Tekena was twenty-seven and had been an assistant pastor for eight months when he was asked to preach at the church’s first open-air outreach in Rumuokoro. The evangelism committee had done its work well. They had hired a canopy and a generator, secured permission from the community chairman and printed a large banner to hang across the front of the stage. In red letters on a yellow background it read: COME AND RECEIVE YOUR BREAKTHROUGH.
He took the assignment seriously. For two weeks he prepared. He read books on leadership and success, watched sermons online and filled a notebook with points. By the Thursday before the outreach he had his message: “Five Keys to Rising Above Your Mates.” Discipline. Vision. Favour. Right associations. Faithful giving. Every point had a verse. Every verse was in the Bible. He was pleased with it.
On Friday evening he showed the notes to Mrs Ugwu, a retired secondary school principal who had taught the adult Sunday school class for longer than he had been alive. She put on her reading glasses, read all six pages without a word and then handed them back.
“It is well prepared,” she said. “You have worked hard. I have only one question, my son. On what page does Jesus die?”
Tekena turned through the pages. Jesus was mentioned several times, mostly as the source of favour. He did not die anywhere. He did not rise anywhere either.
“These people in Rumuokoro,” Mrs Ugwu said gently, “many of them already know how to work hard. Some of them will never rise above their mates, because life in this country is not fair. If you give them five keys and they still cannot open the door, what will you have given them? Go back to 1 Corinthians 15. Read verse three. Look at the words first of all.”
He told me afterwards that he sat up until two o’clock that morning. This article is about what he found.
A message received before it is preached
Every church eventually has to decide how it will present the gospel. Will it use outreaches or small groups, radio or social media, music, drama, hospital visits or school fellowships? Those are real questions, and good people answer them differently. But there is a question that must come first, and it is easy to skip. What exactly is the message we have been given?
Paul is clear that the gospel did not originate with him. He writes to the Corinthians, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Delivered and received are the language of a handover. They are the words a teacher would use for passing on a tradition intact, the way a courier collects a sealed package at one office and brings it unopened to another. The courier may choose the route. He may travel by bus or by okada. He has no authority to open the package and rearrange the contents.
That is the church’s position. We are messengers, not authors. The message has already been composed, and it has a definite content: “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). First of all means first in importance. Paul is not saying this was the first thing he happened to mention on arrival in Corinth. He is saying this is the thing that stands above everything else he taught them.
Notice how much is packed into those two verses. Christ died. That is history. He died for our sins. That is the meaning of the history, and it tells us the problem the gospel addresses is our guilt before God, not merely our frustration with life. He was buried. That confirms the death was real; nobody buries a man who has only fainted. He rose again the third day. That is God’s vindication of His Son and His verdict on the cross. And twice Paul says according to the scriptures, because the whole event fulfils what God had promised beforehand.
Paul wrote about the death and resurrection of Jesus as events that could be examined, and then he did something remarkable. He named witnesses.
The witnesses Paul named
Here is the passage that follows directly:
And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
Read that list slowly. It is the kind of list a lawyer produces in court. Cephas, which is Peter’s Aramaic name. The twelve, a term Paul uses for the apostolic group even though Judas was gone. More than five hundred people at once, most of them still alive at the time of writing, so that any doubter in Corinth could, in principle, travel and ask them. James. All the apostles. Finally Paul himself.
The gospel we preach rests on testimony to something that happened. It is not a philosophy that would remain true even if Jesus had never lived, nor a technique that works whether or not the tomb was empty. Paul says a few verses later that “if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). He stakes everything on the event.
Now look at who the witnesses are. Something in the list is easy to miss.
The first named is Cephas, the man who swore by a fire in the high priest’s courtyard that he had never known Jesus. The risen Lord appeared to him first among the apostles. Then James. This is almost certainly James the brother of the Lord, who according to John’s Gospel did not believe in Jesus during His ministry (John 7:5). The risen Christ sought out His unbelieving brother, and James went on to lead the church in Jerusalem. And last of all Paul, who describes himself as “one born out of due time”, an untimely birth, a man who had been dragging believers to prison when Christ met him on the road.
A denier. A sceptic. A persecutor. The witness list of the resurrection is also a list of grace.
Paul draws the conclusion himself in the next verses: “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Then he adds a sentence every church should hear: “Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed” (1 Corinthians 15:11). Peter, James, Paul and the rest had very different personalities and ministries. They did not preach different gospels. There was one message, one Christ, one cross and one empty tomb.
PunchlineThe church does not compose the gospel. It receives it, guards it and delivers it: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day.
Why it had to be this message
Someone may ask why the death of Jesus must sit at the centre. Could we not lead with His teaching, or His miracles, or His compassion for the poor? All of those are part of the story, and the Gospels give them generous space. Yet the Gospels themselves slow down dramatically when they reach the final week. Roughly a third of Mark’s Gospel concerns the last days in Jerusalem. The writers knew where the weight lay.
Paul’s phrase according to the scriptures points us back to passages like this one, written centuries before the cross:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
“All we like sheep have gone astray.” The problem is universal and it is personal: every one of us has turned to his own way. And the solution is substitution. “The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” The wounding was for our transgressions. The chastisement that brought us peace fell on Him.
That is why a gospel without the cross is not a smaller version of the gospel. It is a different message. A sermon on self-improvement assumes that the main human problem is unused potential. Scripture says the main human problem is sin, and that a holy God has dealt with it Himself at the cost of His Son. Improvement can be offered to the living. Substitution is offered to the guilty. Only the second is news.
The resurrection belongs at the centre for the same reason. Paul tells the Romans that Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4). The empty tomb is God’s public declaration of who Jesus is and of what His death accomplished. When we preach a crucified Christ who stayed dead, we preach a martyr. When we preach a risen Christ who was never crucified, we preach a hero without a sacrifice. The apostles preached both together, because God did both together.
What we are tempted to preach instead
Mrs Ugwu’s question exposed something that Tekena had not intended. He was not a false teacher. He believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus. He simply assumed it, and in assuming it, he left it out. Many churches drift the same way. The temptation is rarely to deny the gospel. It is to replace it gradually with something that seems more immediately useful.
Paul knew the pressure well:
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
“The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.” Each audience came with its own demand. One wanted demonstrations of power on its own terms. The other wanted an impressive philosophy delivered with polish. Paul’s answer was neither to refuse to speak nor to give them what they asked for. “But we preach Christ crucified.” He knew the cross would look like weakness to one group and nonsense to the other. He preached it anyway, because to those who are called, it is “the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”
NuggetWe have our own versions of signs and wisdom. Let me name some of the substitutes, gently, because I have been tempted by all of them.
There is the gospel of breakthrough, where Jesus becomes the means to promotion, marriage, visas and contracts. God does care about our needs, and Scripture speaks boldly about His provision. But when provision becomes the message, the Saviour becomes a supplier, and people are taught to value Him for what He releases rather than for who He is.
There is the gospel of moral improvement, where the message is essentially: be a better husband, a more honest worker, a more disciplined youth. Those things matter. Yet they are the fruit of the gospel. Preached on their own, they become a heavier burden laid on people who already cannot carry their own failures.
There is the gospel of national or political rescue, where the church’s main message is what must change in Abuja. Christians should care deeply about justice and righteous government. But no election has ever reconciled a sinner to God.
There is the gospel of emotional wellbeing, where Jesus is mainly the answer to stress. And there is the gospel of the church itself, where the invitation is to our programmes, our building and our founder.
Each substitute contains something true. That is what makes it attractive. The problem is placement. When a good thing takes the centre, the cross is pushed to the edge, and people can attend for years without hearing why Jesus had to die.
A debtor who was not ashamed
Paul’s letter to the Romans opens with a man who understood exactly what he carried. Listen to the way he introduces his message to the capital of the empire:
I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
Start with the word debtor. Paul says he owes the gospel to Greeks and barbarians, to the educated and the uneducated. It is an unusual way to speak. Normally a debtor is someone who has received something from another person and must repay it. Paul had received nothing from the Romans; he had never visited them. His debt was to Christ, and the way he paid it was by giving the message away to everyone. If someone entrusts you with money for another person, you owe that person until it is delivered. The church holds the gospel on behalf of the world. We are not doing people a favour when we tell them. We are discharging a debt.
Then comes the famous line: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” Why would anyone be ashamed? Consider where Paul was writing to. Rome crucified people. The cross was the punishment for slaves and rebels, a death so degrading that polite Romans avoided mentioning it. To announce that the Saviour of the world had died that way was, in Roman eyes, absurd. A preacher arriving in Rome would feel the temptation to lead with something more respectable.
We feel the same pull. In a sophisticated office, the cross can feel embarrassing. In a church culture that prizes visible success, a crucified Messiah can feel like a weak opening. Paul refuses the embarrassment, and he gives his reason: “it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” The power is in the message itself, when it is clearly declared and believed.
Notice the content that follows: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.” The gospel reveals a righteousness that comes from God and is received by faith. It does not show us how to construct a righteousness of our own. A message of self-improvement reveals a demand. The gospel reveals a gift. That difference is the difference between bad news dressed in good clothes and good news.
Paul’s own account of his ministry
Years later, on his final journey to Jerusalem, Paul stopped at the port of Miletus and sent for the elders of the church in Ephesus. He knew he would probably never see them again, and what he said to them is the closest thing we have to his own summary of a lifetime of preaching:
And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you , but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house, Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
Look first at what he says he kept back: nothing. “I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you.” A preacher can be tempted to edit the message for comfort, leaving out sin, judgement or the cost of following Christ because they might reduce attendance. Paul did not. He says a few verses later that he could leave Ephesus with a clean conscience, “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).
Look next at where he preached it: “publickly, and from house to house.” The school of Tyrannus and the family sitting room. The same message in both places. Paul did not have a public gospel for crowds and a private gospel for friends.
Then look at the content, compressed into one phrase: “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” That is what he testified to Jews and Greeks alike. He did not offer one audience a moral programme and the other a mystical experience. He called both to turn to God and to trust Christ.
Finally, look at the name he gives it. His ministry, he says, was “to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” Grace is the defining word. Paul had been beaten, imprisoned and hunted because of this message, and now the Holy Spirit was warning him that bonds and afflictions waited in Jerusalem. “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself.” A man does not give his life for five keys to success. He gives his life for news so good that it outweighs his own survival.
Repentance and faith, rightly placed
The focus of this teaching requires us to be careful at exactly this point, because the call to repentance can itself be turned back into self-improvement if we are not precise.
On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached the first Christian sermon. Notice where it ends:
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this , they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Peter’s message was entirely about Jesus. He spoke of His life, His death “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God”, His resurrection, and His exaltation at God’s right hand. Then he drove it home: God has made this same Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. The crowd was “pricked in their heart”. They asked, “what shall we do?” Only then did Peter call for a response.
The order matters. The announcement of what God had done came first. The call to respond came second, and it grew out of the announcement. Repentance was the right response to a Lord whom they had rejected and whom God had raised.
So what is repentance? The Greek word metanoia speaks of a change of mind, a reorientation that turns the whole person around. In the gospel it means turning toward God from every rival trust: from sin, from idols, from self-justification, from whatever we have been leaning on in place of Christ. It is real, and it will show itself in a changed life. John the Baptist told his hearers to bring forth fruits “meet for repentance” (Matthew 3:8).
Yet repentance is not a cleaning exercise we must finish before God will receive us. A sick man who turns from his own remedies and goes to the hospital has repented of his remedies. He has not yet been healed, and he has not healed himself. His turning simply brings him to the One who can help. In the same way, repentance and faith are two sides of one movement: turning from and turning to. Faith is the empty hand that receives Christ. Repentance is the same hand letting go of everything else.
This is where a self-improvement message and a gospel message part company. The first says, “Change your life and God will bless you.” The second says, “God has acted in Christ for sinners like you. Turn to Him, trust Him, and He will give you new life.” Both mention change. Only the second puts the power and the credit where they belong.
And we must still make the call. Some people react against manipulative appeals by never inviting anyone to respond at all. Peter did not stop at explanation. He pleaded. Luke tells us that “with many other words did he testify and exhort” (Acts 2:40). A clear gospel includes a clear invitation, made honestly, without pressure tactics, and with confidence that the Holy Spirit is the one who convicts.
Clear about the message before choosing the method
Once the message is settled, there is great freedom in how we present it. Paul preached in synagogues, marketplaces, prison cells and private homes. He quoted Hebrew prophets to Jews and Greek poets to Athenians. He wrote that “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). Methods can and should be adapted to people, language, culture and setting. A youth outreach in Port Harcourt will not sound like a hospital chaplain’s visit in Enugu, and it should not.
But adaptation serves delivery. It never authorises a change of contents. Paul could be all things to all men precisely because he knew exactly what he would not change. “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:5).
Here are some questions any church can ask of its sermon calendar, its outreach plans and its media:
- If a visitor attended for a month, would they hear why Jesus died and why it matters that He rose?
- Do our invitations call people to trust Christ, or mainly to attend, give or receive a blessing?
- When we speak about holiness, marriage, money or work, do we connect them back to grace, or present them as conditions for acceptance?
- Could our members explain the gospel in a few sentences without mentioning our church’s name?
None of these questions forbids preaching on practical subjects. The apostles’ letters are full of practical teaching. The point is that practical teaching grows healthiest from the soil of the gospel, and withers when it is planted anywhere else.
Tekena did not preach “Five Keys to Rising Above Your Mates” that Saturday. He kept the notes, and he laughs about them now. Instead, under the yellow banner that still promised breakthrough, he read 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 aloud and told the crowd plainly who Jesus is, why He died, and that He rose again and was seen by witnesses, including a man who had denied Him and a man who had persecuted His followers. He told them that the same grace was available to them that evening, whatever they had done and however far behind their mates they were. Then he invited them to turn to God and trust Christ.
The response was smaller than at some outreaches he had seen. He was honestly disappointed. But in the weeks that followed, the follow-up team found that the people who had responded understood what they had responded to. One of them, a mechanic from the next street, told the team he had come for a breakthrough and gone home with a Saviour.
PunchlineThe banner was retired after that outreach. The new one, which Mrs Ugwu helped to choose, carries a single line from Paul: “we preach Christ crucified.”
The church has been given a message. We did not write it and we may not edit it. We can carry it on foot or by satellite, in Pidgin or in Ikwerre, in a canopy or around a dining table. But when people open what we deliver, they should find what Paul found and passed on: Christ died for our sins, He was buried, He rose again the third day, and He was seen. That is the gospel we are called to preach. It is enough. It always has been.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- If someone heard only the last month of sermons, songs and announcements in your church, what would they think the gospel is?
- Why do you think Paul includes Peter, James and himself so prominently among the witnesses of the resurrection?
- Which of the substitute messages described here are you most drawn to, and what good thing does it contain that makes it attractive?
- How would you explain the difference between repentance and self-improvement to someone who has never been to church?
- In what setting this week could you deliver the same gospel “publickly, and from house to house”?
This Week
Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 on Monday and Acts 20:17-27 on Tuesday. Then write out the gospel in no more than one hundred words, including Christ’s death for sins, His burial, His resurrection and the call to repentance and faith. Ask yourself whether anything in your summary has slipped from news into advice. Before the week ends, share your summary with one believer and ask them honestly whether Jesus dies and rises in it.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You that You died for my sins according to the Scriptures, that You were buried, and that You rose again the third day. Thank You that You appeared to Peter who denied You and to Paul who persecuted You, and that the same grace has reached me. Forgive me for the times I have assumed the gospel and preached something else. Make me unashamed of Your cross. Keep my message clear and my methods humble, so that when people hear me, they hear about You. I receive the message as You gave it, and I will deliver it faithfully. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.