[Sermon notes / 설교노트 ]
“Rescue - 하나님이 먼저 오셨습니다 | Rescue - God Came First”
고린도전서 15:3-4 | 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 | Jun 7, 2026
Rescue
God Came First
Is This a Living Story for You?
We just read those words. Let them sit for a moment.
Is this a living story for you — right now?
I want to begin with a confession. I grew up in the church. As a teenager, I heard the gospel, said amen, and received it. I wanted to live like Jesus. I wanted to tell others about him. I built community around him.
But looking back — I knew the gospel. I just wasn't sure the gospel was alive in me. I lacked a real sense of what it means to be rescued. The knowledge was there. The feeling wasn't.
This morning, in prayer, something broke open in me. I found myself praying:
Not the me I want to be — but the me God wants me to be.
Not the church I want — but the church God wants.
That was the moment the gospel came alive again.
If you're in that same place today — you know the gospel, but you're not sure it's actually moving you — this message is for you.
We Are Lost
The 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote something that has never stopped being true:
"There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man."
— Blaise Pascal
We try to fill it. With achievement. With relationships. With money. With recognition. With being busy. And it never fills.
The Bible tells us why. Isaiah 53:6 says:
"We all, like sheep, have gone astray — each of us has turned to our own way."
— Isaiah 53:6 (NIV)
Each of us has turned to our own way. That's the essence of sin. Not just a list of bad behaviors — but a direction. A turning away. A relationship severed. We were made for God. We turned toward ourselves. And now there is a void that nothing else can fill.
There Is an Eichmann in All of Us
In 1961, Adolf Eichmann stood trial in Jerusalem. He was the Nazi official responsible for organizing the deportation of millions of Jewish people to death camps.
But here's what was shocking about the trial: he wasn't a monster. He was ordinary. Neat. Articulate. He sat calmly and said: "I was just following orders. I never killed anyone personally."
The Nazis never called it murder. They called it Endlösung — the Final Solution. Change the language, and the guilt disappears. The human being across from you becomes a problem to be managed. When relationship is severed, others become invisible.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt watched the trial and called it "the banality of evil." She diagnosed Eichmann's problem with one phrase:
"The absence of thinking."
— Hannah Arendt
Eichmann wasn't extraordinary. He simply stopped thinking — that the person in front of him was a person. He had no relationship with God or with the people in front of him.
We do this too. Every day. In smaller ways. We ignore someone and call it "maintaining healthy boundaries." We say something untrue and call it "a slight exaggeration."
The language changes. The severed relationship remains.
"There is an Eichmann in all of us. Given anonymity, pleasure, and power — the same thing happens inside every human heart."
This is uncomfortable. But it is true. And it is precisely why we need more than better habits or greater effort. It is why we need Rescue.
Christianity Is a Rescue Religion
"Christianity is a rescue religion."
— John Stott, Basic Christianity
Not self-improvement. Not moral upgrade. Not trying harder. Rescue.
Three pictures:
All three say the same thing: the person in need cannot save themselves. Someone must come to them first. That is the gospel. That is what God did.
"Religion says: perform so God will accept you.
— J.D. Greear
The gospel says: God has accepted you — now perform."
Religion is climbing up. The gospel is God coming down.
God Came First
We are lost. We cannot return on our own. But God did not wait.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
— John 3:16 (NIV)
"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day."
— 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 (NIV)
Greear calls it four words: Jesus in my place. He stood where I should have stood. He received what I deserved. He made possible what I could never earn.
The gospel is the news that God has done through Jesus Christ what we could not do for ourselves.
"I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears."
— Psalm 34:4 (NIV)
I sought. He answered. He delivered. The Rescue came. Salvation is not the destination. Salvation is the beginning of a relationship — the beginning of knowing the One who rescued us.
Where Do You Need Rescue?
Today, in your own life — what area comes to mind?
Every one of these areas needs Rescue. But there is one area that must come first — your relationship with God. That is the core.
We were made to worship. The question is what we worship.
— J.D. Greear
The gospel asks us to redirect that worship — back to the One who made us, rescued us, and holds us.
Three Responses
Wherever you are today — one of these is for you.
Take one question home: What am I actually living for? That question is the beginning.
Greear says: "Being able to articulate the gospel with accuracy is one thing; having its truth captivate your soul is quite another." Today — acknowledge the gap. That honesty is where things begin to move.
Today is the day. Not the me I want — but the me God wants. That prayer is where the gospel comes alive again.
Lord, I have known the gospel — but I have not always lived by it.
I acknowledge the Eichmann in me. The language I've changed. The relationships I've severed. The ways I've turned to my own path. I cannot rescue myself. I know that now.
In every area of my life that is breaking — my health, my sleep, my relationships, my finances, my work, my time, my sense of self — I need You. But more than any of those: restore my relationship with You. That is the core. That is where everything begins.
Let the gospel make my heart beat again. Let me find You in the ordinary moments of this week — not just in knowledge, but in experience.
I want to be a true worshipper — worshipping what is worth worshipping. Amen.
If you're still not sure — take one question with you: What am I living for? That question is the beginning. Come back anytime. This door is open.