This is a Football! Remembering the Fundamentals!

In July of 1961, the Green Bay Packers gathered for the first day of training camp. The previous season had ended in heartbreak; they had lost a late lead in the NFL Championship against the Philadelphia Eagles.

The minds of the Packer players had no doubt been thinking about this brutal loss for the entire post-season, pondering again and again how certain victory could’ve been snatched from their grasp. They dreamed of how they might advance their game to another level and start working on a new program to get them ready to reclaim their spot at the top of the NFL.

As the team assembled for a new season, head coach Vince Lombardi shared a surprising lesson with this group who, just months prior, had come within minutes of winning the sport’s biggest prize.

“Gentlemen,” he said, holding a pigskin in his right hand, “this is a football.”

His biographer explained, “[Lombardi] took nothing for granted. . . assuming the players were blank slates who carried over no knowledge from the year before.”

Remembering the fundamentals paid off. Six months later, Green Bay beat the New York Giants 37–0 to win the NFL Championship. The Apostle Peter, in Lombardi-like fashion, wrote in his second letter: “I think it is right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder” (2 Pet. 1:13, emphasis added).

That which was learned only once will soon be assumed and will one day be forgotten (Heb. 2:1–2).

The great Reformer Martin Luther was asked once by a man in his congregation after his Sunday sermon, "Why do you preach the gospel every Sunday?" Luther responded, "Because your keep forgetting it."

As Christians, we need to consistently revisit the basics of the faith, keep remembering them and rehearsing them to ourselves.

Brothers, here is what is of "FIRST IMPORTANCE" of those basics of our faith:

1 Corinthians 15:1-8
"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.

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me."

Here's How We Can Think About and Share the Gospel:

“The gospel is not just the diving board off which we jump into Christianity—it’s the swimming pool in which we swim.” – J.D. Greear

"Our need is not self-improvement or self-esteem or self-renovation. We need salvation. We need to be saved from the wrath of God." - Dave Brown

That is precisely what the gospel promises.“We need to hear the Gospel every day, because we forget it every day.” - Martin Luther

“Every day we must preach the gospel to ourselves and remind ourselves: “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.” - Derek Thomas

"The gospel is not just the ABCs but the A to Z of the Christian life. It is inaccurate to think the gospel is what saves non-Christians, and then Christians mature by trying hard to live according to biblical principles. It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our minds, hearts and lives by believing the gospel more and more deeply as life goes on." - Tim Keller

"The Gospel is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died." - Tim Keller

“Christianity isn't true because it's relevant. It's relevant because it's true.” Tim Keller

“The gospel is not something you can just tack on to another worldview. On the contrary, it makes you rethink everything from the ground up, from the center out.” - Michael Horton

“We are saved by faith alone, but not by faith which is alone.” That is, we are saved, not by anything we do, but by grace. Yet if we have truly understood and believed the gospel, it will change what we do and how we live.” - Deitrich Bonhoeffer 

“Gospel is not good advice to men but good news about Christ; not an invitation to do anything but a declaration of what God has done.”  - John Stott

“On the cross, God treats Jesus as if He had lived your life so that He can treat you as if you had lived His life.” – John MacArthur

“The gospel is only good news when we understand the bad news.” —R.C. Sproul

“This “good news” is not moral improvement or a Christian society or any political system—whether democratic or totalitarian, capitalist or socialist. It’s the announcement that in his incarnation, obedient life, sacrificial death, and resurrection Jesus Christ has accomplished redemption from sin, death, and hell and reconciled sinners with God.” – Michael Horton

"Whenever and wherever the doctrines of free grace and justification by faith have prevailed in the Christian Church, and according to the degree of clearness with which they have been enforced, the practical duties of Christianity have flourished in the same proportion. Wherever they have declined, or been tempered with the reasonings and expedients of men, either from a well-meant, though mistaken fear, lest they should be abused, or from a desire to accommodate the gospel, and render it more palatable to the depraved taste of the world, the consequence has always been, an equal declension in practice. So long as the gospel of Christ is maintained without adulteration, it if found sufficient for every valuable purpose; but when the wisdom of man is permitted to add to the perfect work of God, a wide door is opened for innumerable mischiefs." - John Newton (1769)