Rally Day
I Corinthians 2:2
September 14, 2025
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Companies spend a lot of money developing slogans to sell their products. Most of you know the companies behind Just Do It, Red Bull Gives You Wings, What’s in your Wallet, and Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner. These short memorable slogans get lodged in our brains and when the time is right, they pop up in our decision-making process. Some churches also have slogans to help people remember them: Your Journey Starts Here, Let Your Light Shine, Where Faith Comes Alive. The slogan on our website, God with Us in Lake View, is my own creative play on our name Emmanuel. I don’t really like it, so I’ve been trying to come up with a new one and this week it hit me. Our slogan can be the theme for this year’s Sunday school – It’s All About Jesus. I think it’s perfect! We’re Christians, we’re part of the Christian Church, so of course It’s All About Jesus! This fits so well because it echoes Saint Paul who announces in I Corinthians 2:2, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” What a great theme and slogan because our lives are indeed All About Jesus.
It’s all about Jesus when we realize He’s the source of our faith. When He completed all the work necessary to release you from the grip of Sin and Death, He promised to send the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, working through God’s Word and His Holy Sacraments, gives you faith! Not just a generic belief in God, but faith in the only One who could save you. Paul says, “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.” Why does Paul say this is the most important thing? You know you can’t do it yourself, right? You can’t save yourself and you can’t pay the price of freedom. Only Jesus can do all that! It’s how you are saved, how you find freedom from the power of Sin, how you resist Satan’s lures. See? It’s all about Jesus!
You’re saved by Jesus, delivered from Sin, Death, and the Devil, purchased by His holy precious blood. So, there’s nothing more to do, right? Wrong! When Paul said, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” he wasn’t just talking about his forgiveness, he was also talking about how being forgiven changed him. He elaborates on this in Colossians: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col 3:17). He also says that in the cross of Jesus, the world was crucified to him, and he to the world. He no longer belonged to this world but to Christ.
When we don’t crucify ourselves, it’s not all about Jesus anymore. When we don’t live according to God’s commandments, when we openly sin, and snub our noses at God’s Word, we’re saying that it’s all about us. It’s all about what we desire and what we want to do. And what are we telling others when we confess faith in Jesus while at the same time denying Him by our actions? We’re announcing quite clearly that it’s not all about Jesus. We’re saying that Jesus isn’t the most important to us, that our faith is unimportant, and that we haven’t been transformed by the forgiveness of our sin. Everything you do, reflects on Jesus. When you show love, people will see God at work. When you sin, you make Jesus look bad or worse you make people believe that Jesus doesn’t care what His followers do. It can’t be this way, right? What do we do? You know. “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” In Him, we find forgiveness and the ability to turn and do what’s right.
When Paul arrived in Corinth the first time, he stepped into spiritual cesspool. It was city steeped in immorality, greed, corruption, and perversion. Corinth’s reputation was bad even among the other Roman colonies, and yet, for this reason Paul knew they needed the Gospel as badly as any. I’ll bet you don’t know how his first sermon started. Or do you? What do you think was his message? It’s not recorded for us, but I’ll bet it was All About Jesus! Paul immediately proclaimed the crucified Savior which was absolute nonsense to the Corinthians. The crucified were scum, nobodies still Paul promises that it’s only through the cross that Jesus can provide what the Corinthians really needed – freedom from satanic darkness.
Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half before moving on. We are here until we move on, and like Paul we faithfully confess the crucified Savior. We want everyone to know that It’s All About Jesus! What’s crazy to the unbelievers is the sanest thing believers can hear, and people need to hear it, because the nation in which we live has become modern day Corinth. The United States of America is the greatest nation in history, but we’re far from innocent. We’re steeped in immorality, greed, corruption, and perversion. The brutal assault in Sac City is praised. The murder in Utah is cheered. The guilty are declared innocent, the innocent guilty. Hatred flows through veins of many. The youngest among us are abused, traded, and forgotten. The unwanted and the unborn are cast aside. And I don’t blame anybody who wants to build a wall around their house and never leave. It’s a great idea. But what are we forgetting? It’s All About Jesus! Paul condemned their sins by warning of God’s wrath, and we need to do that to. We need to convict this nation of it’s sin. That’s not it though, is it? We’re told that at the conclusion of Peter’s first sermon his listeners “were cut to the heart, and [asked] “Brothers, what shall we do?” To which Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” When we condemn the sin we see, the Holy Spirit will open hearts to His Word, it will bring people to repentance, and it will give us the chance to tell them how It’s All About Jesus! Only Jesus can die so that we are forgiven and only Jesus can bring the lost to faith. We preach Jesus, so others will know Jesus, so that our slogan will become theirs. That with us they’ll holler, It’s All About Jesus!
Some slogans stick with you long after the company has moved on to a new one. Some are quickly forgotten. Some slogans, like South Dakota’s anti-drug campaign which said “Meth. We’re on it” should never again see the light of day. It’s All About Jesus isn’t just a slogan for use within the Church, like it’s some sort of password. Nor should it be a phrase people hear without ever learning what it means. It’s All About Jesus is our confession of faith. It announces what we want others to know. It promises that Jesus brings faith. It offers forgiveness and the cleansing of guilt and shame through Jesus. It promises the hope of eternal life to the dying and to those left behind. “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” What a powerful statement of faith and it’s yours!
Amen
Now the peace which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen