On behalf of Pastor Mark and Grace Driscoll, we want to thank you for listening to this series based on the book of First Corinthians titled Good News for Bad Christians.

In this series from 2007, Pastor Mark is taking us on a 33-week journey through First Corinthians verse by verse.

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Thank you again and enjoy this message from First Corinthians.

Father God, we begin as always by acknowledging that there is one God that you are that God that you are a good God and that you have loved us, Father Son and Spirit.

And so as we study, it is our prayer that the person in work of Jesus would be the subject that we focus on, that he would be the object of our affection, that he would be the source of our devotion.

For that to happen, we invite the Holy Spirit to teach us, to lead us, to guide us, to gift us, to empower us so that we might be a people who increasingly speak and serve like Jesus.

And so we pray this in his good name. Amen.

Well, as we get into it, let me start by explaining Jesus to you.

Everything connects to Jesus and we begin with Jesus and we'll connect everything back to him. Jesus is God.

Jesus is the God who made the world and made us and loves us. And though we have sinned against him, Jesus has come on a rescue mission to save us from ourselves.

And our eternal God, Jesus Christ, entered into human history. He was conceived by the power of God, the Holy Spirit. He lived his life, empowered and enabled to do ministry by the Holy Spirit.

And therefore, he taught and he had been demonstrated and healed and encouraged and did all kinds of ministry by the enabling of the Holy Spirit.

He lived a life, empowered by the Holy Spirit to the degree that he never did sin. He lived a life that we were supposed to live, but because we're sinners don't live.

And then something extraordinary happened that Jesus went to the cross and there he substituted himself in our place for our sins.

And he died in my place for my sins, paying my penalty for my wrongdoing.

Three days later, Jesus rose from death, conquering minemies of sin and death. And then Jesus ascended back into heaven and Ephesians 4-8 says that when he did that, he gave gifts to men.

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