important thing because it’s what brings us to God.
Believing without Believing
The reason Paul is restating the gospel for a bunch of people who already knew it is because he’s concerned that some of them aren’t actually believing it.
Notice the language at the beginning. In verses 1-2, Paul says that he preached the gospel to them, they received it and stand in it and are being saved by it, and then he says, “if they hold fast to the word I preached to you – unless you believed in vain.” Do you see what he’s saying? He’s saying that there’s a way to believe in Christ that doesn’t save you.
John gives us an example of this in John 2:23-25, “Now when (Jesus) was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”
Some people were “believing” in Jesus when they saw his signs, but Jesus knew their hearts. He knew they were more interested in what he could do than they were in who he was. He was a magic-man for them, not a Savior. What about you? Do you love the gifts or the Giver? Would you want to be in heaven if Jesus wasn’t there?
Knowing and Tasting
How can we know if our belief in Jesus is real and saving? Jonathan Edwards, in one of his sermons provides an illustration to help us think through this:
“There is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind.”[1]
A true Christian is someone who knows God’s goodness and has tasted it (Ps. 34:8). There’s a difference between having information about Jesus and having a sense of his reality.
True revival happens in us and in the church when God’s love travels from our heads into our hearts and then flows outward through our hands.
This love comes to us when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see the wonder of Jesus in the gospel. This is why we have to keep the gospel central, and why we have to pray. The Spirit working through the word is the only way lives are changed (1 Pet. 1:23, 25).
The Substance of the Gospel
Second, the substance of the gospel is here in verses 3-4. The substance of the gospel is the death and resurrection of Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s plan. The foundational facts of the gospel are the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus’s death on the cross for our sins is the heart of the gospel, but the resurrection is the blood. You have to have both for either to be of any use. Many Christians emphasize the cross at the expense of the resurrection. But the gospel keeps these two events together.
Jesus is both Lord and Savior, Victor and Substitute. We see this from the beginning to the end of the Bible. In Genesis, a substitute died to cover Adam and Eve’s shame, and yet there was the promise that one would come who would defeat evil (3:15). And in Revelation Jesus is Lord of all, and he’s the Lamb who was slain. God’s way is winning by losing.
Notice that Paul says that Jesus died “for our sins” (v. 3). Jesus’ death wasn’t merely an example of how to live a sacrificial life. It was that, but at its core it was substitutionary atonement. Jesus, like the Passover Lamb, died in the place of sinners, taking their punishment in their place.
The gospel says that there’s alienation between us and God because of our rebellion, and that the just penalty for our rebellion is death. But when it says that Jesus died “for our sins” it means that he took the penalty that we deserve to overcome the alienation. Jesus died to remove our sins and bring us back to God.
Moralism is Not the Gospel
This also means that the gospel teaches us that our greatest problem is inside us, not outside us. The gospel addresses our hearts, not just our behaviors. Many people understand the facts of the gospel but don’t experience a heart change because of what we can call “moralism.”
Moralism is when we confuse the law with the gospel. You may agree that Jesus died for your sin, but day to day you live as if God loves you because you obey him. You believe God accepts you because you’re sincere or because of your conversion experience or your religious performance or the relative infrequency of your deliberate sinning. You believe that God’s acceptance is based on your performance, so you feel good about yourself when you’re performing well and you feel terrible when you’re not.
Richard Lovelace, in his book Dynamics of Spiritual Life, says that when we don’t know that God accepts us on Jesus’s behalf, we become deeply insecure. He says, “(Our) insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defensive assertion of (our) own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. (We) come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster (our) own security and discharge (our) suppressed anger.”[2]
Lovelace is saying that our lack of security in Christ creates an insecurity that reveals itself in resentment of other cultures, styles, races, genders, political parties, career fields, economic statuses, and education levels. We look down on others because we want to feel better about ourselves and stifle the inner whisper of doubt that we’re not as good as we think we are. Instead of running to Christ, we compare ourselves to others and compete with them in our heads and hearts.
This insecurity prevents us from resting in the love of Jesus, suffocates our joy in Christ, harbors disunity in the church, and hinders our evangelism. In this we miss the heart of Christianity, namely, that Jesus died for sinners, and we’re all sinners. Revival in the church happens when we’re overcome by the love of Christ for us and for others. If we want revival, we have to focus on the substance of the gospel, on Jesus’ death and resurrection for us.
The Result of the Gospel
What is the result of the gospel? Hope. As Peter says, we’re “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). The death of Christ keeps us from moralism while the resurrection of Christ keeps us from despair.
Our hope is resurrection. Paul’s argument in this chapter is simple: “the resurrection of Christ implies the resurrection of the Christian”[3] (vv. 20-23, 51-57). Jesus’ resurrection gives us hope that we too will be raised, that everything in the end will be okay.
The result of the gospel is hope, a hope in our future resurrection, but a hope that also has power in the present. How does it have power in the present? Because Jesus’ resurrection brought the powers of the age to come into this age. What do I mean?
The Bible divides history into “the present age” and “the age to come.” The New Testament says that “the age to come” started with Jesus’ appearance, so that now the age to come overlaps with the present age. This is why Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is here and that the kingdom of God is coming later. It’s “now” and “not yet.” The kingdom is here but not in its fullness.
We don’t have to wait for our future resurrection to experience the power and peace of the kingdom of God. But while we live in this overlap of the ages, there will be tension. We will experience the power and peace of the kingdom of God through the Holy Spirit, and we’ll experience the despair and death of this present evil age.
In his book Hope in Times of Fear, Tim Keller summarizes this well:
“We must not underestimate how present the kingdom of God is, but we must also not underestimate how unrealized it is, how much it exists only in the future. Because the kingdom is present partially but not fully, we must expect substantial healing but not total healing in all areas of life.
The implications of this are significant. If we overstress the ‘already’ of the kingdom to the exclusion of the ‘not yet,’ we will expect quick solutions to problems and we will be dismayed by suffering and tragedy. But we can likewise overstress the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom to the exclusion of the ‘already.’ We can be too pessimistic about personal change. We can withdraw from engaging the world, too afraid of being ‘polluted’ by it.”[4]
The Balance of Living in the “Now” and “Not Yet”
John Stott gives us several ways this plays out in our view of truth, other people, the church, and the world. The now of the kingdom of God means that we can know truth, but the not yet means that we must humbly admit that we don’t understand truth perfectly.[5] The not yet means we should be more charitable in non-essentials and enter into dialogue with those with whom we disagree with humility and openness.
The now of the kingdom means that anyone can change, that any addiction can be broken, that any relationship can be repaired. But the not yet of the kingdom means that we must not expect quick fixes and that we must engage people with patience and understanding.
The now of the kingdom means that the church, as the community of the King, can have revival and bring transformation to our city and our world. The not yet means that that every church will struggle against error and evil, and that we must not be too critical of imperfect churches or impatiently jump from church to church over perceived failures.
The now of the kingdom means that Jesus is ruling over human history and that through the common grace of family and government, he is restraining evil and promoting righteousness, and that through strong consciences and gifts of leadership and art and science, many lives are enriched. It means that Christians, with God’s power, can make a difference in the world. But the not yet of the kingdom means that there will always be strife, selfishness, cruelty, terrorism, poverty, greed, and oppression. Christians therefore harbor no illusion that politics will usher in a utopian golden age. We understand that no political or social agenda can fully bring the kingdom of God to the earth.
Those who focus on the not yet of the kingdom will be overly pessimistic and negative about change in people, the church and society. Those who focus on the now will be overly optimistic and naïve about the possibility of revival, change, and transformation.
British pastor and theologian John Stott, writing in 1992, advocates for a BBC, or “Balanced Biblical Christianity.” He says that the devil is the enemy of common sense and moderation, and that he loves to tip us off balance:
“If he cannot induce us to deny Christ, he will get us to distort Christ instead. In consequence lopsided Christianity is widespread, in which we over-emphasize one aspect of a truth, while underemphasizing another. Thank God, however, that he has given us two ears, so that we may engage in double listening, and may pay careful attention to both sides of every question; two eyes, so that we may see straight and not squint; two hands, so that we may grasp both extremes of every biblical antinomy; and two feet, so that we may walk steadily and not limp our way through life.”[6]
The Kingdon Seen in the Church
The result of the gospel is hope, a hope in our future resurrection, but a hope that has power in the present. Jesus’ resurrection brought the powers of the age to come into this age, but as long as we live in the overlap of the ages, there will be tension.
God’s kingdom is starting to dawn on the world. Where can we best see and experience the kingdom of God on the earth? In local churches that honor Jesus as King, churches ruled by his Word and filled with his Spirit. Churches that look like Jesus reveal the kingdom of Jesus. Churches where love, peace, unity, truth, righteousness, acceptance, belonging, healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, joy, wisdom, and shared mission exist give evidence that the kingdom of God is real and is really here on the earth. Are you part of a church like that? Are you working and praying for your church to display the kingdom of God more beautifully on the earth?
A Guaranteed Future
The most important thing about the church is that we guard and give the gospel, the most important message on earth, the message that God uses to save his people and bring his kingdom to the earth. The substance of the message is Jesus’ death for our sins and his resurrection as the fulfillment of God’s word. The result of the message is hope, resurrection hope, hope for today and tomorrow.
In Jesus’ resurrection, we have the presence of the future. Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t just point to our future resurrection, it guarantees it. When we unite ourselves to Jesus through faith, a power potent enough to remake the universe comes into us and starts to remake us and our churches so that we look more and more like Jesus, revealing the power of the age to come. Do you have this power? Do you want it?
[1]Jonathan Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” quoted in Collin Hansen, Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023), 101.
[2]Quoted in Hansen, 96.
[3]Leon Morris, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), 203.
[4]Timothy Keller, Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter (New York: Penguin Books, 2021), 29.
[5]This section is a summary of Keller’s summary of John Stott, The Contemporary Christian: Applying God’s Word to Today’s World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 383-92, in Keller, 29-31.
[6]Stott, 375-6.