Are you unashamed of the gospel?

Text Romans 1:16, 17 Time 17 06 18 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

I want us to look this morning at one of those texts where important truths are succinctly summed up in just a few sentences. The words are in Romans 1:16, 17 where Paul says

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed - a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

One writer (Leon Morris) has said that the words in these two verses have an importance out of all proportion to their length. This is really what the letter is about. 

The well known American preacher John MacArthur has said of what is in these verses 

"This is the most life-transforming truth ever put into men's hands. If we really understand and respond to the truths in these two verses time and eternity is totally altered." 

I want to say three things about these verses.

1. Here is a gospel of which you can be unashamed

Paul begins by saying For I am not ashamed of the gospel. That for follows on from his statement in the previous verse that he was eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. At the time of writing the letter (about 57 or 58 AD) Paul had never been to Rome but he knew that there at the heart of the Empire there was a church and indeed their faith was being reported all over the world. He had met many of its members when they had travelled elsewhere and his hope was that he could visit Rome. This for two reasons.

Firstly, so that he could impart to them some spiritual gift to make you strong - that is, that they may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. He had often made plans to travel to Rome but had been prevented. He wanted to have a harvest among them, just as he had had among the other Gentiles.

The other thought that comes out towards the end of the letter is that he could pass through Rome en route to Spain, where he wanted also to preach the gospel and they could assist him in this new venture. What Paul does in Romans then is to set out his stall, to say what he preached, his gospel. And this is where he begins and the first thing he says is that he is not ashamed of this gospel.

The word gospel is a funny word. It is from the old Anglo-Saxon word godspel or good news and we use it to represent the Greek word evangel or euangel. Literally that does mean good news and so some modern Bibles translate good news rather than gospel. The Greeks would use the word for a piece of good news and Christians began to empty it to refer in brief to the good news that God had sent his Son into this world to be its Saviour. We use the word now both to refer to the first four books of the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who each tell us the story of Jesus's coming - and the basic message of salvation, the message about how salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

That is what Paul is talking about here then when he says that he is not ashamed of the gospel. His statement that he is not ashamed suggests that he might have been tempted to be. People get ashamed for various reasons good and bad.

• Some people are ashamed of their background - where they are from, their family, the fact they are poor, etc.
• Some are ashamed about things they can't do or don't know - I can't dance, my Greek is no good, I'm not a great driver, etc.
• People are ashamed of what they look like (their height, their spots, etc)
• People get ashamed because they need help, because they are lost, because they are socially awkward, etc.

Many things we are ashamed of we don't need to be ashamed of, although sometimes shame is the right response. Shame on us all that we are not better than we are, that we do not love the Saviour more. 

Why might Paul have been ashamed of the gospel? Writing about the gospel in 1 Corinthians he says that Christ crucified, which is at the heart of the message, is a stumbling block to Jews who demand signs and foolishness to Gentiles, who seek wisdom. On the face of it the gospel is not marked by amazing miracles or remarkable wisdom. It is a simple message about ho sinful we are and how we can be saved through a man who died on a wooden cross. At the time it was a forbidden religion and then as now persecution of Christians was common. 

But Paul was not ashamed of the good news and we ought not to be either. Are you ashamed of it? I'm sure that if you understood it better you would not be. There is nothing to be ashamed of.

2. Understand why you can be unashamed of the gospel - it's God's power to bring salvation

The reason you do not need to be ashamed is this because it is the power of God that brings salvation. 

It is tempting to think of the gospel as simply a message or way of life, like a philosophy or a lifestyle choice. It is much more than that. The good news is that God is at work in this world, powerfully at work and he is transforming everything by this very means - through the gospel. 

There is something dynamic about the gospel, something powerful. God is in it. It is not a self-help thing or a bit of good advice. It is not a course to do or simply a set of beliefs to subscribe to. No there is power in it. 

Paul know that power in his life and if you have come to know the gospel for yourself then you will know the power that it has to change lives. It can indeed change whole families and communities and nations. The power of the gospel, as unassuming as it may seem, is something incredible. One of the proverbs says that a gentle tongue can break a bone and the gentle gospel of Christ can bring men down and build them up again with great power.

I read a story by an American preacher about a young woman in his church who worked in a large umbrella factory in Philadelphia, at that time thought to be the biggest umbrella factory in the world. She said to him one day, rather discouraged, "Pastor, I'll have to hunt another job." He wondered what the problem was. Had she been sacked or made redundant? Were they short of orders? No, they had more orders than they could fulfil. The problem was a lack of electricity. They didn't have enough power to keep all the machines going at once, and so her machine was not running half the time and if she didn't work she wasn't paid. The trouble with the factory was that they had more machinery than power.

That is our problem sometimes. We have the machinery - the meetings points, the man power, the literature. What we lack is gospel power. Never forget the power of God found in the gospel. It was great power that created this world and great power that sustains it and great power that raised Jesus from the dead. That same power is at work when the gospel is declared. 

The gospel is not something aimless or without direction either. It can save people, it can rescue them. By nature we are lost, sunk in sin and degradation. There is no hope for us but the gospel gives the hope of salvation - that is all the blessings that trust in Christ includes. Negatively, it is salvation from God's wrath, from futility, from slavery, from hell itself. 

There is no reason to be ashamed of good news that can actually save people and deliver them from their sins!

I read a story of a terrible fire in Dublin many years ago. It was a high rise block and many people could be seen at the window pleading for help. Part of the tragedy was that a portable fire escape was brought and when it arrived there was great hope. However, it proved to be too short to reach any but those n the lowest floors. The gospel is not like that - it's not like a bridge that reaches only half way across. No it saves completely.

Remember that is what the gospel can do – it saves, it delivers, it rescues.

3. Recognise that the key to the gospel is always faith

In the rest of the material we want to consider this morning the emphasis is on the importance of faith or trust. That is at the heart of the gospel of salvation. We can say three things from there. It is by faith 

1. In every case

Paul says For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. Paul reminds us that the gospel is received by faith. Because it is based on faith and no other qualification then everyone who believes can be saved. having said that, there is an order about things. God brought his gospel to this world by first taking a man, Abraham, and from him creating a nation, the Jews. It is to the Jews that the Messiah was promised and to the Jews that the Messiah came. He was a Hebrew and Aramaic speaking Jew who lived in the Promised Land and who was circumcised on the eighth day and who kept the Jewish Law revealed to Moses and who worshipped in the Jewish Temple first built by Solomon.

After the coming of Messiah, however, after his life and death and resurrection and ascension into heaven, he poured out the Holy Spirit on all people and so the gospel began to go out to all peoples - not just Jews but Gentiles or non-Jews too. Messiah having come the importance of the Jewish laws began to fade into the background and the thing that had really mattered anyway all along came to the fore - faith, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

I think we can extrapolate here too and says that if the gospel is first for believers and for religious people, people within the orbit of the church, people like ourselves, it is also for the unbeliever, for the non-religious, those outside the church's orbit. They also can believe in Jesus Christ - indeed must if they are to be saved.

This ought to give us confidence as we go out with the gospel then. It is for everyone. We don't have to worry that we are evangelising the wrong people. Who ever we come into contact with, we can assure them of the saving power of God as long as they believe in Christ. All they have to do is to trust in him. 

2. At every point

Paul then gives some further explanation - For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed - a righteousness that is by faith from first to last. Again he is emphasising faith. Yes righteousness is important. No-one can go to a holy and righteous God who is not holy or righteous themselves. But how can sinners like us be righteous? And here is what we might call the genius of the gospel. We can be saved through an alien righteousness. By that I mean a righteous that in the first place is not our own. It is someone else's. It is, we learn elsewhere, the righteousness of Jesus Christ himself. That righteousness becomes ours when we trust in Jesus Christ.

We have no righteousness of our own but by faith we can receive the righteousness that God himself provides. In the gospel a righteous status, which is God's gift, is being revealed – a righteous status that is altogether by faith. Through Christ we can be righteous, we can know a righteousness from God, as we trust in him. 

Again this should give us confidence. Here is a righteousness from God that can be ours and that is found nowhere else, the righteousness we need for life on earth and for heaven. 

As for the phrase from faith to faith which is what Paul actually wrote. It could mean from God's faith to our faith, or from the faith of one believer to the faith of another as the gospel spreads or from one degree of faith to another or just faith through and through from first to last as the NIV has it. Certainly the emphasis is on faith. We cannot know this righteousness except by faith but once we believe then that righteousness is ours whoever we are. 

We have a great message then. You can be right with God just by believing. 

3. In every time

The last thing Paul has here is the line just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." The quotation is from Habakkuk 2:4. Habakkuk had complained about the wickedness in the land and God had replied that he would send the Babylonians to judge the people. But how can God use such wicked people to judge them? Part of the answer is that the people are to live by faith – humble commitment to God in faith. Even in the Old Testament then this idea of living by faith, of finding righteousness through faith is there. This is the second time that Paul underlines this point - that even in the Old Testament the teaching was that we find righteousness by faith. 

This has been the teaching down the ages then and we should not try and abandon it now. Rather we should boldly go out and let everyone know. We have an obligation to do so and we ought not to be ashamed of this wonderful gospel for all.