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“Moreover, bretheren, I declare unto you the gospel
which I preached unto you,
which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
by
which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
By
which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I
preached unto you,
unless ye have believed in vain.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also
received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures;
And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third
day according to the scriptures:”
1 Corinthians 15:1-4
There is not one page in the Bible that does
not have a connection to the death, burial, and
resurrection of Jesus. It is the central theme of the
Bible. Without a true understanding of the gospel, you
will have a difficult time serving God. The event of
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is what
makes us children of God. Because we know that we are
children of God, we know that we are heirs of God. We
have an inheritance in Christ. If a relative of ours
died and left us an inheritance, we would want to know
what it is. In the same way, we need to come to
understand what type of inheritance Jesus has given to
us.
There are lots of religions besides
Christianity that teach good ethics and promote good
living. Many religions teach that you should not
steal. Christianity is no different from all of those
religions if all we are going to teach is morality. The
difference of Christianity is that it is centered around
the Gospel: the death, burial and resurrection of
Jesus. Christianity is based on what God does for
humanity and not what humanity does for their God.
Christianity offers redemption of sin; most of the
worlds’ religions require you to work your way out of
sin. Christianity is the only religion that says there
is a savior from sin. The gospel is the good news that
we are released from sin. We do not work our way out of
it.
Sin cannot be escaped unless you are redeemed from it.
We have all had the experience of trying to work our way
out of sin. It doesn’t work. Sin cannot be escaped
unless you are redeemed from it. The Gospel-the good
news- is that Jesus paid the price for our sins.
I Corinthians 15:1 gives us a clear picture
of why some Christians struggle with sin in their
lives: “Moreover, bretheren, I declare unto you the
gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have
received, and ;wherein ye stand; by which also ye have
received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are
saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto
you, unless ye have believed in vain.”
Most of us already know the answer to most
of the problems that we have in our lives. We know the
answer that the Bible gives. But this verse tells us
that we need to keep the right things in our memory.
This means that we could have learned the right thing to
do about a situation, but if we don’t remember the right
thing to do, it’s like we never learned it at all. When
we sin, it is important to remember the right things.
Why? If we don’t, then that gives the devil opportunity
to plant the wrong things in our minds. If we don’t
have peace in our lives, it is because we have forgotten
who the prince of peace is. The success of our lives
comes because of what we remember-not because of what we
have learned and forgotten years ago. If we don’t
remember to do the right things on Monday, it won’t do
us any good to have learned them on Sunday. If we don’t
keep these things in memory, we have believed them in
vain. They don’t do us any good.
If you don’t remind yourself of what God has
done for you, then your belief will have been in vain.
When you believed the Gospel and were saved, God
intended that to be the gift that keeps on giving-not
the gift that ends right there.
I want to bring something back to our
memories. I want for us to remember the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Have you ever
wondered why there had to be a death? As kids, we heard
that Jesus died for our sins. Did you ever wonder what
that meant and why you needed that? To understand that
, we first have to understand our condition apart from
Jesus. Many people do not understand that when you were
born into the world, you were born broke. You did not
have a relationship with God. This is not a good
position to be in. Romans 5:12 tells us where this
condition came from: “Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”
When Adam and Eve were created, they were
created in a perfect world, but when Adam sinned, sin
entered into the world. Before the fall of Adam and
Eve, they had no adverse circumstances. They were
created to live eternally as children of God, never to
die. They were created with intelligence, made in the
image of God. Their lives were absolutely perfect. All
they had to do was not eat of the tree in the midst of
the garden. Adam was given a choice, and he made the
wrong choice. When he sinned, sin entered into the
world, and death came. One man sinned and death came
upon him, and sin and death were passed to every man.
We can’t escape from it. We have to understand that sin
and death is our condition without Jesus. We don’t have
a chance without Him.
Why couldn’t God just forgive Adam and
release him from sin? Because God can’t go against his
own principles. There had to be a price paid for what
Adam did, but man could not pay the price for sin. So
what does God do? He has to make somebody that can pay
the penalty for sin and survive it. In order to be a
proper substitute, it had to be a human because it was a
human that had sinned. But a human couldn’t take the
wrath of God and live. So God makes a man that is God.
That is why Jesus is so unique. He is all man and all
God. He was born of a woman, but he was God. The human
part of Jesus died for our sins, and the God part of
Jesus survived the death. He was the perfect
substitute.
Many times we only have a moral
understanding of the death of Jesus. The fact that
someone would die for us softens our hearts and makes us
feel sorry about it. That is okay, but the death of
Jesus was so much more than that. The greatest reason
that Jesus died was to be as substitute for us. Jesus
was doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. He
died the death for sin for us. We could not pay the
penalty for sin. As a substitute, Jesus paid the
penalty for us.
“Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and
blood,
he
also himself likewise took part of the same;
that through death he might destroy him that had the
power of death,
that is, the devil.”
Hebrews 2:14
Jesus took part in flesh and blood so that
he could die and destroy him who had the power of
death. When Jesus went through the doorway of death,
the penalty for sin and death was paid. He chose to be
your substitute. Imagine that you are a criminal
standing in front of a judge. When the evidence is
stacked up, you are proven guilty. A just judge could
not let you go because that would not be upholding up
the standard he had committed to uphold. But there is
someone who wants to take your place and take your
penalty for you. Who would want to take your place?
Only someone who loves you a whole lot. Jesus became
your substitute because he loves you. He volunteered
for the sentence that was yours. Remember Jesus said,
“No man taketh it (my life) from me, but I lay it
down myself.” (John 10:18, KJV) Jesus voluntarily
gave his life for you, and in giving his life he
canceled the penalty that you owed.
Jesus was willing to take your place. Some
people wonder why they should serve Jesus. Those people
don’t realize the condition they are in without Him.
Their life is broken and they are in need of a redeemer,
someone to pay for what they don’t have the ability to
pay for. His penalty was your pardon. When you
remember that, you begin to have victory over sin in
your life. When you remember that He loved you enough
to take your place, you begin to value that more than
sin. Matthew 20:28 says that Jesus was sent as a ransom
for many. There are two things that happen when a
ransom takes place: 1. A penalty is paid, 2. Someone is
set free. Not only is the price for your sin paid, you
are also released from it. There was a price that was
paid for you, and your were released from the power of
sin. You will always have to keep this in your
remembrance. Your believing will be of none effect, or
vain, if you don’t remember the substitution He made for
you. (1 Corinthians 15:1) |
