Automated Transcription:
Appreciate David’s lesson and appreciate it. Our next speaker brother, Jeff Jenkins come to, comes to us from Texas, the Lewisville church of Christ, where he has preached since 2004, but recently he has transitioned from full-time local work to a meeting work and helping out the brotherhood at large. And we appreciate him. This is the first time he’s actually been here to speak on this lectureship.
Although the last two years he was scheduled and I really wanted to introduce him to this area. Great preacher. Great, great man. Very conscientious, very helpful, a very good speaker and has a lot of good insight in life. And combining that with scriptures, that makes a great preacher. He has a graduate freed Harmon university and he is a co-director of the Jenkins Institute committed to encouraging preachers.
And he does that with his brother Dale, and he is also very active in the Lord’s work and encouraging people. He has written a book recently. He and I have a thing in common that both of us are wives passed away. His wife passed away just a little over year. Seems like a couple of years, a couple of years, and he’s written a book beyond the valley of death and he just has a handful of these copies.
And if you have recently lost, and I don’t even know recently, it’s kind of relative, but if you have lost a spouse or a loved one, but particularly a spouse, he has a few copies. He’d like to give you one, just see him afterwards, but you’ll see on the seven 40, less than all the way across for the first three nights,
the resurrection of Christ from first Corinthians 15 and a well actually the resurrection first Corinthians 15, the whole chapter deals with that and we’ve broken it up into three segments and he will start us off tonight with what Paul has to say in chapter 15, one through 11, about the resurrection of Christ brother, Jeff Thank you very much, brother, Brian. It is a real privilege to be here.
We’ve known of this wonderful school for a number of years. We have friends who’ve been involved in your electric ships in the past. And the Brian has asked me to come the last two or three years and we just haven’t been able to work it out. But we’re delighted to be with you tonight. It’s been a joy today to hear all of these lessons.
Every one of them have been outstanding. The three young men that spoke this afternoon, that gives you great hope for the church of our Lord. Doesn’t it for a long time to come in. My life has richly blessed and I feel a little bit out of place. These guys are great preachers, but I’m glad to be able to just sit and listen to them and to grow.
And, and it’s good to see some old friends, people we’ve known for a number of years who are here tonight and met some new folks. It’s good to meet new friends, always. And it’s just a real pleasure and a delight to be with you. Our study tonight will be based upon first Corinthians chapter 15. And I do hope you’ll open your Bible and turn there and we’ll get to the context of what Paul is saying in just a moment after some introductory remarks,
it was probably somewhere around 650 to 700 years before Paul wrote the words that we’re studying this week. That another preacher who was a man of God was preaching the word of God and he was doing so during a very difficult day, his name was Rebecca. Some people call him Habbakuk. We had a professor in school and graduate school said you better call his name Habbakuk.
And so through the years I’ve tried to do that. I just can’t make myself do that. So I’m going to call him a Baca. And he lived somewhere around 600, 6 50 BC. And he was living during the time when the world was in bad shape. And if you haven’t read lately that three chapter book, I would challenge you to do so, but in the opening lines of this book,
he calls upon God and he says, God, why haven’t you been hearing my prayer? I’ve been praying to you. And I don’t feel like I’m getting any answers. And why haven’t you been listening to me? Why aren’t you doing what I’m calling upon you to do? Don’t you know that the world is in trouble. Don’t, you know, God that there’s violence everywhere.
Don’t, you know, there’s chaos and confusion. Don’t you know that there’s injustice. Don’t, you know, God that there are people who are ignoring the poor don’t you know that there are people who are ignoring your law and not paying attention to the law of God. God, where are you? And why aren’t you doing something about this mess that we live in,
in this world. Now, if all of that in the first few verses about the first five verses of chapter one, look familiar, they should, because it looks a lot like the world that we’re living in right now, doesn’t it. And you know what God said to Habakkuk, God answered her Baca. And if you look after Habakkuk’s prayer to God and after Habakkuk comments to God,
God says to a backup, basically this Rebecca, I am doing things that you can’t even imagine. I’m taking care of everything. And I have a plan. And by the way, God seems to say to a Baca, I would like to try to explain this to you, but there’s no way you could comprehend it. There’s no way you could understand it.
So you just sit back and listen, and God goes into detail explaining what he is going to do and how he is working in the world. And then when you turn the page to a backer chapter, two, God says to a Baca. Now, listen, I’m doing my work and now I want you to do your work. And here is your work chapter two,
verse three, write the vision and make it plain, write it on tablets. So that those who read it may run. Now, I don’t know what the vision was. So Baca doesn’t tell us what the vision was. And I’m not even certain. There’s some indication that Habakkuk didn’t fully understand the vision himself that he was supposed to make plain. But God goes on to say in verse four,
I’m going to take care of all of those wicked people out there. I’m going to take care of that in my time, my plan is going to work. It will work in it’s time, but you keep riding the vision to make it plain. The number two, you live your life by faith, that famous quote in Habakkuk two verse four, the just shall live by faith.
Literally by faith. The righteous man will live now. Fast-forward if you will, some 700 years, almost 700 years. And the apostle Paul comes on the scene. And if you read in Romans chapter one, and we’re going to get to first Corinthians 15, I promise you we’ll get there in about 20 minutes. No, I’m just kidding. If you read Romans chapter one,
Paul writes in verses 18 through 32 gives to us a vivid picture of a world in sin. And in this passage, Paul talks about all kinds of sin and degradation and their own kind of lifestyles and their own kind of life. He talks about people who, who hate God, people who do not honor God, people who do not acknowledge God, people who are not thankful to God,
people who’ve exchanged the truth of God to that of, of devils. And in any closes chapter one, verse 30, by saying, these people are haters of God, H a T E. They don’t honor him. They don’t an item sham. They don’t think him and they’ve exchanged the glory of God for that of others. And so Paul is talking about a world in cm,
but prior to that in Romans one verse 16, you’re familiar. Paul said I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That my friend is the vision, the same type of vision that Rebecca was going to receive from God. Now there’s some indication when you read places like Ephesians chapter three and first Peter chapter one, that some of the men who were riding in preaching under the old Testament economy,
weren’t fully aware of everything that they were talking about. Peter talks about they, they, they inquired and they Searchie diligently to find out about these things. They were revealed to them pulsating, Ephesians three, but they didn’t fully grasp everything that was going on. And Paul called it a mystery in Ephesians chapter three, but all of this is wrapped around this idea of the gospel and the word gospel is a brother dial a flat I can in my mind,
I can hear his voice ringing in my ears, in the study of the Greek language at freed Harmon college many years ago. And he would say the gospel is a Pauline word. It’s a Pauline word. The gospel was one of Paul’s favorite words. As a matter of fact, the word gospel itself, Paul uses it in his writings. A word similar to that,
you on Geli on or something along that line, he uses around 60 different times in his writing. Paul talked about the gospel a lot. And by the way, if Paul talked about the gospel, shouldn’t we talk about the gospel a lot. If the Bible uses that ideal, we should talk about it a lot, but it wasn’t just listen carefully.
It wasn’t just a Pauline word. Paul was passionate about the gospel. He was deeply passionate about it. If you read Romans one verse 15, we oftentimes don’t look at what that passage says that Paul said, I am ready to preach the gospel to those of you who are at Rome. There are seven words contained in that verse. I’m ready to preach the gospel.
Those seven words translate only two Greek words. And they’re interesting words. So the first word I want you to notice is the word. It’s a long word. It’s the word you Angelisa’s thigh. It translates to preach the gospel. You can hear in that word, the word you on Gelien is the word gospel. The good news, the glad tidings of the glad Harold that’s Paul said,
and I am ready to preach that gospel. I want to be God’s spokesman. Also in that word, if you listen carefully, you can hear the word on Gail. You Angelita this thigh. Paul said, I am God’s messenger to proclaim the good news, but the first word that Paul uses is the Greek word. it translates three English words.
I am ready. The old king James Bible will say, I’m ready. Some of the other translations get a little bit more bold and you’ll read the words I am eager, but I don’t believe the words I am ready, or the words I’m eager to do justice to the word that Paul is describing here. The word pro through mine, confirm a word.
The root word is the word through most. We get our English words like thermometer and thermometer thermostat and thermal. And what it means is boiling over. It means hot. And what Paul is saying is not just, well, I I’m ready to come to you at Roman preach the gospel. That’s not what Paul is saying. He’s not even saying I’m eager to preach the gospel.
What Paul is saying is I am on fire to proclaim. God’s good news to the world. And I want to be God’s spokesman. That’s the gospel word that Paul uses. And it was that gospel that you said that has the power to save all of mankind. Paul used that word over and over and over again. And he introduces it again to us in first Corinthians chapter 15 in the first verse.
And by the way, I don’t think we can fully really grasp all that. Paul is trying to say here, if we fail to overlook the fact that in the big scope of first Corinthians 15, particularly starting in verse 12, and I don’t want to get into, I think brother Clark is going to talk about that tomorrow night, but I don’t want to get too far into that.
But what Paul is saying in this section, beginning in verse 12, is that if the gospel is not true, then Christ is not raised from the dead. And if Christ is not raised from the dead, our preaching is in vain. And we are all of all men most to be pitted. And we are wasting our time and we’re wasting our breath.
But Paul goes back in chapter one and he says, the fact is that the gospel is true in DePaul. The core of the gospel was the death and the barrel and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so Paul said, I preach to you of first importance, that phrase first importance, the, the word there is the word pro dose. And it literally means the word pro is the suffix that the prefix that means before.
And what Paul is saying, there is not just that this is the most important part of all of the teaching of the gospel. But you’re saying before we get anything else, right, we must make sure we get this fact of the gospel right before we get all of the other teachings. Right? And so Paul says protos. It is of first importance.
It is the biggest part of what we preach, but it is also what we must get right? First. Now, some people have taken that idea of first importance and they have, they have skewed what Paul’s saying here. Some people will tell you that what Paul means there is that what is most important is the death and burial and resurrection of Christ.
And I’ve actually heard some so-called gospel. Preachers say everything else is secondary to that. And everything else doesn’t really matter that you’ve just got to get that right. And there’s a lot of other things that you don’t really have. You don’t have to worry about whether you get those right or not. Paul is saying, this is, you’ve got to get this right.
First is what Paul is saying. This has to come first. But Paul never says that anything else is unimportant. As a matter of fact, Paul said that the gospel, that the, all of the word of God is inspired. All scriptures inspired of God. And Paul says, it’s all profitable. And he says, it’s all good for you.
And it will help you. And it’s good for doctrine. And it’s good for teaching. It is good for instruction, Paul, doesn’t say, just worry about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. And don’t worry about anything else. He says this, you must get this right first. And if that becomes the foundation for everything that we say and everything that we do,
then we will want to get everything else, right? Why would we not want to get all of the teaching of scripture? Right? Why would we not want to teach precisely and accurately? I think that’s what he meant in second, Tim, before when he said, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season reprove, rebuke exhort with all long suffering,
you’ve got to get this right in the reason he said that in secretary, before it’s because he said, we’re standing in the presence of an almighty God. He will judge us. And so Paul said to Timothy, I solemnly charge you solemnly charged in the presence of God. I don’t know about all of these other preachers in this room tonight. I know there’s a lot of preachers in here,
but I can tell you this every single time, every single time I stand before the people of God or those who are not yet the people of God to proclaim the message of God, there is a holy in my heart and I’m thinking I better get it right. You just not about the people necessarily enjoy this. Are people going to think this is really good or really cool?
It’s about, am I getting God’s word? Right? And that’s what Paul is talking about in first Corinthians 15, when he says a first importance protos, you got to get this right first and then everything else will follow. And then I want you to notice that Paul said in this passage, not only was this a first importance, but Paul said,
I delivered it to you. Notice Paul’s words in verse three, there I delivered to you. The word delivered there is from the word of pear Dida. My in it has to do with literally it means to, to bring alongside the para there, the para is to bring up, to come up alongside and to handover. So Paul said, I brought this gospel to you and I handed it over to you.
By the way, this is a word, this particular word in the Greek language. It’s a word that is often used to translate the idea of tradition. And some people have the idea that tradition is only something that is passed down from generation to generation to generation. And that’s true that that is tradition, but there’s more to it than that. It can sometimes simply mean to be passed over.
And so I can take the tradition that has been passed down to me from generation to generation from generation. But there are preachers in this building tonight who didn’t receive that, right? It wasn’t passed down to you, but somebody came along and they handed it over to you. And that’s exactly what Paul is saying here, that I delivered to you of first importance.
What I received that Christ died for our sins. According to the scriptures. Now the definition of the gospel is at first for he was buried and that he was raised on the third day. According to the scripture. Now this is gospel because this is good news. It is glad tidings. If Jesus only died and was buried, that is not good news.
If Jesus only died, it was Baird. That’s just news. It’s just all, all news. It’s everyday news. People die all the time and they’re buried all the time, but Jesus did not just die. It was buried, but praise be to God up from the grave. He arose according to Romans one four by the power of God. And that is good news.
No, that is not just good news. That is great news. And when we preach the good news, we better preach it. Like it’s good news. We better preach it. Like it’s great news. We better preach it like as glad tidings, because this is a message. That isn’t just a good message, but it is a life changing life giving message.
And it will create a new heart in people who desperately need a new heart created in them. And then Paul is going to talk about the, that this is not just something that was handed down through him, but he said there are witnesses to this. And so Paul talks about some of these witnesses. He talks about the fact they appeared the safest and then then the 12.
And you recall exactly how that occurred. We don’t have to go into that. You know exactly how it occurred and how you appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time. Most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep and he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. And last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me,
I want to spend a little bit of time talking about verse eight and nine and 10, because in the discussion about the gospel, Paul introduces another one of the great themes of the new Testament. That is the idea of grace. Paul does not believe that you can talk about the gospel without talking about grace. And Paul does not believe that you can talk about grace without talking about the gospel.
Now, there are some people who like to talk about grace, but I don’t mean this to be ugly, but they don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. They just like that. The sound of the idea, but Paul understood what the grace of God was really all about. Paul understood what brother John was saying in John chapter one, when he say in the beginning was the word and the word was with God.
And the word was God. And there was nothing that was created that was created without him. And what he meant in verse 14, when he said the word came in the flesh and dwelt among me and, and we beheld the glory of the only begotten of God full of grace and truth. Jesus came to bring grace. Now, Paul is going to say later on in Titus chapter two,
that, that grace appeared the grace that brings salvation army has appeared well. Paul, when did that grace appear? Well, it appeared when Jesus came into the world and when mankind witnessed the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus, therefore Paul says you can’t separate the grace of God from the gospel of God. And Paul is going to preach grace, and he’s going to preach gospel.
As a matter of fact, all of the letters that Paul wrote that we know for a fact that he wrote, we still, you know, he bruises still in question. I remember the story. They told us at freed Hardiman about the professor who would call upon students and they would, he would call upon them and they would have to stay in and answer a question.
And so there was one young man. He was asleep one day in class and the professor was talking about the author of Hebrews. And you said, who wrote Hebrews? And he called upon the young men to answer. He was startled when he heard his name, he jumped up and he said, professor, I used to know the answer to that,
but I had forgotten. And the professor said, what a pity, the only man alive, who knows who wrote Hebrews has forgotten? Well, we don’t know, but what we do know is that every letter that Paul wrote for certain, you ready for this, every letter that he wrote within the first seven verses of the letter, Paul uses the words cutteries and arena,
Carissa, Rainey, grace, and peace, grace and peace. Paul knew what John was talking about when he said that he has come so that we might see grace and peace. And Paul believed in preaching grace and peace. And he believed that was the, the meat of the gospel. And so when he wrote Titus, he said, the grace of God has appeared.
That brings salvation. Well, when, when did it appear? It appeared when Jesus came. And he said, we look back on our salvation as an experience of that grace, when we’ve been obedient to the gospel of Christ. But we’re looking ahead because someday Paul uses the word appear again in the same context. And he says that he will appear in glory.
So Paul understood the idea of grace and glory, but here’s what I want you to know about Paul statement beginning in verse 11 or verse 10, not nine and 10. He appeared to me also as one untimely born, Paul considered himself, a man who was blessed to understand the grace of God and that Jesus appeared to him. And he goes on to say in verse nine,
from the least of the apostles and not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. Paul said, I don’t even feel like I’m worthy to be called an apostle. And of all the apostles. I consider myself to be the least of the apostles that stands in stark contrast to many preachers of the gospel who seemed to want to make the preaching all about them.
Who seemed to want to be saying, pay attention to me, listen to what I’m saying as a young boy, I, I vividly remember. I remember going to church in a small community outside of Huntsville, Alabama with my grandfather who was an elder in that church. And the name of the church was the friendship church of Christ. Isn’t that a great name for a church?
The friendship church of Christ. And I there’s several things I remember vividly about that. I remember that they would have these long gospel meetings in the summer and the preachers would come and they would preach the gospel. And I remember vividly people walking down the aisle to obey the gospel of Christ. I remember that they didn’t have air conditioning in that building in the summertime.
They would open up the windows over here. And I could see, as a boy, I was sitting next to my grandfather and I could see the lightning bugs flying in and out. I would play, you know, with the lightning bugs instead of listening and I should have been listening. But I remember another thing. I remember that those preachers stood up on the pulpit and oftentimes they would stand in and everybody’s sitting out in the pews,
had those old funeral home fans. How many people remember those? All the old people here remember, right? Those are the funeral home fans. And I remember that the preacher had, they had the oscillating fan brother Brian up here and blowing on that preacher. And I remember as a little boy thinking, I just got my call to the ministry because,
you know, if I can have a fan blowing on me, be a pretty, pretty good deal. So, but what I remember most is the prayers in that little church. And I can remember men when they would pray. They would, they would get on their knees between the pews and they would talk to God in heaven. And I can remember the men talking about in their prayers about how,
how blessed we are to serve a God who loves us and has given us his gospel message. And I can remember vividly as clear as day, those men praying. And they would say something like this, dear God, please help the preacher to hide behind the cross of Jesus. And oh, how we need today. Some preachers who will stand and hide behind the cross of Jesus and proclaim the gospel of Christ with passion and with fervor,
understanding that it is not about them. And I believe today that there are churches across our land and perhaps across the world who are starving to death for the gospel of Jesus and they’re being fed a steady diet of substitute. And the problem is that the preacher won’t get out of the way and people walk out and tell him what a great job he did.
And he standing in the way of the gospel. And may we began to pray the preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ will stand behind the cross of Jesus. We will be in the shadows in that Jesus will always be out front. And that’s what Paul means when he said, I’m the least of all of the apostles. There is no place for pride and arrogance in the life of children of God.
There’s too much of that in our world. And how in the world can those of us who understand that we’ve been redeemed by the gospel of Jesus Christ live that kind of life. And even more than that, the people who should be least prideful of all should be the preachers of the gospel of Jesus and leaders in the church. Because we study about the grace of God and about the gospel of Christ and about humility and the wrong attitude of pride every day of our life and the ugliest thing in the world.
To me as a preacher who is proud and arrogant and who thinks he is something, and may God help us to be more like Paul, who said, I am the least of all of the apostles, but he goes on to say in verse 10, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prevail,
but I labored even more than all of them yet. Not I, but the grace of God with me. And the more we understand the gospel, the fact that Jesus did in fact that he was in fact crucified, that he was buried in the tomb. And that three days later, he rose from the dead. The more we study that the more we come to grasp of the,
with the grace of God, it will cause us to labor more abundantly. We need to work hard preachers. We need to work hard, not only in the proclamation and the study of the word of God, but in doing what Paul said in second, Timothy four verse five. When you said fulfill your ministry, there are two separate things. In first,
second, Timothy, the four Paul talks about preaching the gospel in season, out of season. And he talks about fulfilling your ministry. We have, we are servants. We are. We are to fulfill. That means to, to fill it up, to pack it full. We need to be about the business of our father, just as our savior was.
So Paul said, he calls me to work even harder. It caused me to work even harder, whether then it was I or they. So we preach. And you believed when we preach this message, first Corinthians 15, one through 10, when we preach this gospel, people will believe and people will come to a bay. The message of Jesus Christ,
Paul in Romans chapter one made it very clear that it was not his life, that it was not his ability, that it was not his education, that it was not his creativity, that it wasn’t about any of that, but it was the gospel. The power is always and will always be in the gospel. And why would we preach anything other than the gospel?
If the power is in the gospel. So may God help us to do what Paul said in the end of this section? So we preach. So we preach, I have three precious grandchildren, and by the way, they, they helped me live life and enjoy life more than just about anything else, other than the preaching of the gospel. And by the way,
I’ve got about 10,000 pictures here, and I’d be glad to show you all of them for small fee. If you’d like to, after we’re through my grand, my oldest grandchild, my daughter granddaughter is 11 years old. And when she was about two, she would, she would fall down on the ground. She couldn’t, she tripped a lot, you know,
learning to walk. And, and I would always say to her, Evie Lee, her name is Evie. Evie Lee come over here to Dr. Pops and let me fix it for you. And she would say, pops, you’re not a doctor. Well, she would fall down again. I would say, easily come to Dr. Pops and I’ll fix it for you.
So it pops. You’re not a doctor. And we did that over and over and over again. Finally, one day she failed and I’m sure she had been thinking about this a long time. She fell on the ground. I said, evenly, come to Dr. Pops and I’ll fix it for you. She pointed her finger at me. She said,
pops, you’re not a doctor. You’re a preacher. And then she said, pops, stick to what you know. And I think a lot of preachers, a lot of us, we need to let everybody else do everything else. And we need to stick to what we know. And listen, there will be times in our life, as you well know,
there will be temptations and there will be tribulations and there will be trials. What do we do? So we preach. There will be calamities and there will be earthquakes and there will be hurricanes. And there will be COVID and other diseases that will come along and Satan is doing everything that he can within his power to destroy the kingdom of God. What do we do?
So we preach. There will be elders who will, who will try to discourage you and he’ll tell you you’re not good enough. And it will be critical of you. What do you do about that? So we preach. There will be people who will ignore you and people who will laugh at you and people who will make fun of you. There will be times you’re thinking you’re not making enough money and does anybody care?
What do we do about that? So we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when we preach the gospel, the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus. And when we get out of the way, God will work in ways that are far beyond our ability to comprehend. So we preach. Would you pray with me, father? We’re thankful That you’ve taught us through your marvelous word,
that you made it possible for your son to come to this earth and to live among us and to be crucified upon a cruel cross and to be buried and to be raised the third day. Father help us, those of us who, who are endeavoring to proclaim your word, to hide behind that cross father, help us to get out of the way to not make it about ourselves,
but to always make it about you. Father help us to proclaim the gospel and the grace that brings salvation to all men and father. When times are tough. When we go through a personal illness or when we lose the dearest on earth to us, when we suffer pain or heartache, or when we get fired or when we don’t have enough money to make ends meet,
or when we get into disagreements with elders or others in the church, help us to always remember these words and keep them close to our heart. So we preach in the name of Jesus, our savior, we pray, amen. Maybe there’s someone here tonight. Who’s never accepted the grace that God has made available to all men, because you’ve never been obedient to him,
the same death and burial and resurrection that makes our salvation possible through a symbolic way. We come in contact by dying Tyrell’s self by bearing ourself, and by being raised to walk a new life. And if there’s somebody here tonight, who’s not a Christian, we’re pleading with you tonight to make your life right with God. If there’s somebody tonight who has been living a way that is unbecoming of a child of God,
and you need prayers of this church, family, I know that all of these wonderful people would love to pray for you tonight. Maybe you’re struggling in your walk with God and you just need encouragement. Maybe you’re a preacher tonight. And you’ve wondered is what I’m doing any good. Is it worthwhile? Is it helping anybody don’t ever sell? The fact that you are a proclaimer of the gospel short because you are doing the work of God,
but if we can pray for you, if we can encourage you in any way we invite you to come while we stand together. And while we sing,
Author
Speaker:
Title:
Share This Video:
Automated Transcription:
Appreciate David’s lesson and appreciate it. Our next speaker brother, Jeff Jenkins come to, comes to us from Texas, the Lewisville church of Christ, where he has preached since 2004, but recently he has transitioned from full-time local work to a meeting work and helping out the brotherhood at large. And we appreciate him. This is the first time he’s actually been here to speak on this lectureship.
Although the last two years he was scheduled and I really wanted to introduce him to this area. Great preacher. Great, great man. Very conscientious, very helpful, a very good speaker and has a lot of good insight in life. And combining that with scriptures, that makes a great preacher. He has a graduate freed Harmon university and he is a co-director of the Jenkins Institute committed to encouraging preachers.
And he does that with his brother Dale, and he is also very active in the Lord’s work and encouraging people. He has written a book recently. He and I have a thing in common that both of us are wives passed away. His wife passed away just a little over year. Seems like a couple of years, a couple of years, and he’s written a book beyond the valley of death and he just has a handful of these copies.
And if you have recently lost, and I don’t even know recently, it’s kind of relative, but if you have lost a spouse or a loved one, but particularly a spouse, he has a few copies. He’d like to give you one, just see him afterwards, but you’ll see on the seven 40, less than all the way across for the first three nights,
the resurrection of Christ from first Corinthians 15 and a well actually the resurrection first Corinthians 15, the whole chapter deals with that and we’ve broken it up into three segments and he will start us off tonight with what Paul has to say in chapter 15, one through 11, about the resurrection of Christ brother, Jeff Thank you very much, brother, Brian. It is a real privilege to be here.
We’ve known of this wonderful school for a number of years. We have friends who’ve been involved in your electric ships in the past. And the Brian has asked me to come the last two or three years and we just haven’t been able to work it out. But we’re delighted to be with you tonight. It’s been a joy today to hear all of these lessons.
Every one of them have been outstanding. The three young men that spoke this afternoon, that gives you great hope for the church of our Lord. Doesn’t it for a long time to come in. My life has richly blessed and I feel a little bit out of place. These guys are great preachers, but I’m glad to be able to just sit and listen to them and to grow.
And, and it’s good to see some old friends, people we’ve known for a number of years who are here tonight and met some new folks. It’s good to meet new friends, always. And it’s just a real pleasure and a delight to be with you. Our study tonight will be based upon first Corinthians chapter 15. And I do hope you’ll open your Bible and turn there and we’ll get to the context of what Paul is saying in just a moment after some introductory remarks,
it was probably somewhere around 650 to 700 years before Paul wrote the words that we’re studying this week. That another preacher who was a man of God was preaching the word of God and he was doing so during a very difficult day, his name was Rebecca. Some people call him Habbakuk. We had a professor in school and graduate school said you better call his name Habbakuk.
And so through the years I’ve tried to do that. I just can’t make myself do that. So I’m going to call him a Baca. And he lived somewhere around 600, 6 50 BC. And he was living during the time when the world was in bad shape. And if you haven’t read lately that three chapter book, I would challenge you to do so, but in the opening lines of this book,
he calls upon God and he says, God, why haven’t you been hearing my prayer? I’ve been praying to you. And I don’t feel like I’m getting any answers. And why haven’t you been listening to me? Why aren’t you doing what I’m calling upon you to do? Don’t you know that the world is in trouble. Don’t, you know, God that there’s violence everywhere.
Don’t, you know, there’s chaos and confusion. Don’t you know that there’s injustice. Don’t, you know, God that there are people who are ignoring the poor don’t you know that there are people who are ignoring your law and not paying attention to the law of God. God, where are you? And why aren’t you doing something about this mess that we live in,
in this world. Now, if all of that in the first few verses about the first five verses of chapter one, look familiar, they should, because it looks a lot like the world that we’re living in right now, doesn’t it. And you know what God said to Habakkuk, God answered her Baca. And if you look after Habakkuk’s prayer to God and after Habakkuk comments to God,
God says to a backup, basically this Rebecca, I am doing things that you can’t even imagine. I’m taking care of everything. And I have a plan. And by the way, God seems to say to a Baca, I would like to try to explain this to you, but there’s no way you could comprehend it. There’s no way you could understand it.
So you just sit back and listen, and God goes into detail explaining what he is going to do and how he is working in the world. And then when you turn the page to a backer chapter, two, God says to a Baca. Now, listen, I’m doing my work and now I want you to do your work. And here is your work chapter two,
verse three, write the vision and make it plain, write it on tablets. So that those who read it may run. Now, I don’t know what the vision was. So Baca doesn’t tell us what the vision was. And I’m not even certain. There’s some indication that Habakkuk didn’t fully understand the vision himself that he was supposed to make plain. But God goes on to say in verse four,
I’m going to take care of all of those wicked people out there. I’m going to take care of that in my time, my plan is going to work. It will work in it’s time, but you keep riding the vision to make it plain. The number two, you live your life by faith, that famous quote in Habakkuk two verse four, the just shall live by faith.
Literally by faith. The righteous man will live now. Fast-forward if you will, some 700 years, almost 700 years. And the apostle Paul comes on the scene. And if you read in Romans chapter one, and we’re going to get to first Corinthians 15, I promise you we’ll get there in about 20 minutes. No, I’m just kidding. If you read Romans chapter one,
Paul writes in verses 18 through 32 gives to us a vivid picture of a world in sin. And in this passage, Paul talks about all kinds of sin and degradation and their own kind of lifestyles and their own kind of life. He talks about people who, who hate God, people who do not honor God, people who do not acknowledge God, people who are not thankful to God,
people who’ve exchanged the truth of God to that of, of devils. And in any closes chapter one, verse 30, by saying, these people are haters of God, H a T E. They don’t honor him. They don’t an item sham. They don’t think him and they’ve exchanged the glory of God for that of others. And so Paul is talking about a world in cm,
but prior to that in Romans one verse 16, you’re familiar. Paul said I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That my friend is the vision, the same type of vision that Rebecca was going to receive from God. Now there’s some indication when you read places like Ephesians chapter three and first Peter chapter one, that some of the men who were riding in preaching under the old Testament economy,
weren’t fully aware of everything that they were talking about. Peter talks about they, they, they inquired and they Searchie diligently to find out about these things. They were revealed to them pulsating, Ephesians three, but they didn’t fully grasp everything that was going on. And Paul called it a mystery in Ephesians chapter three, but all of this is wrapped around this idea of the gospel and the word gospel is a brother dial a flat I can in my mind,
I can hear his voice ringing in my ears, in the study of the Greek language at freed Harmon college many years ago. And he would say the gospel is a Pauline word. It’s a Pauline word. The gospel was one of Paul’s favorite words. As a matter of fact, the word gospel itself, Paul uses it in his writings. A word similar to that,
you on Geli on or something along that line, he uses around 60 different times in his writing. Paul talked about the gospel a lot. And by the way, if Paul talked about the gospel, shouldn’t we talk about the gospel a lot. If the Bible uses that ideal, we should talk about it a lot, but it wasn’t just listen carefully.
It wasn’t just a Pauline word. Paul was passionate about the gospel. He was deeply passionate about it. If you read Romans one verse 15, we oftentimes don’t look at what that passage says that Paul said, I am ready to preach the gospel to those of you who are at Rome. There are seven words contained in that verse. I’m ready to preach the gospel.
Those seven words translate only two Greek words. And they’re interesting words. So the first word I want you to notice is the word. It’s a long word. It’s the word you Angelisa’s thigh. It translates to preach the gospel. You can hear in that word, the word you on Gelien is the word gospel. The good news, the glad tidings of the glad Harold that’s Paul said,
and I am ready to preach that gospel. I want to be God’s spokesman. Also in that word, if you listen carefully, you can hear the word on Gail. You Angelita this thigh. Paul said, I am God’s messenger to proclaim the good news, but the first word that Paul uses is the Greek word. it translates three English words.
I am ready. The old king James Bible will say, I’m ready. Some of the other translations get a little bit more bold and you’ll read the words I am eager, but I don’t believe the words I am ready, or the words I’m eager to do justice to the word that Paul is describing here. The word pro through mine, confirm a word.
The root word is the word through most. We get our English words like thermometer and thermometer thermostat and thermal. And what it means is boiling over. It means hot. And what Paul is saying is not just, well, I I’m ready to come to you at Roman preach the gospel. That’s not what Paul is saying. He’s not even saying I’m eager to preach the gospel.
What Paul is saying is I am on fire to proclaim. God’s good news to the world. And I want to be God’s spokesman. That’s the gospel word that Paul uses. And it was that gospel that you said that has the power to save all of mankind. Paul used that word over and over and over again. And he introduces it again to us in first Corinthians chapter 15 in the first verse.
And by the way, I don’t think we can fully really grasp all that. Paul is trying to say here, if we fail to overlook the fact that in the big scope of first Corinthians 15, particularly starting in verse 12, and I don’t want to get into, I think brother Clark is going to talk about that tomorrow night, but I don’t want to get too far into that.
But what Paul is saying in this section, beginning in verse 12, is that if the gospel is not true, then Christ is not raised from the dead. And if Christ is not raised from the dead, our preaching is in vain. And we are all of all men most to be pitted. And we are wasting our time and we’re wasting our breath.
But Paul goes back in chapter one and he says, the fact is that the gospel is true in DePaul. The core of the gospel was the death and the barrel and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so Paul said, I preach to you of first importance, that phrase first importance, the, the word there is the word pro dose. And it literally means the word pro is the suffix that the prefix that means before.
And what Paul is saying, there is not just that this is the most important part of all of the teaching of the gospel. But you’re saying before we get anything else, right, we must make sure we get this fact of the gospel right before we get all of the other teachings. Right? And so Paul says protos. It is of first importance.
It is the biggest part of what we preach, but it is also what we must get right? First. Now, some people have taken that idea of first importance and they have, they have skewed what Paul’s saying here. Some people will tell you that what Paul means there is that what is most important is the death and burial and resurrection of Christ.
And I’ve actually heard some so-called gospel. Preachers say everything else is secondary to that. And everything else doesn’t really matter that you’ve just got to get that right. And there’s a lot of other things that you don’t really have. You don’t have to worry about whether you get those right or not. Paul is saying, this is, you’ve got to get this right.
First is what Paul is saying. This has to come first. But Paul never says that anything else is unimportant. As a matter of fact, Paul said that the gospel, that the, all of the word of God is inspired. All scriptures inspired of God. And Paul says, it’s all profitable. And he says, it’s all good for you.
And it will help you. And it’s good for doctrine. And it’s good for teaching. It is good for instruction, Paul, doesn’t say, just worry about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. And don’t worry about anything else. He says this, you must get this right first. And if that becomes the foundation for everything that we say and everything that we do,
then we will want to get everything else, right? Why would we not want to get all of the teaching of scripture? Right? Why would we not want to teach precisely and accurately? I think that’s what he meant in second, Tim, before when he said, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season reprove, rebuke exhort with all long suffering,
you’ve got to get this right in the reason he said that in secretary, before it’s because he said, we’re standing in the presence of an almighty God. He will judge us. And so Paul said to Timothy, I solemnly charge you solemnly charged in the presence of God. I don’t know about all of these other preachers in this room tonight. I know there’s a lot of preachers in here,
but I can tell you this every single time, every single time I stand before the people of God or those who are not yet the people of God to proclaim the message of God, there is a holy in my heart and I’m thinking I better get it right. You just not about the people necessarily enjoy this. Are people going to think this is really good or really cool?
It’s about, am I getting God’s word? Right? And that’s what Paul is talking about in first Corinthians 15, when he says a first importance protos, you got to get this right first and then everything else will follow. And then I want you to notice that Paul said in this passage, not only was this a first importance, but Paul said,
I delivered it to you. Notice Paul’s words in verse three, there I delivered to you. The word delivered there is from the word of pear Dida. My in it has to do with literally it means to, to bring alongside the para there, the para is to bring up, to come up alongside and to handover. So Paul said, I brought this gospel to you and I handed it over to you.
By the way, this is a word, this particular word in the Greek language. It’s a word that is often used to translate the idea of tradition. And some people have the idea that tradition is only something that is passed down from generation to generation to generation. And that’s true that that is tradition, but there’s more to it than that. It can sometimes simply mean to be passed over.
And so I can take the tradition that has been passed down to me from generation to generation from generation. But there are preachers in this building tonight who didn’t receive that, right? It wasn’t passed down to you, but somebody came along and they handed it over to you. And that’s exactly what Paul is saying here, that I delivered to you of first importance.
What I received that Christ died for our sins. According to the scriptures. Now the definition of the gospel is at first for he was buried and that he was raised on the third day. According to the scripture. Now this is gospel because this is good news. It is glad tidings. If Jesus only died and was buried, that is not good news.
If Jesus only died, it was Baird. That’s just news. It’s just all, all news. It’s everyday news. People die all the time and they’re buried all the time, but Jesus did not just die. It was buried, but praise be to God up from the grave. He arose according to Romans one four by the power of God. And that is good news.
No, that is not just good news. That is great news. And when we preach the good news, we better preach it. Like it’s good news. We better preach it. Like it’s great news. We better preach it like as glad tidings, because this is a message. That isn’t just a good message, but it is a life changing life giving message.
And it will create a new heart in people who desperately need a new heart created in them. And then Paul is going to talk about the, that this is not just something that was handed down through him, but he said there are witnesses to this. And so Paul talks about some of these witnesses. He talks about the fact they appeared the safest and then then the 12.
And you recall exactly how that occurred. We don’t have to go into that. You know exactly how it occurred and how you appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time. Most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep and he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. And last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me,
I want to spend a little bit of time talking about verse eight and nine and 10, because in the discussion about the gospel, Paul introduces another one of the great themes of the new Testament. That is the idea of grace. Paul does not believe that you can talk about the gospel without talking about grace. And Paul does not believe that you can talk about grace without talking about the gospel.
Now, there are some people who like to talk about grace, but I don’t mean this to be ugly, but they don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. They just like that. The sound of the idea, but Paul understood what the grace of God was really all about. Paul understood what brother John was saying in John chapter one, when he say in the beginning was the word and the word was with God.
And the word was God. And there was nothing that was created that was created without him. And what he meant in verse 14, when he said the word came in the flesh and dwelt among me and, and we beheld the glory of the only begotten of God full of grace and truth. Jesus came to bring grace. Now, Paul is going to say later on in Titus chapter two,
that, that grace appeared the grace that brings salvation army has appeared well. Paul, when did that grace appear? Well, it appeared when Jesus came into the world and when mankind witnessed the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus, therefore Paul says you can’t separate the grace of God from the gospel of God. And Paul is going to preach grace, and he’s going to preach gospel.
As a matter of fact, all of the letters that Paul wrote that we know for a fact that he wrote, we still, you know, he bruises still in question. I remember the story. They told us at freed Hardiman about the professor who would call upon students and they would, he would call upon them and they would have to stay in and answer a question.
And so there was one young man. He was asleep one day in class and the professor was talking about the author of Hebrews. And you said, who wrote Hebrews? And he called upon the young men to answer. He was startled when he heard his name, he jumped up and he said, professor, I used to know the answer to that,
but I had forgotten. And the professor said, what a pity, the only man alive, who knows who wrote Hebrews has forgotten? Well, we don’t know, but what we do know is that every letter that Paul wrote for certain, you ready for this, every letter that he wrote within the first seven verses of the letter, Paul uses the words cutteries and arena,
Carissa, Rainey, grace, and peace, grace and peace. Paul knew what John was talking about when he said that he has come so that we might see grace and peace. And Paul believed in preaching grace and peace. And he believed that was the, the meat of the gospel. And so when he wrote Titus, he said, the grace of God has appeared.
That brings salvation. Well, when, when did it appear? It appeared when Jesus came. And he said, we look back on our salvation as an experience of that grace, when we’ve been obedient to the gospel of Christ. But we’re looking ahead because someday Paul uses the word appear again in the same context. And he says that he will appear in glory.
So Paul understood the idea of grace and glory, but here’s what I want you to know about Paul statement beginning in verse 11 or verse 10, not nine and 10. He appeared to me also as one untimely born, Paul considered himself, a man who was blessed to understand the grace of God and that Jesus appeared to him. And he goes on to say in verse nine,
from the least of the apostles and not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. Paul said, I don’t even feel like I’m worthy to be called an apostle. And of all the apostles. I consider myself to be the least of the apostles that stands in stark contrast to many preachers of the gospel who seemed to want to make the preaching all about them.
Who seemed to want to be saying, pay attention to me, listen to what I’m saying as a young boy, I, I vividly remember. I remember going to church in a small community outside of Huntsville, Alabama with my grandfather who was an elder in that church. And the name of the church was the friendship church of Christ. Isn’t that a great name for a church?
The friendship church of Christ. And I there’s several things I remember vividly about that. I remember that they would have these long gospel meetings in the summer and the preachers would come and they would preach the gospel. And I remember vividly people walking down the aisle to obey the gospel of Christ. I remember that they didn’t have air conditioning in that building in the summertime.
They would open up the windows over here. And I could see, as a boy, I was sitting next to my grandfather and I could see the lightning bugs flying in and out. I would play, you know, with the lightning bugs instead of listening and I should have been listening. But I remember another thing. I remember that those preachers stood up on the pulpit and oftentimes they would stand in and everybody’s sitting out in the pews,
had those old funeral home fans. How many people remember those? All the old people here remember, right? Those are the funeral home fans. And I remember that the preacher had, they had the oscillating fan brother Brian up here and blowing on that preacher. And I remember as a little boy thinking, I just got my call to the ministry because,
you know, if I can have a fan blowing on me, be a pretty, pretty good deal. So, but what I remember most is the prayers in that little church. And I can remember men when they would pray. They would, they would get on their knees between the pews and they would talk to God in heaven. And I can remember the men talking about in their prayers about how,
how blessed we are to serve a God who loves us and has given us his gospel message. And I can remember vividly as clear as day, those men praying. And they would say something like this, dear God, please help the preacher to hide behind the cross of Jesus. And oh, how we need today. Some preachers who will stand and hide behind the cross of Jesus and proclaim the gospel of Christ with passion and with fervor,
understanding that it is not about them. And I believe today that there are churches across our land and perhaps across the world who are starving to death for the gospel of Jesus and they’re being fed a steady diet of substitute. And the problem is that the preacher won’t get out of the way and people walk out and tell him what a great job he did.
And he standing in the way of the gospel. And may we began to pray the preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ will stand behind the cross of Jesus. We will be in the shadows in that Jesus will always be out front. And that’s what Paul means when he said, I’m the least of all of the apostles. There is no place for pride and arrogance in the life of children of God.
There’s too much of that in our world. And how in the world can those of us who understand that we’ve been redeemed by the gospel of Jesus Christ live that kind of life. And even more than that, the people who should be least prideful of all should be the preachers of the gospel of Jesus and leaders in the church. Because we study about the grace of God and about the gospel of Christ and about humility and the wrong attitude of pride every day of our life and the ugliest thing in the world.
To me as a preacher who is proud and arrogant and who thinks he is something, and may God help us to be more like Paul, who said, I am the least of all of the apostles, but he goes on to say in verse 10, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prevail,
but I labored even more than all of them yet. Not I, but the grace of God with me. And the more we understand the gospel, the fact that Jesus did in fact that he was in fact crucified, that he was buried in the tomb. And that three days later, he rose from the dead. The more we study that the more we come to grasp of the,
with the grace of God, it will cause us to labor more abundantly. We need to work hard preachers. We need to work hard, not only in the proclamation and the study of the word of God, but in doing what Paul said in second, Timothy four verse five. When you said fulfill your ministry, there are two separate things. In first,
second, Timothy, the four Paul talks about preaching the gospel in season, out of season. And he talks about fulfilling your ministry. We have, we are servants. We are. We are to fulfill. That means to, to fill it up, to pack it full. We need to be about the business of our father, just as our savior was.
So Paul said, he calls me to work even harder. It caused me to work even harder, whether then it was I or they. So we preach. And you believed when we preach this message, first Corinthians 15, one through 10, when we preach this gospel, people will believe and people will come to a bay. The message of Jesus Christ,
Paul in Romans chapter one made it very clear that it was not his life, that it was not his ability, that it was not his education, that it was not his creativity, that it wasn’t about any of that, but it was the gospel. The power is always and will always be in the gospel. And why would we preach anything other than the gospel?
If the power is in the gospel. So may God help us to do what Paul said in the end of this section? So we preach. So we preach, I have three precious grandchildren, and by the way, they, they helped me live life and enjoy life more than just about anything else, other than the preaching of the gospel. And by the way,
I’ve got about 10,000 pictures here, and I’d be glad to show you all of them for small fee. If you’d like to, after we’re through my grand, my oldest grandchild, my daughter granddaughter is 11 years old. And when she was about two, she would, she would fall down on the ground. She couldn’t, she tripped a lot, you know,
learning to walk. And, and I would always say to her, Evie Lee, her name is Evie. Evie Lee come over here to Dr. Pops and let me fix it for you. And she would say, pops, you’re not a doctor. Well, she would fall down again. I would say, easily come to Dr. Pops and I’ll fix it for you.
So it pops. You’re not a doctor. And we did that over and over and over again. Finally, one day she failed and I’m sure she had been thinking about this a long time. She fell on the ground. I said, evenly, come to Dr. Pops and I’ll fix it for you. She pointed her finger at me. She said,
pops, you’re not a doctor. You’re a preacher. And then she said, pops, stick to what you know. And I think a lot of preachers, a lot of us, we need to let everybody else do everything else. And we need to stick to what we know. And listen, there will be times in our life, as you well know,
there will be temptations and there will be tribulations and there will be trials. What do we do? So we preach. There will be calamities and there will be earthquakes and there will be hurricanes. And there will be COVID and other diseases that will come along and Satan is doing everything that he can within his power to destroy the kingdom of God. What do we do?
So we preach. There will be elders who will, who will try to discourage you and he’ll tell you you’re not good enough. And it will be critical of you. What do you do about that? So we preach. There will be people who will ignore you and people who will laugh at you and people who will make fun of you. There will be times you’re thinking you’re not making enough money and does anybody care?
What do we do about that? So we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when we preach the gospel, the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus. And when we get out of the way, God will work in ways that are far beyond our ability to comprehend. So we preach. Would you pray with me, father? We’re thankful That you’ve taught us through your marvelous word,
that you made it possible for your son to come to this earth and to live among us and to be crucified upon a cruel cross and to be buried and to be raised the third day. Father help us, those of us who, who are endeavoring to proclaim your word, to hide behind that cross father, help us to get out of the way to not make it about ourselves,
but to always make it about you. Father help us to proclaim the gospel and the grace that brings salvation to all men and father. When times are tough. When we go through a personal illness or when we lose the dearest on earth to us, when we suffer pain or heartache, or when we get fired or when we don’t have enough money to make ends meet,
or when we get into disagreements with elders or others in the church, help us to always remember these words and keep them close to our heart. So we preach in the name of Jesus, our savior, we pray, amen. Maybe there’s someone here tonight. Who’s never accepted the grace that God has made available to all men, because you’ve never been obedient to him,
the same death and burial and resurrection that makes our salvation possible through a symbolic way. We come in contact by dying Tyrell’s self by bearing ourself, and by being raised to walk a new life. And if there’s somebody here tonight, who’s not a Christian, we’re pleading with you tonight to make your life right with God. If there’s somebody tonight who has been living a way that is unbecoming of a child of God,
and you need prayers of this church, family, I know that all of these wonderful people would love to pray for you tonight. Maybe you’re struggling in your walk with God and you just need encouragement. Maybe you’re a preacher tonight. And you’ve wondered is what I’m doing any good. Is it worthwhile? Is it helping anybody don’t ever sell? The fact that you are a proclaimer of the gospel short because you are doing the work of God,
but if we can pray for you, if we can encourage you in any way we invite you to come while we stand together. And while we sing,