We Still Need The Gospel

Pastor Krystal Walker | June 1st, 2025

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Transcription

Are y'all ready? I cannot go forward without acknowledging the amazing series that we just left out of. Unapologetic was amazing. Did y'all enjoy that? Wow. I told Pastor Tim that I believe Unapologetic was one of my favorites because it simply reminded us of the fundamentals of our faith. Right? We talked about salvation, communion, the Holy Spirit. The fundamentals are important. I was talking to my mother-in-law. She has a Ph.D. In math. I know, right? What type of problems are y'all solving up there? I was really trying to figure it out. I was like, what are the what type of equations were y'all solving? She said, no, baby, we didn't have equations. They had something called theorems. I'm like, who? What? And I'm just amazed that someone would sign up to get their Ph.D. In math. And so we're talking and she shares that as she excelled in her math career, that she, the higher level she would go to, even though the problems got more difficult, she said that she always had to carry arithmetic with her, the basics math, subtraction, addition, multiplication, a skill that she learned in elementary school.

She said, with math, you don't get rid of the fundamentals, you just build on them. They're so important. And I was like, man, that will preach. That's true in our spiritual lives too, right? That there are some fundamentals of our faith and of the word that we don't grow out of, that we cannot get rid of. We have to keep in front of us. We have to rehearse. We have to stand firm in them. And I want to talk about one big fundamental of our faith. This one is really, really big. In fact, our whole faith hinges on it. So today we're going to talk about the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ. More specifically, we're going to talk about the role the gospel plays in the life of the believer. Okay? Now, when I say gospel, I want to make sure we're all on the same page. The gospel literally is translated to mean good news. Okay? And the gospel is good news because it is God's plan of salvation for humanity. See, humanity needed saving because sin entered the world. And the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

We were born into sin and shaped in iniquity. So we all sin, and our sin created a separation and a divide between ourselves and God because God is a holy God. He cannot tolerate sin. The Bible says he cannot even look upon sin. So we could no longer be in relationship and fellowship with God. And not only is God a holy God, he is a just God. So he has to judge sin. And the Bible says the payment of sin is death. So you and I, we deserved death, eternal separation from God. Well, God loved us so much that he came up with a rescue plan that included sending his son Jesus to earth to live a perfect life, which would qualify him to pay the penalty for sin for all of mankind. So Jesus, he died. He was buried, and he was resurrected three days later, which signified that God accepted his sacrifice on our behalf. So if you're a believer, you and I, we stand righteous in front of a holy and just God. And that, my friends, is good news. That's the gospel. So when I talk about the gospel, I'm talking about God's plan of salvation, namely Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

Now, last week we learned that we need to share this good news to nonbelievers. And I think as Christians, we understand fully that this gospel should be shared. We understand how it's relevant to the lost, right? I think even as Christians, we understand how the gospel is relevant to our past. Because of the decision we made in our past, we are saved. We're forgiven. We're cleansed. We are set free. And because of this choice we made in our past, we understand we now have a future home in heaven. The Bible says whoever believes in him will not perish. We will have eternal life. So I think as believers, we understand how the lost needs the gospel. I think we understand how the gospel is relevant to our past and to our future. But I'm here today. Here's the burden that I carry. I want us to see that the gospel is not just good news for our past. It's not just good news for our future. It is good news for today. And the devil is going to do all that he can do to make you live a life as if you do not have a risen Savior or live a life as if you do not have a new identity in Christ.

The devil is going to work overtime for you to live a life that is not aligned with the good news of the gospel. And I want us to see that we need the gospel today. We need to stand in it. It's not something we graduate from. It's not something that we move past. It's something that we stand on and walk in. So the title of my sermon today is called We Still Need The Gospel. Is that all right? Let's pray. God, broaden our understanding of this good news. Show us how to live in the truths of the gospel. Prick hearts today. Draw people to you. In Jesus' name, amen. We're going to hang out in 1 Corinthians 15. We're just going to look at two verses, verses 1 through 2. And if y'all don't mind, let's stand for the reading of the word. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2. It says, now I would remind you, brothers, 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 preached to you, unless you believed in vain. You guys may take a seat.

This is Paul talking, all right? He's talking to the church of Corinth. This is a group of believers, all right? He calls them affectionately brothers. And understand that title, brothers, is not exclusive to males. This letter would have been read to the entire congregation, and women are included in that congregation. So he is saying, brothers, sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you. And I thought it was interesting that Paul was reminding believers of the gospel. This is not the first time this happens. He often, if you look at all of his letters, his epistles, he's often reminding believers of the gospel. Whenever you see the gospel message, it's usually in a letter that was written to believers. He reminded the church of Rome often of the gospel, the church of Ephesus, the church of Galatia, just to name a few. And as believers, that ought to grab our attention. It should make us lean in a little bit. Whenever you see any type of repetition, any type of patterns in the Bible, you should want to investigate and figure out why is Paul reminding the believers that they still need the gospel?

Why is he reminding believers of the gospel over and over and over again? In this particular context, in 1 Corinthians 15, we're only looking at two verses, but if we were to read the entire chapter, we would learn that this chapter is about Paul who is defending the resurrection because there were a group of people that said the resurrection was not real. So Paul starts out his defense by first reminding them of the fundamentals of the gospel. He's reminding them of the role the gospel plays in the life of the believer. And I don't know if you noticed, but we too are living in a time where our culture is rejecting the truths of the gospel. I believe right now that we are living in that time that Paul warned Timothy about. You remember he said there will be a time when people would not endure sound doctrine. He said there will be a time when people will have itchy ears. They will only want to hear what they want to hear. They will go and listen to myths and not the truth of the gospel. I believe that time is now.

So we too, as this was relevant to the church of Corinth, I believe this passage is relevant to us today as we are constantly defending our faith. We first need to be rooted in the gospel and understand the role that it plays in our lives. So he says, verse 1, Now I remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received. He reminds them that this is a gospel that they received. And it makes sense that Paul will start there because as believers, we can't begin to live out the gospel and live out the gospel truths if we don't first remember the gift that it is, if we don't first remember how it transformed our lives. May we never forget that which we received in Christ Jesus, especially if you've been walking with the Lord for some time. We have folks, I'm probably looking at people that have been walking with the Lord for decades, multiple decades. I came to Christ when I was eight years old, since I was a child. And the longer you walk with the Lord, the more you need to keep this gospel in front of you because you can begin to detach yourself from the cost of the gift.

You can begin to detach yourself from the power of the gospel. Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God for salvation. We can lose the weight of the gospel, and this good news begins to become old news to us. May that not be us. Does anybody remember? Can we just go down memory lane? Do you remember when you received the gospel? What cycles were you in? What dead-end relationships were you involved in? What lifestyle were you in? How were you trying to medicate your sin-sick soul? Where were you? What were you doing? We must remember. Ephesians 2 says, Paul reminds the church of Ephesus of their old life and their salvation. He reminds them what they were before Christ, and then he reminds them of what Christ did for them. And I want to read this over us because I believe that we have to continue to remind ourselves of this truth, all right? So here we go. Ephesians 2, listen carefully. This was true of you. If you're a believer today, this was true of you. It says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

All of us also lived among them at one time. This is what we were doing, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved." Verse 8, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast." Can we just praise God and say thank you, Lord, for saving me? Thank you for pulling me out of that cycle. Thank you for redeeming me. Thank you, Lord, for saving me. I didn't deserve it. My goodness was not good enough. My righteousness was filthy rags in front of Christ. Thank you, Lord, for saving me. He says, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 1, he says, "Now I remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you which you received."

Most people stop there, but Paul doesn't because the gospel doesn't stop there. For believers, he says, you received it. Now this is in which you stand. Present tense. Y'all see that? Another version says, and you still stand firm in it. See, the gospel is not just something we receive and say, check, I'm on my way to heaven. No, no, no. It's something that we stand in. It's firm today. It is the foundation in which we live out this Christian journey. Paul uses this imagery of standing all throughout his letters. And I want us to take a look at how he talks about it in Ephesians 6. It's a very familiar passage. This is talking about the full armor of God. Verse 13, whenever you see the word stand, would y'all say that word with me, okay, nice and loud? It says, "Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand, one more time, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place."

So Paul is saying, hey, the day of evil is coming, and you will need to be able to stand. And here's the armor, the clothes that you should put on. He says, Put the belt of truth around your waist. It's going to hold everything together, the truth. Breastplate of righteousness. Put it on. Now, I want y'all to observe the type of shoes he tells us to wear. Because how many of y'all know it matters? If you're going to stand for any length of time, it matters what type of shoes you... Come on, ladies. Every time I preach, I'm thinking about what shoes I'm going to wear. That's why you'll never see me preaching in stilettos, because why? We're going to fall up here. Verse 15, he says, he says, "And with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace." Now, when we read this, we typically preach this in a missional sense, like spread the gospel and carry, be ready to spread the gospel of peace everywhere you go. And as a good Christian soldier, that is true. We should be ready to announce the gospel of peace wherever we go.

But there's another interpretation I would love for us to consider. The word readiness here can also be translated to mean firmness, okay? Remember, and this makes sense in context. Remember, Paul is painting a picture of a soldier who is doing what? Standing. Not necessarily one who's in motion, but one who is standing. And everything, every armor he's telling us to put on is to help us to stand, right? So it kind of makes sense to me. He says, put on the belt, put on the breastplate of righteousness, and then he says, let your feet be fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. The New English Bible uses that translation. Amplify uses the same language. The New English Bible says this. It says, let the shoes of your feet be the gospel of peace to give you a firm footing. Essentially, the gospel is what's going to give us the grip, the support, the firm footing to stand firm. The gospel is the source of our strength to stand. Yes, the gospel should be carried, but it also should be kept. It should be what we stand firm on. To live this Christian journey, we must stand in the gospel.

But what does that actually mean? As I studied and as I read Paul's epistles, this is the best way I was able to frame what it means to stand firm in the gospel. To stand firm in the gospel means to believe its truths and apply it to everything you do and go through. To stand firm means you actually have to believe the truths of the gospel. I believe there are a lot of Christians that believe the message of the gospel. They believe that Jesus died. They believe that Jesus was buried. They believe that he resurrected. But there are some truths that comes out of that, y'all. There are some implications. Because we have a risen Savior, we live a life of freedom. We live a life that is not bound to sin. We live a life as a new creation. You actually have to believe the truths of the gospel and you actually have to live it out. Apply it to everything you do and everything that you go through. Here's one simple gospel truth and that is that God loves you. Right? Romans 5:8 says, he demonstrated love at the highest level. We're at our lowest low.

It says that Christ died for us. This gospel truth, we got to stand firm on this one. And everything that we do and go through has to come from that truth. All right? Because if we don't, we'll end up one or two things, or both. We'll look for love in the wrong places and/or we'll begin to do things for love. For God's approval and acceptance. We think we have to earn God's love. But he loves us even when we don't perform. Even when we're not reading our Bible like we should. Even when we're not doing all the right things. He says, I love you. Have we received that truth and are we standing in it? A good question to ask yourself is, am I doing this for love or from love? You see the difference? Am I doing this to gain love and approval or am I doing this from a place that I'm already loved? And I'm reading my Bible because I love you. Not trying to get love and brownie points from you, God. I'm coming to church and I'm fasting because I love you. This is how I'm expressing my love and my gratitude.

I'm not trying to win anything. I'm not trying to because I'm already loved. And this is so good for us to get. Maybe you didn't get the love from your mother like you should have. Maybe you didn't get the love from your dad like you should have. Or your spouse is not loving you like you should. But you'll still be able to stand because you have a father that looks at you and knows your name. And he says, I love you. So everything that you do ought to come from that place. Everything that you go through ought to come from that place that I am loved. Sometimes when we go through difficult things, we can question the love of God. Like, does God not love me anymore? You remember when Paul, Romans Chapter 8, he says, who can separate us from the love of Christ? Y'all remember that? And then he starts to list all of these difficult things. He says, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine or nakedness, danger of sword. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Nothing. The bad things we go through, the difficult things we go through has nothing to do with God's love for you.

And we need to stand in that gospel truth. This is what it means to stand firm in the gospel. To actually believe the truths of the gospel and to apply it to everything we do and everything we go through. Here's another gospel truth. You are freed from the power of sin. The Bible says, Romans 6:18, that you are free from your slavery to sin. And you have become slaves to righteous living. That's good news. Earlier in that chapter, he asked this question. He says, how can we who died to sin still live in it? Sin does not have to have a grip on you. You can live a holy and righteous life because you have a new master. You have a new appetite. Now we have the ability to make war against our sin. You remember before Christ, you remember we read in Ephesians 2, that we had no choice but to gratify the cravings of our flesh. We had no choice but to go according to the course of this world. Before Christ, we had no choice but to live in sin. But because we received the gospel, now we can choose not to sin.

I get frustrated and really upset when I hear Christians talk as if sin has power over them. Do you not know who you are? Do you not know that the Holy Spirit lives inside of you? Paul asks questions like this all the time. And do you not know that the Holy Spirit, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that no, no, no, sin does not have power over you. Not a child of God. You have the Holy Spirit that we partner with and where we can overcome sin and live victorious against sin. I know we won't be perfect. God knows we won't be perfect. That's why he made provision for us to confess and to run to him. 1 John 2:1 says this, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. That's good news, y'all. So if you're standing in this truth, when you sin, you wouldn't go run and hide. You would run to your daddy. You run to your father. I have a four-year-old and she's still at this phase.

I know it won't last long that she tells on herself. She's like, mommy, I spilled red juice on your white couch. And she'd come to me and tell me about her transgressions. And she comes to me. And she comes to me not just to confess, but then she comes to me for comfort. And I may get upset like, girl, you ain't supposed to be drinking Kool-Aid in the living room. And I'll get upset. And then she'll come to me for comfort and love. And we'll hug and embrace. And I'm always reminded that that's the picture of what it looks like to confess your sins to the father, to run to your daddy. Stand on this gospel truth, y'all. I guess what I've been trying to say this whole time is that if you're going to stand on the gospel truth, this is what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to put a filter on it. This is a filter. And when I look through this filter, you all do not look as you normally would. You now have this red tint because I'm looking to you through this filter.

And when God looks at us, he doesn't see us as these sinful folks and folks that can't get it right and can't ever do right. If you receive Jesus Christ, he uses a filter. The blood of Jesus now covers us. And he sees righteousness and holiness. And he sees us as if we lived Jesus' perfect life. And what I'm trying to say, to stand in the gospel means that everything you do and everything you go through, you've got to put the blood of Jesus on it. So if you sin, put the blood of Jesus on it and run to your daddy, all right, and confess and receive forgiveness and cleansing. If somebody gets on your nerves and you want to cuss them out, put the blood of Jesus on it, okay? And remind yourself that you are a child of God and I can act like it, all right? When shame and condemnation wants to come up because you ain't been getting it all right, put the blood of Jesus on it where the word says that there's now no condemnation in those who are in Christ Jesus.

If we're going to stand in the gospel, we cannot forget that we have the blood of Jesus and that we have this gospel filter to use so that we can live this life in the way that God has called us to live. Is that all right? So let's go back to our verse. It says, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no. I got a point. This sermon actually has no points. I was talking to my friend about it. I was like, I ain't got no points on this. They're going to have to find their own points, make up their own points. But if you're going to stand in the gospel, this is how you do it. You have to preach the gospel to yourself often. When we think about the gospel, we think about preaching it to everybody else, but you got to preach, rehearse this gospel often. And a good question to ask yourself is what does the gospel say about this? All right, and then just go live it out. That's how you stand in the gospel. All right, let's move on. So let's read it, read it. Y'all gonna know this verse by memory when we get done because we're gonna read about 13 times.

It says, now I would remind you brothers of the gospel I preached to you, which you received. We talked about that, right? In which you stand. We talked about that. Now let's deal with this last part. And by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. So for this last part to make sense, we have to make note of the grammatical tense that's being used here. It says, by which you are being saved. Some of y'all like, I thought I was already saved. What is he talking about? Well, this is the present continuous tense, all right? It's implying that there's a process going on. All throughout the Bible, you'll see that in reference to salvation, the Bible uses three different tenses. You have past tense, present tense, and future tense. Remember that salvation is the entire process by which God is rescuing us from sin and sin's consequences so that we can enjoy him and be in his presence. So the Bible uses these three different tenses to communicate how salvation is fully accomplished. Are y'all tracking with me? So let's talk 

About, in order to understand this present tense use of salvation, we have to consider the other tenses, all right? So let's talk about past tense. Past tense use of salvation is like Ephesians 2:8. For by grace, you have been saved, all right? This is referring to the forgiveness that we received and when we are declared righteous in God's eyes. This is a one-time event. It's over and done with. Once you receive Christ, we have been saved. The theological word for this is justification, okay? We are being saved from the penalty of sin. When we receive Christ in that moment, we no longer owe a payment. Our debt has been paid. We are justified. One cool way I love to remember justification is that God looks at us just as if we've never sinned. That's justification. We no longer owe a debt. We have been saved from the penalty of sin. Now let's jump over to the future tense. The Bible uses future language to talk about salvation as if it has not happened yet. So you hear phrases like the future hope of our salvation. Romans 13:11, Paul says salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. You will be saved.

So it uses tenses and language to suggest that something hasn't happened yet. What that is referring to is our glorification. This is when we get to heaven. This is when we'll be fully transformed into the image of God. This is when we will be fully redeemed and we have been saved from the presence of sin, all right? So when we get to heaven, we no longer will struggle with our flesh. We'll no longer be tempted. Sin will have no presence in heaven. We'll be freed from this fleshly body. We cannot wait to get there as believers. We cannot wait to get home where the wrestle and the laboring will be over, right? That's glorification and we are saved from the presence of sin. But we're not there yet. This has already happened. So we're right here in the middle. What is happening in this middle? All right? We're in the middle of already done but not yet. This brings us to our text. We are being saved. This is referring to our sanctification where we're being saved from the power of sin, okay? This is referring to when we are simply being renewed in Christ.

This sanctification describes the process of becoming more like Christ. See, the good news of the gospel says that after Jesus resurrected, he ascended into heaven, all right? 40 days later, he went to heaven. He ascended. When he left, he did not leave us as orphans. He sent an advocate. He sent a helper. The Holy Spirit came down and now lives in every believer. The gospel gave us the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is constantly at work in our lives to help us to overcome sin and to grow in holiness. So Paul is reminding them that, hey, this gospel, it saves and it sanctifies. And Paul wants them to know that this gospel will grow you if you let it. This gospel will mature you if you let it. You remember I said that standing in the gospel means you have to apply the truths of the gospel to everything you do and everything you go through. The good news is that you don't have to do it alone. The Holy Spirit will enable you to do it. The Holy Spirit will empower you to do it. The Holy Spirit will convict you, will guide you, will teach you.

The Holy Spirit is at work in your life, is working in the life of the believer. But look, that's good news, mother. Yes, that's good news. The Holy Spirit is at work in your life, but the Holy Spirit is not the only one that should be working here, okay? Yes, the Spirit guides and teach and empowers, but that doesn't mean that he's doing all the work. One phrase that I think believers use irresponsibly is this one. The Lord's still working on me. Y'all know that one. Yeah, we only say that after we've done something foolish, after we done cut somebody out, we done cut somebody out, we done let it rip, we yielded to temptation, we did something that we know we weren't supposed to do. It's the Lord still working on us. And he is, and you need to work on you too, okay? See, the Holy Spirit, we work in partnership with the Holy Spirit. Look at Ephesians, or no, Philippians 2. Paul tells the church of Philippi that you should work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, okay? Verse 13 tells us how this actually happens.

It talks about this partnership, okay? It says, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So it's God working in us, giving us the desire and the passion to do what's pleasing to him. So that means here's our responsibility. We must work out what God is working in. So he's given us the desire, he's given us the passion, the ability to do what's pleasing to him, and we have to respond to that and work out in our actions, in our behavior, in the way that we think and what we say. That's how we partner with the Holy Spirit in the sanctification process. I want y'all to have this balance because if you think sanctification is solely the Spirit's responsibility, you will be in danger of abusing grace because the Lord is just working on me and you sitting on a couch eating bam-bams, ain't doing nothing. You need to get a job. You need to work too. What are we talking about? It's not just the Spirit's responsibility. And then if you think the sanctification process is fully dependent on you, it's on your 

Work, and then you are in danger of being self-righteous because you feel like it's you keeping you. No, no, no, no, no, baby. You ain't strong enough to keep you because if you were, we wouldn't need the gospel. You got to have a balance. The scripture says, put off the old self and put on a new. Scripture commands us to put to death what is earthly in us. It's the work between the Spirit and our efforts. See, we don't like to use words like effort and work when we're talking about salvation because we're like, no, no, it's by grace. We ain't work for this. Dallas Willard says it like this, that the gospel is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. We didn't earn this, but we do have to respond to this. And the Holy Spirit will do a number of things, a number of things. He will point you to the word to regenerate your mind. He will remind you of the word. He will put you in Christian community. The Bible says that we should confess sin to one another. All those things he will use to mature you and to grow you.

Is that all right? Let's finish this last piece of this scripture. He says, by which you are being saved if, there's a condition here, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you unless you believed in vain. That word hold fast means to hold firmly to. It also can mean to keep in memory. Keep in memory what? The gospel. The gospel gave us the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives. And it's our responsibility to yield to it so we can look more like Christ. And Paul is always saying something slick. He said, unless you believed in vain. He said, if you're not holding firmly to this gospel, is your faith even real? Did you believe in vain? I hope you see that we still need the gospel. It keeps us, the gospel matures us. The gospel will help us persevere to the end. Would you all stand? We're gonna sing a portion of a song. And if you're a believer, there might be a conversation you need to have with God. You might need to let them know that maybe you haven't been standing on the gospel and you want to be reunited with the gospel today.

Yes, you believe, but are you standing? Are you holding firm to it? And I'm not ignorant to the fact that there may be some people out here that may not have first received the gospel. You may not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. We're gonna sing this song and I want to give you an opportunity to think about making a decision to receive the gospel today. If you want to make that choice, I'll come back and I'll lead you in a prayer and we'll welcome you into the household of faith. But just for a moment, just reflect on all that we said, all that was read in scripture, and how we can walk out these doors changed by standing in the gospel.