in your Bibles, if you have one, to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
If you're using one of the Pew Bibles, it's page 961.
We are continuing in our series through this book
on the home stretch as we've been going through this book
throughout the year.
As you turn there, I want to thank you to the church
for allowing and encouraging us as your pastors
and staff members to take vacation time
with our families this summer.
Jane and I were certainly blessed by our time away
over the last couple weeks.
So thank you for giving us that flexibility
in our employment contracts and also bearing with us
in the practicalities of when you call the office
and you don't know who will answer.
But we will always have somebody here,
even if some of us are in and some of us are out.
You know, it's a good reminder that God's work continues
and that God's work in this church is not dependent
exclusively on one particular individual.
And, you know, it's a good sign.
That we can go away for a couple weeks and come back
and God's continuing and doing good work here.
During our time away, I had a little time to reflect.
And so before I read this passage this morning,
I want to just share some reflections
on the last five years.
It's been five years since Pastor Matt and I came on staff
and Pastor Nick, we became the three co-pastors.
And so I was thinking a little bit of what God has taught us
as a church.
Some of you have been here for those five years.
Some of you have come more recently.
You know, but if you think five years ago,
we were just emerging from a two-and-a-half-year
interim leadership period after our senior pastor had left.
We were venturing into this team leadership model
with three co-pastors.
None of us had had previous experience on a church staff
outside of Trinity.
And so we moved into our offices.
And then, as you may remember, a week later,
Matt's wife, Brandy, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
And so over the last five years, as a church,
we've been brought to face realities that many of us
and many of us in our culture try to avoid.
Sickness and pain and death.
And we've prayed fervently and boldly for healing.
We've come to trust the Lord's providence,
even through grief and pain.
We've been reminded that our true home,
our true home is with the Lord,
that our hope and our help come from Him.
I think also the message that we preached about
in 1 Corinthians 13, about the supremacy of love,
the excellence of love, the importance of love,
that above all else, we as Jesus' disciples
must be characterized by love for one another.
I think that message has sunk in more deeply
over the last five years.
I think we live in a culture where many of us
might be tempted to focus on our performance
or our knowledge.
We're in a church where there's always people coming in,
moving to town and leaving town,
and our relationships might wear thin
in a context like this.
But I think God has brought us to a deeper level
of community and love for one another as a church.
I think we've learned to rejoice together
and to mourn together, to care for each other,
not just for Pastor Matt and his family,
but to really care for each other
as we go through our own struggles and trials
and to rejoice as we share joys and victories.
And so I think our community has grown deeper,
more vulnerable, and also more hospitable as a result.
So that's, I think, sort of the first way we've grown
is in our love for one another
and in our depth as a community.
But we've also grown outwardly.
Our building is, especially during the school year,
it's more crowded on Sunday mornings.
Sometimes you have trouble finding a seat.
Some people are up in the balcony sometimes.
The youth group has grown on Wednesday nights.
Some of the small groups are outgrowing
people's living rooms.
That's all a good thing.
And God is bringing not just more people,
but I think more different people.
You know, you look around and you talk to people
and you're like, we're not all the same here.
And, you know, sometimes it takes a little while
to figure out what we have in common.
But what draws us together above everything else
is the message we're preaching about this morning
of Jesus Christ crucified and risen.
And as we look into the,
and God has also brought opportunities
for outreach our way,
even ones that we wouldn't have looked for.
Planting a church in New London
was not on our strategic plan,
but God brought that to pass
over the last five years.
The idea of joining together with other churches
in a partnership in New Haven
for ministry like Bridges of Hope,
that didn't exist two years ago.
Might have thought,
well, that's sort of a nice idea,
but when does that ever really happen?
But God has brought that together
and is beginning to grow that.
And Lord willing, may that continue to have
a greater impact over the next five years.
I think the Lord's also giving us
a growing love for internationals,
for people from all parts of the world.
God has brought many of you here
from different parts of the world
and to contribute to our church life
and to help us more effectively reach out
to our international neighbors.
So as we look to the next five years,
what will the next five years hold
for us as a church and for the kingdom of God
in New Haven more broadly?
You know, some days I have ideas.
I could give you lots of ideas
that I think have a lot of potential.
Sometimes I can be an optimist.
And other days I can come up
with all kinds of obstacles
and difficulties and anxieties
and things that could go wrong.
But the passage we're looking at today
is I think what can serve it
as an anchor point for us.
It provides an anchor for us personally.
It provides an anchor for us as a church.
It reminds us the ground that we stand on,
the foundation that this church
and every true church is built on.
And it gives us a reason
that we can look into the future
with both humility and confidence.
So that's what we're going to read together.
And I want to sort of frame the passage
by thinking about what might God have for us
in the next few years.
So let me read this passage,
1 Corinthians 15, 1 to 11,
and then we'll jump in.
Paul writes this,
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.
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
and then to the 12th.
Then he appeared to more than 500 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 wasn't I,
but the grace of God that is with me.
Whether then it was I or they,
so we preach,
and so you believed.
This morning,
the apostle Paul
wants to remind us of two things
that matter more than anything else.
Number one,
one,
the historical reality
of Jesus' bodily resurrection.
Number two,
the present reality
of his transforming grace.
Those are the two points
I want to look at this morning.
Let's begin with the first one.
Now, as I said,
we're on the home stretch of our journey
through 1 Corinthians.
We've made it through
chapter one to four
about divisions in the church,
chapters five
about church discipline,
chapter six and seven
about sex and singleness
and marriage,
chapter eight and nine and ten
about idol worship,
chapter 11
about head coverings
and the Lord's Supper,
chapter 12, 13, and 14
about spiritual gifts,
tongues, and prophecy.
We've made it through
a lot of different topics.
This is the last major topic
of the book.
But it's not just one more topic
on sort of Paul's laundry list
of problems and issues
that he wants to address
with the Corinthian church.
This is really the capstone
of the book.
Paul began, if you remember,
in chapter two
by talking about
the message of the cross.
He said,
I've resolved to know
nothing among you
except Christ
and him crucified.
So he begins
by speaking about the cross
and now he's going to end
by speaking about
the resurrection.
And those are sort of
the two pillars
that hold up
the whole book.
And everything in the middle
only makes sense
if you see these two things.
That Jesus Christ died
on the cross for our sins
and that he was raised
for us on the third day.
And so he's,
we see the implications
of those things.
Karl Barth wrote,
this chapter
forms not only
the clothes and crown
of the whole epistle
but also provides
the clue to its meaning.
Light is shed upon the whole
from this place
on the book as a unity.
What we'll see
as we look at this chapter
for the next five weeks
is that the resurrection
of Jesus
not only gives us hope
for the future
and eternity
but it also transforms
our life in the present.
It does both
of those things
and they're both
essential and important.
But Paul starts
this morning
by bringing us back
to the basics.
Verse three.
He says,
I deliver to you
as of first importance
what I also received.
Now there are some translations
that it's possible
to translate that
slightly differently
to say,
I deliver to you
at the first.
In other words,
this was the first thing
I told you.
But the reason why
Paul would have told them
this first
is because it was
a first importance
so it doesn't actually matter
how you translate it.
But Paul wants us
to remember
this matters more
than anything else.
as you read
1 Corinthians
and talk about
all these topics
he says,
don't lose the forest
for the trees.
This is what
it's all about.
This is what
matters more
than anything else.
This is the good news
I preached.
It's what you believed.
It's
the message
through which
you are being saved.
And Paul says,
this isn't just
my distinctive message.
it's the message
of every true
Christian believer
since the earliest days
of the Christian church.
Paul says,
I delivered to you
what I also received.
In other words,
he's sort of like
the UPS guy.
Right?
He got the package
and he faithfully
delivered it to you.
He didn't open the package,
take out half the stuff inside,
throw in some other stuff
that he wanted to throw in,
and then deliver it to you.
He's saying,
I got it
and I've passed it
on to you
faithfully
the message
that you believe.
Paul is quoting here
from an early Christian creed
or summary
of the faith.
That's why he says,
I deliver to you
what I received.
And just as he did
in chapter 11,
he used the same language
when talking about
the Lord's Supper.
Right?
Not just something
that Paul's churches
observed,
but something
that all Christians
have always shared.
The meal to remember
Jesus' death
on the cross
for our sins.
Now,
look for a minute
at what Paul
delivers to them.
He says,
Christ died for our sins
in accordance with
the Scriptures.
He was buried.
He was raised
in accordance with
the Scriptures
and then he appeared.
So,
there's four sections.
There's a symmetry
to it.
It's easy to remember.
Right?
In accordance
with the Scriptures.
In accordance
with the Scriptures,
there's a rhythm to it.
It's very simple.
Right?
Paul says,
this is the core.
And this message
that Paul's quoting
goes back to the earliest
days of the Christian movement.
So,
just let me give you
a little bit
of the background here.
1 Corinthians is written
sometime between 52
and 55 A.D.
That would be about
20 to 25 years
after Jesus was crucified
under Pontius Pilate.
Either 30 or 33 A.D.
was when that happened.
But Paul says,
I delivered this to you.
That means
he taught it to them
when he was there
with them,
which was back in A.D. 50
a few years earlier.
And then Paul said,
before that,
I received this.
You might think,
well,
where did Paul receive this?
Right?
Where would he have received
this sort of summary
of the Christian faith
from someone else
or some other group
of Christians?
Well,
in Galatians 1,
one of Paul's earliest letters,
he says,
three years after
he came to faith in Jesus,
he went up to Jerusalem
to visit James
and Peter
or Cephas,
both of whom
are prominently mentioned
in this list of people
Jesus appeared to.
Take note.
That would have been back
in the mid to late 30s A.D.
Most likely,
that's when and where
Paul received this summary
of Christian beliefs.
Now,
other scholars suggest
he might have got it
at Antioch or Damascus.
That was basically
around the same time.
Now,
here's the point.
Paul is quoting something here
that goes back to
within five to ten years
of Jesus' death
and resurrection.
And by then,
this was such
an established belief
in the Christian community,
he could say,
this is what we believe.
This is the package.
It wasn't somebody's
new idea then.
It was already
a settled consensus.
Now,
here's the point
about all this chronology.
If you read about,
if you go on Wikipedia,
right,
the fount of all knowledge,
right,
and you read about
early Christianity,
or even if you read
some books
by scholars
with PhDs
from Yale
and other places,
some of them will say
the early Jesus movement
didn't believe
in the bodily resurrection
of Jesus
and didn't believe
that Jesus' death
was an atoning sacrifice,
they only expected
his imminent return
as king.
And later on,
when he didn't return
as soon as they hoped for,
then they came up
with these other ideas
to give meaning
to what had happened.
Well,
there are many problems
with this view.
One problem
is it simply doesn't fit
any of the evidence
that we have
for what the earliest Christians
actually believed.
Right?
This is one of the earliest
Christian creeds.
Right?
It's in one of Paul's
relatively early letters,
and it's something
that he delivered,
had received,
and had previously
become a consensus.
That's going three steps back,
pretty far back.
And this affirms
the atoning death
of Jesus, right?
He died for our sins
as a sacrifice,
and he was buried
and he was raised.
In other words,
he ain't still in the tomb.
Because you don't say
he was buried
and then he was raised
if his body's still there
in the tomb.
So,
and the other time
in 1 Corinthians,
Paul quotes
an early Christian creed
one other time
in chapter 8,
verse 6,
and it refers to Jesus
as God,
the Lord,
from whom are all things.
So,
these are not beliefs
that Paul
or Mark
or Luke
developed
a couple of decades
after the facts.
This is what
the earliest Christians
consistently believed
and proclaimed.
Right?
All the way back
to the apostles
in Jerusalem
where Jesus lived
and died
and was raised.
So,
you can be confident
that there's reasons
to believe this.
And this wasn't
just something
that some people
sort of cooked up
later on
or developed
somewhere
long ago
and far away
from what had
actually happened.
This is what
Christians have
believed and proclaimed
from the first.
And Paul makes
the point
that this wasn't
an accident
what had happened,
that it happened
according to
the scriptures.
That is,
according to
the story
of the old,
in fulfillment
of the Old Testament
story.
Paul says,
Christ died
for our sins
according to
the scriptures.
You might say,
well,
where does it say
in the Old Testament?
That's the scriptures
Paul would be referring to.
Where does it say
in the Old Testament
that Christ,
the Messiah,
would die
for people's sins?
Well,
one place it says it
is in Isaiah 53.
You can read
that chapter.
It talks about
the suffering servant.
One verse in it
says,
all we,
like sheep,
have gone astray.
Each of us
has turned
to his own way.
And the Lord
has laid on him,
on this suffering servant,
the iniquity,
the sin of us all.
But you know,
it wasn't just a few
isolated prophecies
Paul's referring to.
This is a theme
that runs through
the whole Old Testament.
That humanity
as a whole
and God's people
included
have fallen
into sin.
That is,
we've
turned,
we don't want
God to be in charge
and everything
is falling apart.
And the result
of that sin
is ultimately death.
Physical,
spiritual,
all kinds of other ways.
But,
there's a promise
that one day
God would deal
with sin
and conquer death.
Right?
It goes through
the whole Old Testament.
So,
story of Adam and Eve
right at the beginning.
What happens?
They disobey
God's command.
They're prohibited
from eating
of the tree of life.
But,
they're promised
one day
the seed of the woman
will crush
the serpent's head.
Will defeat
the enemy.
Then you have
the story of Abraham.
Right?
Abraham and Isaac.
A haunting story
that sort of
hangs over
the whole Old Testament
when he
is called to offer
his one and only son
as a burnt offering.
But then he's rescued
at the last moment
by God's provision
of a substitute sacrifice.
And then you read
the laws
and they have
all these laws
about all the ways
you become unclean.
Sort of reminds you
all the stuff,
all the junk
that's in the world
and in our hearts
and all the ways
that we can become
unclean before a holy God
and then all the remedies.
But then there's
one chapter
in the middle of Leviticus
that says
once a year
on the day of atonement
the people of Israel
can be cleansed
from all their sins.
And you think,
well, what's going on here?
Right?
It's sort of,
it's looking forward
and the prophets,
Zachariah said,
one day
the Lord will remove
the iniquity
of the whole land
in a single day.
All right?
So there's a,
there's,
you see the problem
and you see a promised solution
which hasn't come yet.
The problem of sin and death
and a promised solution
which God says
it's coming one day.
You see that
throughout the whole Old Testament
Paul says
that's why Jesus came
into the world.
To reconcile us to God.
To pay for our sins.
That's why Christ died
for our sins
according to the scriptures.
If you have younger kids
there's a great children's book
that puts
the sacrifice,
the sacrificial death
of Jesus
in the context
of the story
of the whole Bible.
It's called
The Garden,
The Curtain,
and The Cross.
It's a great book
if,
if I highly recommend it
and,
and it's one of those books
that if you read it
as an adult
it's like wow
that was a really good
children's book
because it's,
it spoke to me too.
Right?
And,
anyway,
so I recommend that.
So Christ died for our sins
according to the scriptures.
But second,
Paul says,
Christ was raised
on the third day
according to the scriptures.
And again,
you might say,
and some people have asked,
well where in the Bible
does it say
that the Messiah
will be raised
from the dead
on the third day?
Well,
again,
interesting,
it's not just one verse,
it's,
there's a pattern
in the Old Testament
that very often
God's saving intervention
happens
on the third day.
So when Abraham
takes Isaac up the mountain,
it's on the third day
when the,
when,
when he sees
the animal
and the thicket
and his son
is saved from death.
And Exodus 19,
it's on the third day
when God comes down
on Mount Sinai
in glory.
The story of Jonah,
it's on the third day
when he's rescued
from the belly
of the fish.
Hosea chapter 6,
again,
one of the prophets
says,
after two days
he will revive us
on the third day.
He will raise us up.
So the third day
represents
completeness
or finality.
God's saving intervention.
God's gonna come
and rescue you
on the third day.
You see that
throughout the Old Testament
and Paul says,
don't you see?
That's exactly
what just happened
in the resurrection
of Jesus.
Nobody put it all together
beforehand.
Right?
Nobody could see
exactly where the story
was leading.
Nobody expected
Jesus to be raised
on the third day
even though
he said he would.
But when you look back
you say,
oh,
it makes sense.
The pieces fit together.
Now Paul reminds us
verse 5 through 7,
there were several witnesses
to Jesus' resurrection.
Again,
he's reminding them.
This isn't just something
I said.
There's other witnesses too.
So he mentions Peter
or Cephas.
Cephas is just the Greek word
that means rock
or maybe it's the Hebrew.
I don't know.
It's one language
and Peter's the other language.
I don't remember which language.
But they both mean rock
and he went by both names.
Right?
But Peter
and then James.
This is not James the apostle
but James the half-brother
of Jesus.
The younger brother
of Jesus
who had become
the leader of the church
in Jerusalem
and Paul.
Now if you notice
all three of these
Peter had denied Jesus publicly.
It says James
and Jesus' other siblings
didn't believe in him
during his earthly ministry
and Paul had persecuted the church.
So Jesus didn't just appear
to his most loyal supporters.
Right?
Like John the apostle
and the women
who stood around the cross
and went to the tomb.
Right?
They were his most loyal supporters
but Jesus didn't just appear
to them.
He also appeared
to people who were
who had failed him
and who were against him
and who were skeptical.
And that's another reason
why we can be confident
these are credible witnesses.
They weren't exactly
the most likely people
to believe this stuff
on their own.
So Jesus
appeared to individuals.
He also appeared to groups.
The twelve disciples.
Paul mentions all the apostles.
Perhaps that includes
some others
who had accompanied Jesus
besides the twelve.
More than five hundred brothers
and sisters.
Perhaps that's when
what Matthew recorded
in chapter 28
when Jesus gave
the Great Commission.
Paul says
most of them are still alive.
In other words
ask them if you want.
So what do we take
from this first point?
Besides the fact
that I need a drink of water
just a second.
What do we take
from this first point?
Well during
during my sophomore
and junior year in college
I wrestled with a number
of doubts about Christianity.
And there were
a few Christian doctrines
that I just
really struggled
to figure out
how do they all make sense?
How can these
all be true
at the same time
and all make sense together?
Thinking about questions
that I didn't have
complete answers to.
What about people
who've never heard of Jesus?
How is God sovereign
over everything?
And we have
meaningful human responsibility
in a world of evil
and suffering.
And I spent hours
thinking about these questions.
I spent sleepless nights
pondering and thinking
I was probably
the only one
who spent sleepless nights
pondering these questions.
But then I would come back
to passages like these.
Christ died for our sins.
He was buried.
He was raised.
He appeared.
And I was like
I can't deny this.
You know whatever else
doesn't quite make sense
in your mind.
Whatever else
you're wrestling with
or doubting.
Whatever other teachings
in the Bible
you struggle with.
Come back to this.
And look at
the people Jesus appeared to.
Look at
this is the core message
of Christianity.
Everything else
will only make sense
if you start here.
Right?
This is the foundation.
You can build
the rest of the house
after you have
the foundation.
And I looked into
the alternate explanations
that skeptical historians
offered.
None of them
were ultimately convincing.
So let me encourage
if you're having doubts
this is the anchor
that you can hold on to.
The central reality
of the scriptures.
The heart
of the Christian faith.
The bodily resurrection
of Jesus.
So that's the first thing
Paul wants us
to be anchored in.
The historical reality
of Jesus' resurrection.
Second point.
The present reality
of his transforming grace.
Now there's a connection
between these two points.
Jesus' resurrection
and Jesus' transforming grace.
Paul doesn't make it
explicit here
but he does
in some of his other letters.
So Romans 8
Paul says
he who raised Christ Jesus
from the dead
will also give life
to your mortal bodies
through his spirit
who dwells in you.
In Ephesians 1
Paul speaks about
the immeasurable greatness
of God's power
toward us who believe
according to the working
of his great might
that he worked in Christ
when he raised him
from the dead.
In other words
the same power of God
that raised Jesus
from the dead
is at work within us.
Transforming us
by his mercy and grace.
I mean just consider
the three people
Paul mentions by name.
Think about Peter.
Peter.
I mean Peter
was a guy
who talked smack
and then he didn't
do what he said.
Right?
He didn't always
live up to his talk.
He said to Jesus
I'll stand by you
I'll die for you
even if everybody else
abandons you
I'll be there with you.
And then that night
he denied Jesus
three times.
But Jesus appeared
to him
in particular
alone
not just with all
the other people
in a group
but him.
and then Jesus
talked to him
in John chapter 21
he brought him
face to face
with his past failure
and he said to Peter
come
you follow me
I have a plan
for your future
I'm not done
with you yet.
And so Peter
became a powerful
preacher
and evangelist
and writer
of two New Testament
epistles.
Then you have James
Jesus' younger brother.
I mean imagine
being Jesus'
younger brother
seemed like he had
a few
from the reference
in Mark chapter 6
but it says
in the gospels
John chapter 7
verse 5
says even Jesus'
own brothers
did not believe
in him.
And at one point
Mark chapter 3
it says his family
went to take charge
of him
or to seize him
because they were
saying to each other
he's out of his mind.
Right?
In other words
they wanted to commit him.
Right?
It wasn't such a thing
as a psych hospital
back then
but they were like
he's crazy.
But then what happens
to James
after the resurrection?
He becomes
a respected
and courageous
leader of the
Christian church
in Jerusalem.
Right?
One who had
in his skepticism
and cynicism
had dismissed Jesus
and thought
no he can't be.
He becomes convinced
and he
again
he wrote
a New Testament book
the epistle of James
and at the council
in Jerusalem
in Acts chapter 15
which was sort of
a crucial turning point
for the church
he's the one
who stands up
just at the right time
and says exactly
what needed to be said
and people say
yes that's right.
So there's Peter
James
and then Paul.
Right?
Paul hadn't just
denied Jesus
by his words
or been skeptical
of him.
Paul had actively
persecuted
Jesus' followers
violently
and Paul doesn't
try to hide
that aspect
of his past.
He doesn't try
to sweep it
under the rug
and hope nobody
figures it out.
He confesses
and freely
in verse 9
he says
I'm the least
of the apostles
I don't deserve
to be an apostle
because I persecuted
the church of God.
Paul didn't put
on a mask
of self-reliance
and flawlessness
he knew
that he was a sinner
saved by God's grace.
He said
it's only
by the grace of God
that I am
what I am.
You know this week
I was
this week I was
talking with Pastor Nick
and we were reminiscing
about our brother
Randall Perkins
who recently passed away
and Nick said
I remember
several years ago
I was teaching
Sunday school
and Randall piped up
and said
wasn't there a guy
in the Bible
who was a murderer
and killed Christians
and then God
forgave him
and Nick said
that's right
it was the apostle Paul
and Randall said
well if God
can forgive him
then he can forgive me
and that's exactly
the point
Randall wasn't
a murderer
by the way
don't get a misconception
here
but God
can forgive
anyone
whatever their past
whatever your past
includes
now it seems
that some people
in Corinth
were questioning
Paul
questioning his
credentials as an apostle
not just because
of his past
but also because
he didn't seem
that impressive
in the present
you know
the New Testament
doesn't describe
what Paul looked like
but there's a
second century document
that describes Paul
this way
small in size
bald headed
bow legged
well built
with eyebrows that met
got a unibrow
and rather long nosed
if this is accurate
we don't know if it is
but it very well could be
Paul didn't exactly
have the most impressive
physique
by ancient standards
and in verse 8
Paul refers to himself
as one untimely born
that was actually a word
that was sometimes used
as a derogatory insult
sometimes it referred
to someone born prematurely
or even born
as a result
of a failed abortion
and someone who might
have been disfigured
or deformed
as a result
it was a term
that's sort of like
the word freak
today
used in a negative way
often about people
and some people
might have even
used that term
to talk about Paul
and said this guy's
a freak
he's crazy
he's weird
he's messed up
and Paul
Paul wasn't
Paul wasn't fazed
by that
he said the foundation
on which I stand
is not my physical
appearance
it's not
my past accomplishments
it's by the grace
of God
he says it's by the grace
of God
I am what I am
and so Paul
could live
with humility
and with confidence
you know
maybe you
maybe you're
like Peter
maybe you feel
insecure
because you can
look back
on ways
you've screwed up
during your time
as a follower
of Jesus
like Peter could
maybe you're
like James
and you're
you have a
skeptical
cynical
side of you
that seems
hard to shake
maybe you're
like Paul
you have a
pre-Christian
past
that you're
deeply ashamed
of
and you
think
if people
in the church
knew about
everything
I used
to do
maybe
they
wouldn't
love me
or accept
me
maybe
I
wouldn't
be welcome
here
and I
wouldn't
have
a purpose
here
anymore
you know
what this
passage says
to you
is trust
in
the reality
of Jesus
transforming
grace
wherever
you're
coming
from
you can
be empowered
by the
Holy Spirit
despite
your past
failures
and
whatever
you've
accomplished
it's
interesting
Paul talks
about his
worst
failures
in the
past
and his
greatest
accomplishments
in the
present
verse 10
he says
I worked
harder
than all
the rest
of them
and it's
probably
true
right
Paul
planted
more
churches
in more
cities
than anyone
else we
know of
in the
ancient
world
he traveled
more miles
around the
Roman Empire
than any of
the other
apostles
it's true
he worked
harder than
everybody else
but then he
could say
it's not
I
but the
grace of
God
and so
if you're
haunted by
your failures
and weaknesses
and insecurities
you need to be
encouraged by
this passage
that God
can use you
and he can
transform you
by his grace
and it's not
too
we are past
and your present
struggles are not
too big for
God to handle
and if you're
really accomplished
like Paul
if you've
succeeded
if you've
done a lot
in the world
or in the church
or if you
have a high
status
in one way
or other
you need to
be reminded
of what
Paul said
it's not
I
but the
grace of
God
that's
within me
you know
if you can
look around
and honestly
like Paul
say I
worked harder
than most
of the people
around me
can you also
say
but not
I
yet the
grace of
God
because if
you don't
say that
you're
vulnerable
to fall
into being
condescending
and arrogant
and looking
down on other
people
and God's
not pleased
by that
but you see
what this message
does is it
humbles
is it
humbles us
and it makes
us confident
it humbles
us
because it's
only by
the grace
of God
that we
are what
we are
and it
gives us
confidence
because it's
by the grace
of God
that God
deals with
our sin
and our
past
and he
gives us
hope and
confidence
for our
work in the
future
that he
calls us
to
so that's
how we
can look
forward
into the
future
with humility
and with
confidence
God's done
good things
among us
in the last
five years
you know
as you look
through
as you
think of
the past
five years
in your own
life
whatever your
journey
has been
you can think
about what's
led you
to this day
what's led
you here
but if you
take your
stand on
this foundation
that Christ
died for your
sins
and he was
buried and he
was raised
on the third
day
and if you
trust in his
transforming grace
you can face
you can go
into the
future
with hope
and with
confidence
and with
humility
and graciousness
let us
pray
oh God
we thank you
for this
message
we thank you
for the
central reality
that brings us
here this
morning
Lord we thank
you for the
grace to
transform Paul
and James
and Peter's
life
we thank you
for the grace
that empowered
them to do
mighty works
for your
kingdom
Lord to
bring many
people to
faith in
you
to write
letters
that are
still used
by your
Holy Spirit
to instruct
and guide
your church
Lord we pray
that your
transforming grace
will be at
work among us
give us
confidence
Lord
where we see
and are aware
of our
weaknesses
and failures
we pray
that we
would come
and receive
the forgiveness
of our
sins
and Lord
where we
need your
empowerment
and your
wisdom
to guide
us
for the
task
that you
lay
before us
we pray
that we
would come
before you
and be
empowered
only by your
grace
Lord we pray
that you
would continue
your work
in this
church
in the next
years ahead
we pray
that you
would continue
your work
in each one
of us
for your
glory
we pray
these things
in Jesus
name
amen