selected passages
October 5, 2025
preached by Pastor Ryan Bouton
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Time of Reflection Quotations

Core Value #1: Christ Changes Everything

We value the centrality and sufficiency of the gospel. At CRC we believe that Christ changes everything. The gospel is nothing more and nothing less than the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we desire Him to be preeminent in all that we do. We believe that the gospel is central to the whole of the Christian life, whether it is our justification or sanctification. Indeed, it is central to renewal of the entire cosmos (Romans 8:18-25; Ephesians 1:10). We believe that the gospel is central to how we do ministry, for the grace to come to Christ and the grace to grow in Christ are found in it alone. Certainly, we will seek to do all that we do with excellence. However, we refuse to give room to the myth that our church is in the business of making the gospel effective. Rather, we are committed to the exact opposite, the church does not make the gospel effective, but the gospel makes the church effective. The gospel alone is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

~ “CRC Core Values” by Pastor Don Willeman

“The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.”

~ John Calvin, French theologian and pastor, 1509-1564

“‘Evangelion’ (that we call the gospel) is a Greek word, and signifies good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that makes a man’s heart glad, and makes him sing, dance and leap for joy.”

~ William Tyndale (1494-1536), English scholar and Bible translator

“What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?”

~ John Gresham Machen (1881-1937), American professor & writer

Sermon Passage

selected passages (ESV)

1 Corinthians 1

¹⁸ For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

1 Corinthians 2

¹ And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. ² For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, ⁴ and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

1 Corinthians 15

¹ Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, ² and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Galatians 2

²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Romans 1

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”