My motive, my desire, my aim this morning is to encourage you not to be ashamed of the gospel

We’re starting a new series

Romans – Paul’s greatest letter – some people consider it difficult, but there’s no need to feel daunted by it!

Our motive for the whole of this series is to equip you to carry the gospel to a world that is increasingly blind to it.
We’re called to carry the gospel to a society that sees it as a threat and the thinks religion – especially Christian religion should be kept private sphere – kept in the personal space.
So we hear people say “It’s OK for you to be a Christian, so long as you keep it out of your work, out of your school, and woe betide you if you suggest other people should follow you”

With the current state of our nation, the Christian church in Britain will only thrive if it is characterised by courage.

People who are not willing to roll over and passively accept the status quo (to be swept along in the and the advancing tide of secularism) but who will stand up for the truth and power of the gospel
stand with honesty, grace and integrity, but stand nonetheless!
The church will thrive into the next decade and beyond only if we strengthen our muscles of faith and act courageously.

Now here’s a truth: <ppt> Courage for Christ is a consequence of confidence in Christ.

In these next few months I’m going to be urging us to take our gospel outside these walls.
Romans talks about what happens when the gospel impact people’s lives.

Romans 1

Letter

You usually write ‘Dear Alex …” and finish it with your name (If you write letters at all!)

Greek letters are the opposite way around – “From Ian, To Alex, Hi!”
But Paul puts much more into it – even in his greeting to them – and he has good reason to do this.

An intensely personal message – The personal pronoun, I, me, myself used 20 times in first few paragraphs

Paul immediately identifies himself.

I’m a slave

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God –

Servant = ‘bond servant’ someone owned by a master and committed to give his whole life to the master’s service. Moses and Joshua called themselves God’s ‘slaves’

That’s what we’re called to be – servants of Christ! We have been set apart by the Lord to do His will and make a difference in the world where he’s placed us

While we are all called to be servants we can’t all use the next way Paul describes himself …

I’m an apostle

Apostle = someone who is sent –

E.g. an ambassador.

Jesus used this word to describe his twelve closest disciples
It was used in the early church to identify people who were eye-witnesses to the resurrection and Paul uses it more widely to indicate people who have been called by God and sent to do a specific ministry of building the church.

There’s a huge difference between these terms

‘slave’ is a title of great humility – We have no rights to demand anything of our master!

‘apostle’ is a title of great authority – Anyone who is sent by Christ, commissioned to do his work, operates under the delegated authority of God himself

I’m set apart

V1 … set apart for the gospel of God

This was his life’s purpose! Paul saw the reason God had put him on planet earth was to understand, to explain, to proclaim and to defend the gospel.

He had been trusted by God with the gospel (like we have) and he was called, sent and set apart to proclaim it.

Now we might say, “surely, this is only the beginning of a letter, why did he have to say all this?” – the answer is simple – he had never seen the Christians he was writing to. He had yet to visit Rome so they needed to know who it was who was writing to them. Was it Paul the persecutor or were the stories about him changing to defend the faith really true?

In a time when dire and negative stories about the church circulate in the media we need to stand for the real thing! The gospel of Jesus Christ!

So …

What is the gospel?

The message promised by God

2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures

It was not something that Paul had concocted to suit his own purposes or puff up his reputation.

It did not come to Paul as a novelty or a subjective revelation. He was not dreaming dreams or seeing visions in the sky, this gospel had been promised – by God – in the scriptures for centuries.

The Old Testament prophets witness to Jesus. Many of their writings point towards him! (like Hussein Bolt gesture – they point to Jesus)

God was communicating good news about his love for mankind long before Jesus arrived in Bethlehem.

pointing to Jesus

3 regarding his Son,

Our gospel is essentially about a person – Jesus Christ

it’s not about being good or a being a nice person (although I’m sure you are!)
it’s not about religious observance, coming to church (although you’re here!)
it’s not about giving money (although sacrificing our resources is good and blesses God’s work)
it’s not even about knowing the Bible (although I want you to know it as thoroughly as possible)

it’s about Jesus Christ!

So Paul expands this:

Human Jesus

3 … who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David,

Jesus had a human genealogy like all of us. He wasn’t an angelic or mystical being

The BBC could have made a ‘who do you think you are?’ Program about him. <ppt>

But there is more to the person of Christ that a family tree:

appointed Son of God

4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God

What identified Jesus as the son of God?

In power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

For me (as a student, reading mathematics) I remember having serious doubts about my faith. It was studying the resurrection that made me confident about my faith.

This gospel is intellectually and historically tenable. I don’t have to turn my brain off to believe it. And as we seek to take the gospel outside these four walls

That begs the question

What does Jesus do?

5 Through him we received grace

The giver of grace v5

>>>

5 … grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake.

the sender of people as apostles v5

Apostleship is not something that one chooses to do as a career, it is the calling of God on your life.

the caller of people as Christians v6

6 And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

The gospel is not restricted to a particular group of people – it is universal.

It is the power of God for the salvation (or rescue) of everyone who believes

We’re going to see this as we look at the rest of the book. Paul was a patriotic Jew and longed to see his own people saved. (so should we be – and long to see people close to us come to faith)

But he knew he was called to the Gentiles. These were people he previously thought were totally beyond redemption! But God called Paul to them

And similarly God calls us to reach people outside our own orbit with the gospel.

In these few words, that at first sight may appear to be throw-away remarks, Paul opens up the vast arena of what he’s going to be writing about.

It’s all about the gospel.

Don’t run away with a restricted idea of the gospel!

We sometimes us that term in ways that aren’t even suggested here. E.g.

gospel sermon “I want you to get up out of your seat!”
a way of saying something is true “it’s gospel”
the moment of becoming a Christian: “he accepted the gospel”

It’s much bigger than the sum total of these things:

And this is only the introduction!

Now look at verse

14 I am a debtor both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.

What is his debt?

15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

So the debt seems to be preaching the gospel. That’s his obligation. It makes us wonder how you get into such a debt and how you pay it off.

Note carefully that Paul is a debtor to other people, not God. “I am debtor to the Greeks and to the barbarians.”

Usually we get into debt because someone has loaned us something. But the situation here is not that the nations have loaned Paul anything to be paid back. But that God has freely given Paul something, namely, grace (verse 5) both the grace of salvation and the grace of apostleship.
Here’s the spiritual principle:

when we receive grace from God, we don’t become debtors to God we become debtors to other people

Grace cannot and must not be paid back as a debt. Otherwise grace would no longer be grace. (Grace = feely given generosity)

So when grace comes to us from God in the gospel it places us in debt to other people in the sense that hey too need to experience God’s gifts and we are the ones carrying it!

And what I owe them is the gospel of grace. That’s my debt.

The Debt We Owe is the Gospel of Grace

Look at the next verse

15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you in Rome.

We have a duty to our friends and families

we have a duty to our town

we have a duty to society at large

to communicate the gospel.

And that brings me to the thrust of this morning’s message

What do you think of the gospel?

How high does it figure in your own personal plans and attention.

We are the gospel

As we live we are always communicating the gospel

Or rather we are always communicating a gospel.

We can be a gospel of selfishness
a gospel of awkwardness

May be there were people in Paul’s day who were reticent about communicating the gospel because they weren’t convinced about its truth

Maybe there were people who were embarrassed by its message

So Paul comes crashing in with this strident statement

16 … I am not ashamed of the gospel,

and some of us may be ashamed. And we may feel guilty about being ashamed – and that’s probably the right thing to feel.

Because, when it comes to being open about our faith or going to church or a small group, you pussyfoot! Evade! skirt round all this religious stuff.
Don’t forget my friend that you have been placed under obligation by God to be his ambassador and to share the gospel – you are in debt to the people around you – and that is one reason why God chose you to be who you are and where you are!

I think that applies only to a very small number of us.

Much more likely is that that when we seek to live ad Christ would live (I.e to live out the gospel) and to speak and Christ would speak (to share our faith by talking about it) we are unsure that we’ll get it right. Or we feel we’re ill-equipped to do very much.

That is where the book of Romans will help you

And much more importantly that is where the Spirit of God will help us because there’s a principle I’ve kept to last

because it (the gospel) is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

Why did Paul have no need to be ashamed of the gospel? Because it has a power all of its own!

When I was a kid my father got me making all sorts of things in wood. His garage was a treasure trove of tools for woodwork.

I remember trying to cut some wood with a tenon saw.
The more I pushed down, the more the saw bound on to the wood, so that I couldn’t move it!
Dad would say to me “just let the saw do the work!”

And I would carry on pushing down with all my might and getting frustrated with it.
Ian, you’re trying to to do the saw’s work for it. You move the saw horizontally and let the saw do the work vertically.

And suddenly I got it!

That like us with the gospel – we tend to try to do God’s work for him instead of letting him do it. All we have to do is be at his disposal with our mouths and with our lives.

And he does the rest

Pray >>>

No need to be ashamed!