Romans chapter 1. I titled this message, I am not
ashamed. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. Paul made it very clear that
he was ready to preach the gospel to the church in Rome. And he
identified the gospel that he was ready to preach back in verses
three and four. The gospel concerning God's son,
the gospel concerning Jesus Christ, the son of God, as well as the
son of man. We cannot preach one without
preaching the other. That man is God, and God became
a man. He became incarnate. We preach
him in his offices as prophet, priest, and king. We preach Him
as the only mediator between God and men, as the only substitute
for sinners, as the only one who can put away sins. We preach
Christ, and we preach the whole Christ, not just part of Him,
but all of Him. You remember back in Exodus when
they offered up the Passover lamb,
they were to roast it, They were told to eat all of it, let none
of it remain. Christ is to be received completely
and wholly as He is revealed in the Scriptures, or He won't
be received at all. It's all of Christ or none of
Christ. And so Paul says here in verse 15, As much as is in
me, as much as God enables me, I am ready to preach the gospel
to you that are at Rome also." He was a debtor, he said, there
in verse 14, both to the Greeks and the barbarians, to the wise
and the unwise. He had a duty to fulfill. He
had a calling, a calling to fulfill. And he was anxious. ready to
fulfill his duty by preaching the gospel at Rome. It's evident
that Paul counted not his life dear to himself, for preaching
the gospel in Rome would certainly meet with strong opposition.
It could mean your life, and eventually it did. He gave his
life for the gospel. But he also says this to encourage
them in Rome that were going through severe opposition. over
the gospel. He's saying, I am ready. I'm
not afraid. I'm not afraid to come to where
Satan's seat is and preach the gospel. Paul was not backward. He was not backward about the
gospel. If you're around Paul very long, I mean, if you're
around him any amount of time, you're going to know. You're
going to know who Paul believed. He's going to tell you the gospel.
He was ready to preach it, and he was ready to preach it to
those in Rome and to those whomever he came in contact with. And
he says this, he says, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you that
are in Rome, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's
sad that anyone would be ashamed of the gospel, isn't it? But
it's so. It's sad that anyone would be
ashamed of anything that's of God, but it's so. But Paul says,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power
of God and to salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first,
also to the Greek. Now, what does Paul mean by this
statement, I'm not ashamed? I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
Well, first of all, Paul was satisfied of its origin. It's of God. It's God's gospel. It's God's gospel. And then Paul
was not ashamed of the person the gospel set forth, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Remember they said, can any good
thing come out of Nazareth? Can any good thing come out of
that place? And then Paul was not ashamed
to own him as his Lord and Savior. Many were ashamed of his heritage.
They said, we know you, you are the carpenter's son. They were
ashamed of his appearance. He had just a common poor appearance. He only had one outfit, that
one robe, that's all he had. And they were ashamed of his
poor appearance. And they were ashamed of his followers, publicans
and harlots. They said one time, This man
receives sinners and he eats with them. Now they said that
in derision, but that was one of the greatest compliments they
ever gave him. That's one of the greatest compliments that
was ever given to Jesus Christ. This man receives sinners and
he even eats with them. Can you believe that? He even
sits down at the table and he eats, he sips with them. They
were ashamed of that. And many were ashamed of the
message of the gospel. The gospel is the great leveler.
There's two great levelers. There's two great levelers. The
grave. Everybody's the same in the grave.
Dig, dig up, dig them up. After years have gone by, they
all look the same. Bones. You can't tell who was rich,
who was poor. You can't tell any of that. The grave is the
great leveler. But the first, the great leveler
is the gospel. Because the gospel puts everyone
into the same category, none good, no, not one. God is not
impressed with any man on this earth. There's only one man that's
ever walked on this earth that impressed God. He said, this
is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. He's the only man
who ever impressed God. And that's the man Jesus Christ.
Everyone else, he says, there's none good, no, not one. People
are not only ashamed of the message, they're ashamed to admit they
need a Savior. Ashamed to admit they need a Savior. There's one
time Paul was ashamed to admit, I need to be saved. The Lord
said, I need God to save me. Ashamed to admit their own wretchedness. You know what the Pharisees said
to our Lord? We be not sinners." Well, I am
one. Christ came to save sinners,
and they said, we be not sinners. Well, you just go on, because
the gospel's for sinners. It's for sinners. And then the
Greeks, the Greeks call it foolishness. Paul said, I'm not ashamed to
preach it. Even though all the Greeks there, the educated, the
learned in Rome, that was not a part of the church, they all
call it foolishness. Salvation by grace alone, by
faith alone, by His righteousness alone, by the substitutionary
work of another, that's absolute foolishness. Who ever heard of
that? God. God. They called it foolishness. Listen,
the gospel is the wisdom of God. It was devised by the infinite
wisdom of God, and here men, the most supposedly learned,
are calling it absolute foolishness, nonsense. And the Jews found
it to be a stumbling block. But Paul, he found it to be salvation. He found it to be the most glorious
message he ever heard. Paul was not ashamed, listen,
Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, and Paul was not ashamed of the
people it addressed. You know, it's one thing to go,
and Paul used to do this, he would go speak to the ecclesiastical
body, you know, there's all the big learned nitwits around there,
and they'd be all seated around, and he'd be talking to them.
You know, and he'd just be popping his suspenders and letting them
know what he knows. And now his company is sinners,
and he's not ashamed of them. He's not ashamed of them. He's
not ashamed of sinners. He's not ashamed of the ungodly.
Even though he was a learned man, the bulk of Christianity,
and especially in that day, they were called unlearned and ignorant
men. They were fishermen, harlots,
publicans, one of the most despised tax collectors. the most despised people in town.
He was not ashamed to be called brethren, their brethren. He's
not ashamed to call them brethren. Paul was not ashamed to be, of
the persecutions that it brought. He knew, he knew that every town
he went to, he was gonna be persecuted. It says, it was written, he was
in prison often. You know, people get caught.
And how many times have you seen this on television? They get
caught, they get like this, you know, the TV cameras are there
and they got their coat up over their face. Paul never covered
his face when he was taken in prison. He walked right in there,
he's in there for the gospel. He's in there for telling the
truth. Telling the truth on God. And he didn't try to hide his
face. He wasn't ashamed of it. He was not ashamed of the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ or the people that it addressed, nor
the persecutions that it brought. And he was not ashamed to live
the gospel. He said, for me to live is Christ. And like I said, you're not going
to be around Paul very long before you hear something of Christ.
It was just going to leak out on him. He was like bubbling
over with it. Like he said to the Romans, I'm
ready. He means, I'm anxious. I'm anxious
to come there and preach to you, to preach Christ to you. And the apostle was not ashamed
to preach the gospel. He said to the Corinthians there
in 1 Corinthians 2, For I determined not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He was not ashamed to preach
it no matter how foolish everyone else thought that it was. It
was not foolishness to him. But what is it to be ashamed
of the gospel? Paul said, I'm not ashamed. What
is it to really, to really, and I mentioned some things, but
what is it to really be ashamed? To really be ashamed of Christ
is not to identify with Him publicly. It's not to identify with Him.
To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ now shall be saved and
then we are given what they call believers baptism. We identify
with Christ by being baptized. To be ashamed of Christ is not
to confess Him publicly. First of all, in baptism, it's
not to do it. It's just not going to do it.
When people are ashamed of someone, they don't want to identify with
that person. Is that right? If you're ashamed of somebody,
you don't want to identify with them. You don't want your name
attached to them. That's a real shame of Christ,
not to do that. It is. It's a real shame. And
it's not to identify with his people, to be where they are,
to be with them. When they meet together, you
don't really identify with them. And then it's not to tell the
truth about him. It's not to tell the truth, it's to hold
back the truth. And I've been told this, I was
told this by a man that called himself a preacher. He said he
didn't preach it because he knew that it would just tear that
church up and he wouldn't be there no more. What he was saying to me is,
I'm ashamed of the doctrines of Christ. I'm ashamed of the
doctrines of grace. I'm ashamed of them. And here's another thing that
is to be ashamed of Christ. It's to be ashamed to confess
that it took such a death to save me. It took such a person,
God, to come into this world and become a man, live for me,
die for me, to die that cruel death of the cross. That's the
kind of death it took for God to save me. Now what does that
say about me? Well, I'll say what Paul said,
old wretched man that I am. That's what it says about me. And then to be ashamed of Christ
is to keep silent when He's being lied on. when he's being lied
on in your presence and you keep silent. We don't keep silent
about political matters. Oh, you let a political matter
come up and everybody's ready to jump. They're ready to throw
their two cents worth in right now. But let Christ be lied on. That's the thing we ought to
be upset about. That's the thing we ought to be upset about. I'm not nearly as upset over
these political parties as I am over someone lying on my Lord. I'm not. I know you, you know,
you got to have, you got to have your Republicans and Democrats
because they got to tell on each other. Keep each, keep one, you
got to keep them honest. The only way you can keep them
honest is somebody digging up dirt on the other one and then they
got to say, well, I can't, I got to be careful here. That's the
only way you can keep them honest. But I tell you what, If I'm going
to get upset, I'm going to get upset over the gospel. I'm going
to get upset over something that really matters, that has life
and death attached to it, not just my pocketbook, but life
and death and God's glory, my God's glory. That's what I'm
going to get upset about. Then Paul speaks here, he said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it's the power of God unto
salvation. You know, salvation is not by
persuasion. And I have been in places where
they just try to talk somebody coming down an aisle just, you
know, they got to come down the aisle just to get the guy off
their back. That's not, we're not salvation, not by persuasion.
Not by somebody persuading you. It's not a system of beliefs.
I'm not saved because I believe Calvinism or I believe a system,
that's not salvation. Salvation is this, I believe
God. I believe God concerning Jesus Christ, His Son. I believe
God concerning me. I believe God concerning who
He is. I believe God. That's salvation. You can believe
all the right doctrine in the world and go straight to hell.
The Pharisees believed. They were the elect. They believed
in particular redemption. They believed all these. And
they missed Christ. Christ said, you're of your father
the devil. Salvation is a real living union with Jesus Christ,
with God in Christ. That's what it is. Paul said, it's the power of
God. When the gospel is preached,
there is a power. If God sends it forth in power
to your heart, there's a power that is inherent in the gospel
that goes forth and it's saving power, regenerating power, usually
in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Paul said this in 1 Thessalonians
1.5, For our gospel, and he calls it our gospel because God gave
it to us, our gospel came not unto you in word only. You didn't
just hear me speaking in words only. No, no, no. That's not
how it came to you. But also in power and in the
Holy Ghost and in much assurance. That's how the gospel came to
you. It came to you in power. That word is dynamite, dunamis,
dunamis. I think there were six or eight
words in the Greek for the word power, and this one is dunamis.
Dynamite of God, the power of God, the irresistible power of
God. I tell you what, if God sends
the gospel to your heart, My heart and power, it's going to
save. It's going to save. Now, how is this power manifested?
This power that's the power of God unto salvation, how is it
manifested? Well, first of all, when it comes
in the power of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit, takes the
gospel and penetrates your heart with it, it overcomes all, everything
we used to believe. You know, that's one of the hardest
things to overcome. Well, this is the way my parents
believed, this is the way they believed. One of the hardest
things to overcome is to lay down everything you believe and
listen. That's why it's so hard to teach
people. They've already got all these preconceived notions and
all these ideas and all these beliefs, and you've got to get...
All of that has to be gotten through. And the only thing that
can get through that is the gospel. That's the only thing that'll
make you lay down everything you believed about God, lay it,
trash it, throw it in the trash. Speak, Lord, Thy servant here
is. Teach me. Teach me. Because everything
I knew before was wrong. At least the way I think about
it is wrong. My thoughts of God now, my thoughts
of God the way they used to be before I heard the gospel, That's
two different ways. That's two different thoughts.
One was wrong and one was right. It manifests itself in that it
enables us to lay down everything we previously believed, take
what we used to believe, throw it in the trash and listen, and
be taught of God. All thy children, the Scripture
says, shall be taught of God. And then the power of it is manifested
in that it enables us to overcome all persecutions. Now, you and
I have never really been persecuted, but our forefathers in the gospel,
our forefathers in the church burned at the stake. They were
fed to the beast. They were out there in the arena.
They were made spectacles of while the beast tore them up.
That's our forefathers. Let me show you over in Hebrews
chapter 11 some of it. Of course, this is speaking of
those who before Christ had died, but it's still the same faith,
still the same gospel, still the same salvation. It says in verse 36 of Hebrews
11, "...Others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea,
moreover bonds, imprisonments. They were stoned, they were sawn
asunder, tempted, slain with the sword. They wondered about
in sheepskins, goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented,
of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and
mountains and dens and caves of the rock." These were God's
people. These were God's people. And these all, having obtained
a good report through faith, received not the promise, God
having provided some better thing for us, us, that they without
us should not be made perfect. And then you come up to after Christ had risen from the
dead, the early church, they were persecuted, they were burned
at the stake, they were fed to the beast. This power enables you, now listen,
this is one of the hardest things that could ever be. It'll enable you to give up your
life. And then this power is seen in overcoming idolatry. You remember over in the book
of Acts, the goddess of Diana was worshiped in Ephesus. Paul
went in there preaching the gospel, and then, boy, they started turning
away from this, the goddess of Diana. Boy, there was a big uproar.
There was a riot that took place over this. They turned from their
idols. That's what he says in 1 Thessalonians.
You turn from your idols. When the gospel came in power,
you turn from idol worship. Anything you and I worship or
hold, Dearest to us, other than Christ, is idol worship. I don't care if it's your job,
or money, your children, or what it is, it's idol worship. It
takes the place of Christ. It dethrones, this power dethrones
all idols. And then this, and you have to
think of the lifestyle of the Romans. the lifestyle of the
Corinthians. You think of their wicked way
of life and all the things they approved of, and we'll see more
of that as we go through this first chapter here as the weeks
go by. But we see the power of the gospel
in the influence it has in the lives of those whom it saves. You love what you once hated,
and you now hate what you once loved. It makes that kind of
a change. You know, they put people in prison to not only
punish them, but try to reform them, with no real success. But you
let the gospel, you let the gospel come to the most wretched criminal,
you let it come in power, and you'll see a person so changed,
it'll be unbelievable if you didn't know the gospel yourself.
It's the one thing that absolutely does, it doesn't just reform,
it transforms. It transforms lives when it comes
in power. It makes husbands, and I've said
this before, but I'm telling you it does. It makes husbands
better husbands, wives better wives, fathers better fathers,
mothers better mothers, children better children. If it does not
have that kind of influence, it's not the gospel of God. It's
not the gospel of God. And then Paul gives us here the
divinity of it. He says the gospel is the power
of God. God. You know, the Jews said
this power was of Beelzebub. They accused Christ of casting
out devils and doing these miracles. They accused him of being in
league with Beelzebub. And the pagans, they say it's
the power of fanaticism. But Paul says it's the power
of God. What you're seeing is the power of God demonstrated.
That's what you see. As God said, He said, not by
might or by power, but by My Spirit. By My Spirit. He sends the gospel forth in
the power of His Spirit. It's the power of God. It reveals His power to save.
You know, it's the only thing that saves. The gospel. Nothing
else does. Nothing else. It saves. It saves from present sinfulness.
It saves from the guilt of sin. It saves from the overruling
power of sin. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. Thou shalt call His name Jesus, because He shall save
His people from their sins. And it saves from future wrath,
the wrath to come. The objective of the gospel is
this, the glory of Christ and the salvation of sinners. The
gospel is the power of God, listen, unto salvation to everyone that
believeth. The gospel gives all the glory
to the Godhead, the Father who chose us, the Son who redeemed
us, and the Holy Spirit who regenerates us. It gives glory to the whole
Godhead. And the end result is this, the
salvation of your soul. God has saved you. That's the one thing I want.
Lord, save my soul. I don't care what else. I mean,
I know I don't want pain and there's things that I don't want,
but the one thing that I want, I want God to save me. I don't
want to be religious. I don't, that gagged me. I don't
want to just be religious. I want to know God in Christ. And when I die, I want to die
in the faith. I want to die in the faith. And
I want to, I want to wake up in glory where my Lord is. And that's what I want for you.
I want us to be saved. And the end result of the power
of God in this gospel is the salvation of your souls. And
you can't be saved apart from it. There is no other way to
be saved. Only through the gospel of Jesus
Christ. And here's this condition. It's
the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. The
power is applied through faith, and faith, the scripture says,
is the gift of God. It's the gift of God. It is God
working in you, faith. God creating in you faith, and
He does so by the Word. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. There is no faith apart from
hearing the Word of God. Not saving faith. Faith embraces Christ as its
all-in-all in the gospel. Now, what does the gospel reveal?
It's the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And
he says this about the gospel, "...for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, The
just shall live by faith." It doesn't say, "...and therein
We learn how to live. No, we learn of a righteousness. We learn of one who lived for
us. That's what we learn. That's
what we learn. The righteousness by which sinners
are saved is revealed in the gospel. It's not revealed in
the letter of the law. It's revealed in the gospel of
Jesus Christ. God demands righteousness. We
do not have righteousness. But there is a righteousness.
There is a righteousness established by one man. By man, listen, by man, sin came
into the world and death by sin. A man broke God's law, so a man's
got to keep it. And a man did keep it, the man
Jesus Christ. And it's his righteousness that's
imputed to me. Just like the sin of Adam. When Adam fell, we fell in him. His sin was imputed to me. I
didn't do what Adam did. I have now, but at that time,
when Adam sinned, he was a representative of the whole human race. And
when he fell, the whole human race fell in him. Well, Jesus
Christ represents the whole heavenly race. And His righteousness is
theirs. It's imputed to them. And it's
imputed through faith. And now listen, what God demands,
God has provided in Jesus Christ. He demands righteousness. And
He provided it. He provided what He demands. And this faith, this faith that
He speaks of here is revealed from faith to faith. Comes by
hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It's revealed, and what
he's saying here, it's revealed from faith to faith, it's revealed
from one degree of faith to another degree of faith. First of all, salvation comes
by revelation, not by education. Not by education. It comes by
revelation. All thy children shall be taught
of God, but that's after he reveals himself to them. That's after
he reveals the gospel to them, after he reveals Christ in them,
then they're teachable. You're not teachable to them.
You don't have anything to hold it in. We're a bunch of cracked
pots. There's nothing to put it in.
There has to be a new vessel to put the new wine in. And when
he does that, that's the new birth. And when He does that,
then He teaches us. The Holy Spirit takes the things
of Christ and reveals them to us. And we see, we see, we see that He is our all in
all, He is our righteousness. I don't have one, He has it.
But I have His, and His is mine. And I said it goes from one degree
of faith to another degree of faith. We don't all have the
same maturity. Just like you've got children
in your house. There's seven in my house. There's like 10
years or so between us. The oldest one was a lot more
mature 10 years later than the youngest one when the youngest
one was born. There's different levels of maturity. But that
which is revealed to faith, no matter what degree it is, is
the righteousness of Christ. It's the person of Christ. It's
the blood of Christ. It's the sacrifice of Christ.
It's the priesthood of Christ. It's the prophet Christ. It's the King Christ. That's all revealed to us. It
doesn't matter if you're just a baby in Christ or an elder
in Christ. It's still the same gospel and
it's still the same revelation. It's not any different. And I'm
going to close with this. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. That is, the righteous shall
live by faith. The righteous will not live by
doing and not doing. It's not like you turn the page
and say, well, it says to do this, and it says not to do this. That's not how you live. You
live by faith. You live by following after,
studying after the Lord Jesus Christ. You live by believing
God. You live by believing God. And he says here, the just shall
live by faith. You know what he's quoting? He's
not quoting something new. This is not a New Testament doctrine,
just something he's quoting from Habakkuk. It's an Old Testament
doctrine. This was said back in the Old
Testament. It's nothing new. The just have always lived by
faith. Abraham believed God, that's
faith. Noah believed God, that's any walked with God by faith.
And you and I walk with God by the same faith. And that's how
we live. That's how we live day by day.
We live by faith. We begin our spiritual journey
by faith. We continue that journey by faith.
We end that journey by faith. I'm not ashamed of this gospel.
And I know some of you are not ashamed of it. Because you've confessed Christ.
Christ is your life. Paul said, for me to live is
Christ. And I would to God that just grows stronger and stronger
with us, that we can set our hearts on things above and not
on the things of this earth. Use them, not abuse them, and
not be used of them.