Calvary Baptist Church

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. (1 Corinthians 15:1-2)

Paul was passionate about the gospel!   He preached the gospel!  He prayed the gospel!  He suffered for the sake of the gospel!  And he labored to see others grow in the gospel!  Paul was passionate because he knew the power of the gospel!

Faddish ministries come and go, but faithful churches are cemented in the gospel.  Thus Paul, in his letters to Corinth, contested the super-apostles, the masters of rhetoric, who opposed his message.  Paul called out the sexually immoral church member, rather than win favor with the corridors of influence.  He refused to rely on Name Brand Christianity, and instead preached an offensive message of the cross—a stumbling block to some and repulsion to others.

Paul trusted not the methods of the world to build the church.  He trusted the power of God in the gospel, and so he urged the Corinthians to hold fast to the gospel they had received and the gospel in which they stood.  So, Paul challenged the Corinthian church to be more than a social center and a provider of religious services.  He called them to proclaim with bold regularity God’s message of forgiveness, and not to distort their message through theatrical performances or sophisticated teaching.

For Paul and for us, the gospel must come first!  As Calvary embarks on another fifty years, we must be more committed than ever to the pure and simple gospel.  Standing fifty years into the stream of our history, we cannot go back and redraw our foundations.

Rather, we can humbly thank God for the gospel heritage that has existed at Calvary since 1960, and then instead of stagnating, we must push deeper into living waters, taking greater hold of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

While some church marketing gurus would say that we should present a tangible good through a relevant medium; that we should ease people into the gospel.  According to statistics, people want humor, drama, and movie clips to help them  feel more comfortable.  But the Bible presents a more powerful wisdom.

Paul’s inspired strategy was to preach a message that the world could mock, but men born of God could not deny.  Whether in the marketplace, the synagogue, or in the company of philosophers, he simply proclaimed Christ—crucified and risen.  And God moved mightily!  Through his example and his words in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul exhorts us to remember that the strength and future of our church depends on the gospel of Jesus Christ alone.  Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

As your pastor, I am thankful to be a part of Calvary Baptist Church.  And I am wonderfully hopeful about the days ahead.  Prayerfully, God will continue to grow us in the gospel year-in and year-out, as we take Paul’s words to heart and believe that genuine gospel-living and gospel-sharing will result in eternal fruit, fruit that will last much longer than just another 50 years. It will last forever.

For His Glory and Your Joy,
Pastor David