Not Ashamed of the Gospel
First B Jackson
2016-01-31

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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God is so good. He's just so good. The gospel. This this morning, we went through this and you know, I get the slides. I prepare these.

Actually, this past week, Paschal told me on Monday, she said, daddy, I got an idea. I said, what? She said, why don't you go right now and go to the church and finish your sermon? It was Monday. And I said, what makes, what makes you think I could do that if I wanted to?

It's like 05:00 in the evening on Monday. She said, well, that way you wouldn't have to do it on Saturday. So, I said, but wait a second, I'm not I'm not doing the sermon on Saturday. I'm finishing the slides. That's what I usually do on Saturday.

Finish up. She said, okay, we'll start those right now and so, I said, okay. Well, I started that and I did the scriptural part of it and actually, this section that we're doing today verses eight through 16 mainly. That's where we are. What we're doing is going through scripture in order chronologically as it was written.

We've been through John, life of Jesus. We've been through Acts, life of the early church, and then we've been through, you know, these epistles in the order that they were written. Now, we're up to Romans and we've been talking about Romans being a Rome as being a place that Paul had never been. He's writing the letter to them from Corinth. He's a smart guy.

He understands the he understands the pagan philosophers and the Greek poets and philosophy and he also understands monotheism from a Jewish Jewish background and he mentions already by this time, he's mentioned God's gospel, the gospel, God's gospel and he's referred to it in the first seven verses like four, five times and that was just the introduction of the letter. I did that last week where the introduction is usually Paul whatever he is like an apostle to the church at Rome in this case and then, he would start the letter but Paul didn't do that. He had seven verses of all this and so he had sender and recipient but he also had the gospel spelled out there in the first seven verses and it's flowing over really. It's just like, wow. This is a really, really amazing thing but he kept keeps saying gospel, Euangelion in Greek, good report, good news.

Well, that's good. If you know the good news, it's really good. You know it. You know what he's talking about but the gospel, what is it? So, there was a guy named Campbell and another guy named East.

Will Campbell and another guy named East. Will Campbell is a believer. Actually, I think he's a minister. I read a a short snippet from a book and I read this in an article, an essay this week about the gospel. So, East is not a believer and he asked Campbell and says, so what is it?

What's the Christian message? And don't give me a long drawn out answer. I just want the gospel. Oh, he said, I just want the, I want the Christian message in 10 words or less and so, Campbell retorted back immediately and I'll get to what he said in just a minute but the gospel, what is it? If you had to think about it, what would you say?

What what is the gospel? Well, Doctor Bill Jones is the president of the seminary I went to. He's a good friend. A lot of y'all have read his Old Testament Puzzle Book and his New Testament Puzzle Book. He always says, instead of saying gospel, which he thinks is a church word that has come to mean very little in most people's life.

The word itself. He says, it's God's message of love and forgiveness. This guy is a natural born, supernaturally born, evangelist. He is an evangelistic guy and so he sees the gospel and he says, it's God's message of love and forgiveness. That really resonates with me.

You know, it's God's message of love and forgiveness. It points to the fact that God is love and it points to the fact that we need forgiveness. So, there's bad news there. There's good news there. It's the good news and it's short too.

I mean, what's that? Six words? Six words. So, the article that I read this week was from the Christian Century Magazine. It's an online magazine.

Not exactly a bastion of conservative theological thought. Probably typically would be considered a mainline church, mainline, and fundamental. You know, there was a split back in about the twenties, the 1920s or so and it has lasted almost one hundred years where the mainline churches and then the fundamental churches are like this. They're kinda going apart from each other. Well, lately, there's been considerable effort to bring some of that back together and marry them back together because you can get lost in the ditches, right?

We talk about this all the time. You can either go with the priority of proclamation like the gospel, the proclamation of the gospel in words is the most important thing to the point that you don't do anything to help anybody on Earth or you can go to the point of helping people on Earth, the social gospel. You can help people on Earth but you're not proclaiming why you're doing it. You're not really advancing the kingdom of God or advancing the gospel. You're being nice and that's good but anyway, this magazine or this online magazine asked for its readers to boil the gospel down into seven words or less.

Now, the original thing for Campbell and East, East had asked Campbell what he thought that the what what's the Christian message in 10 words or less and this is what and this David Heim wrote this article couple years ago, three years ago. God, we're all but God loves us anyway. That was his answer and what he used, you can imagine, it's probably not as bad as some of y'all are imagining but it's pretty bad. So, I wouldn't wanna put it up there but we're all bad but God loves us anyway. That's his version of the gospel.

That's what he said and I I kinda like that. It points to the fact that we're all bad. That's the bad news but God loves us and then anyway, points to his grace. It's like, it's not up to us to earn that love from God. He loves us anyway and he's made a way.

Now, it gets further than that but this is a conversation starter and for East who is not a believer asking Campbell when he heard that foul word come out of his mouth. He's like, wow. Are we really that bad? And he said, yeah. We are.

It was actually they were in nineteen fifties and sixties in the Southeast and they had been going through civil rights and all that stuff together for a long time and he said, nobody is excluded. We're all. He puts that in there. Paul would say in couple of chapters in Romans, he says, we all fall short of the glory of God. We all have sinned.

Wages of sin is death. All that comes up. So, we're all but God loves us anyway. That's Will Campbell said that. Martin E.

Marty was one of the readers and they gave him seven words and he says, God, through Jesus Christ, welcomes you anyhow and anyhow, there is pointing towards you don't deserve it, right? I like that one. Divinely persistent, God really loves us because that's hard for people to believe. Divinely persistent God really love us. I like that one.

It's got a few issues God really loves us. That kind of points to, we don't deserve it but divinely persistent. God is after us. He does pursue. Now, we will get to in a couple of verses.

We get to the part where God does eventually turn people who resist over to a reprobate mind. So, divinely persistent. He is persistent and he is patient and he is long suffering. In Christ, God's yes defeats our no, Beverly Roberts Goventa says. I understand where she's coming from but that one can be problematic.

That one heads towards universalism. God's yes defeats our no. His yes does defeat our no but he gives us a choice and that's so we're the church of infinite chances. Mary Carr said that and Carr was the only one that responded that squeezed in a mention of the church which I really like. I'm a pastor of a church but I mean, I I like the church triumphant, the church, capital C church, the church of infinite chances.

It does not matter what you've done. God loves you and he's still calling, still calling you. Sinner, come home. There's no second chance without a church to offer. I like that but I still feel like it kinda kinda falls a little bit short but these are from these people's perspective.

They're the ones that were asked and they boil it down to seven words and you're limited in seven words, right? Paul has taken 16 chapters to tell what the gospel is to the Romans. I like this one. This is straight up scripture. He led captivity captive.

Carol Zaleski. The wall of hostility has come down. That's great. That's strips scripture also. Ephesians two adapted 14 through 18.

The wall of hostility has come down. That's nice but then, you do have to know what what created the wall of hostility but it's a conversation starter, right? And what brought it down? It doesn't mention Jesus. God was in Christ reconciling the world.

I like that one. Second Corinthians five nineteen straight up. That's straight out of the Bible. Exactly as it stated. God was in Christ reconciling the world.

It doesn't talk about today so much. Love your neighbor as yourself. Wait a second now. That's the way you can work out the gospel certainly. You want to follow the teachings of Jesus.

This is straight up from Mark twelve thirty one and it is a good way of living life but this is not the gospel. Loving your neighbor as yourself certainly gives you some credence and some credit. You might be earning the right to speak some gospel truth into their life by the way that you live but love your neighbor as yourself. That's the golden rule. That's not that's not the gospel.

Christ humanity occasions our divinity. Poor Favour. Israel's God's bodied love continues world making. This one's kind of complex. It's it's good if you understand it but this guy is a messianic Jew.

Israel's God's bodied love. So, he talks about the incarnation of Christ continues world making like the world to come. He says, he used only six words. He rested on the seventh. That's the reason I included it.

M Craig Barnes says, we live by grace. Amen. Christians, we live by grace but we live by grace for everybody. Actually, it's true. Everybody lives by the grace of God and are given a chance.

To come to him. We live by grace but that's a conversation starter. Think about what you would say. If somebody ask you to explain what it is that you believe in an elevator, you got one floor, okay? Elevator talk And you wanna be able to do this.

A lot of us can do it with our businesses, you know, that you've been trained in business classes. They say, get it down to where you can explain what you believe or what's your business, the distinctive, because you might not have but five minutes to sell somebody on your idea while they're responding and listening. So, think about it. Boil it down to the absolute truth but get it down into a short, little pithy phrase. Romans one eighteen, we're gonna get to verse 16.

That's what I'm working towards, okay? Eight through 15, I'm going to go through rather quickly but these are still his opening remarks. He's talking to a specific congregation at Rome and this specific or group of congregation more likely. Rome's a big old city. So, he's speaking to the Christians there.

All who are beloved of God is what he says in the introduction. In Rome and as he's speaking to them, he's talking about some personal things. First of all, he says, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all. He's thankful to God for the Romans. For the Roman Christians, I'm thankful to God for you because Paul knows that Christ Jesus said, I'm going to build my church.

If it spreads, it's his doing, right? It's his work, excuse me. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. So, the gospel has hit Rome and it's growing like crazy. In fact, last week, I mentioned, it had grown to the point and was causing such a stir in the city of Rome that the officials had decided they were going to ship all of the Jewish background Christians out.

They're going to ship em out of the city. They thought that those Jews were the ones that were causing the problem. So, they shipped these guys all over. Just said, get out of town or stop acting like that. Either you can get out of town or stop acting like that.

So, they spread out. They couldn't stop acting like that because this is who they were. They knew the good news of Jesus. So, they spread it all over. Aquila and Priscilla, Paul knew them from Corinth.

They were some of the leaders that had been kicked out of Rome and just like when Stephen had his martyrdom, it spread the church all over the place. Well, big bad Rome tries to kick the Christians out and it just spreads it all over their empire. Alright. So, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all because your faith and it's a faith worth having because it's a faith in Jesus's work. Your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

For God, whom I serve in my spirit and the preaching of the gospel of his son is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you. He's already said he was a slave of Christ. He's serving God and his spirit and the preaching of the gospel. Actually, the word, the preaching of. You see when there's italics right there?

This is a new American standard version of the Bible. They added preaching of the gospel to make it make a little bit more sense in English but this is what it says. For God, whom I serve in my spirit and the gospel of his son. I'm serving in the spirit of the gospel. Everything that I do, I do based on the gospel and it's highlighted there in green.

He's using that word again. If you know what it means, it's really really good. If you don't know what it means, what's it mean? Whom I serve in my spirit and the gospel of his son is my witness as to how unceasingly that I make mention of you in his prayers. So, he's evangelizing.

The spirit and the gospel. Everything he's doing is for the sake of the gospel. God's message of love and forgiveness, Bill Jones would say. We're all but God loves us anyway. Will Campbell would say.

Always in my prayers, I'm making a request. If perhaps, now at last, by the will of God, I'm here in Corinth. It's a good shipping lane to get to you. This is the closest I've been. I want to go to Spain which is on the other side of you.

I can't wait to get there because y'all are knocking it out of the park, people. I'm hearing good things about you everywhere I go and I want to come join in with you. Always in my prayers, making request. If perhaps now at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you. I've been trying and trying to get there but I just hadn't made it yet.

I I don't know how often I say that in this ministry line of work. When somebody's been in the hospital a couple of weeks, I finally make it. I've been praying for you the whole time. I've been wanting to get there. Now, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you and I love it when when you when you do get there, it's great.

For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established. Paul is all about establishing the church, right? He spends 16 chapters in Rome explaining exactly what the gospel is, what the theology that needs to be known is so that he can establish them very well established because this church is sending people out. He wants them to be established in their faith and understand it very well with all of its old testament ties. He uses tons of old testament quotes in Romans.

So that you may be established. So, there's establishments. So, so far, we've gotten evangelizing and establishing and y'all remember, I used to talk a lot about this when I first got here. I was teaching a class. It was called strategies for church planning and evangelism and this ministry multiplication cycle came up.

In the the gospels and in Acts, if you follow it, you see where people evangelize. They actually present the good news of Jesus and both John, you know, Nicodemus, he gives him God so loved the world. He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. There's evangelism there. There's establishing.

So, baptism and teach them about what's going on. What what God is doing in the world. Equipping them is selecting some, preparing them, and mobilizing them to go. Equipping the body to do the ministry of the church, Ephesians says. And extending, challenging, and sending people out into the world.

So, there's evangelism establishing, equipping, extending. Now, Paul only mentions two of em in this passage but we'll get to the others before long. So, that you may be established. He's looking forward to spending time with them and doing what he does. Teaching and discussing, praying for people.

That is that I may be encouraged together with you. He doesn't want him to think he's coming off as high and mighty. They already have the gospel. They've already believed in Christ. He's not saying that he's he's saying to him that we may be encouraged together with you while I'm among you, each of us by the others faith, both yours and mine.

He wants to encourage one another, build each other up, he said, in Thessalonians, right? So, this is what he's talking about. He's getting together with him. Finally, after all he's heard, I do not want you to be unaware of brothers and sisters, brethren that I have often planned to come to you and I've been prevented so far and I do that in the hospital too. My goodness, I had a strep throat last week.

I didn't wanna kill you. You've got pneumonia. It's a bad thing. So, I will usually say, I I don't want you to be unaware. Really, I've been trying to get there and just have not been for whatever reason.

Paul does the same thing. I've been prevented so far so that I may obtain some fruit among you also. Even as I do among the rest of the Gentiles. So, he's saying, I have been steady rolling all the way and seeing the church grow a long way but I haven't yet been to Rome. I want to see it happen there.

I love this. Love this that I get to carry the gospel and clarify. He's had a direct encounter with Jesus. He's seen churches grow. He's seen the problems.

He's been a Christian at this point for almost twenty one years and he's seen lots, 1,500 miles worth of missionary journeys, a couple of different times. He's on his third one right now. Now, verse 14 says, I'm under obligation. Literally, he says, I am a debtor both to Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. Now, there are couple ways that you can take this.

One of em is that I have learned from the Greeks and I've learned from the barbarians and I've learned from the wise and I've learned from the foolish and because I have learned so much from, I'm indebted to them, and that's a reasonable way to take it, and I think that's good. The the other way to take it is this way, the New Living Translation quotes it this way. For I have a great sense of obligation to people in both the civilized world and the rest of the world and to the educated and uneducated alike. I I kinda like this one a little bit more because he's saying, what I have received from God through his gospel, the understanding that he's given me, I owe it to everybody to share it. It's too good to hold on to and so, I'm gonna pay it forward.

God's given it to me. His grace flowing through me to them. I like that but it could be either. Grammatically, it could be either. I'm under obligation.

I'm a debtor both the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel. There it is again. The gospel to you also who are in Rome. He says, I'm doing this everywhere I go already but I can't wait to get there so I can do it with you.

So, we get through that. That's pretty personal. He's talking about getting there for them. You never met him before all that but the theme of the letter is really in sixteen and seventeen. If you had to boil Romans down to two verses, the theme of it, it'll be these next two.

One, sixteen, and 17 and I'm gonna barely touch on 17 today. I'll get to it next week and that's what we'll spend the whole time on. It's just that one verse and how it applies to our life. But 16 says this, excuse me, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. Now, I know it may seem foolish or I know it may seem silly to some but I'm not ashamed of it.

I'm not ashamed of the gospel, the good news about Jesus. God's message of love and forgiveness. For it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first, they had the message first, right? And to the Greeks.

Remember when we were in Corinthians? Oh, it's been a long time ago, year and a half, maybe, year and ten months, something like that. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. The message of the cross right there is the gospel. For the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.

The message of the cross and that's where I started to come up with this slide. How many times have y'all seen this slide? It comes up a lot. You know why? Because it's the gospel.

If it doesn't come up a lot, I'm not doing my job. The message of the cross to those who are perishing and everybody starts in that camp. Absolutely, everybody starts in those who are perishing camp. There was but one. Jesus was the only one that didn't start out there and he left the glories of heaven above to come so that we might have a chance to be in this other camp that those who are being saved, okay?

And how is that? The power of God. It's God's gospel. God's good news. It's not man based.

It's not works based. It is the power of God that changes you from one who is perishing to one who is being saved. Look around the Bible. So, my pithy statements, I looked up. I started out.

I was looking for just one sentence or one verse statements of the gospel in the Bible and it took me to that Christian century article. I Googled it just like everybody does, you know. The gospel. The son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. That's a good one.

It's one verse. It's not 10 words. It's not seven words but it's good. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. Amen.

Second Corinthians, we just got through with second Corinthians. That's a good statement of the gospel right there. He made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. Second Corinthians eight says, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich. Amen.

That's a good one. First Timothy 115 and this one resonated with the sound man in the back after the first service. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. He recognized, that's Paul writing that. If you wanted to boil it down further to get it in my my 10 word kind of parameters, you could get to Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

That's the gospel. We needed a savior and he's it. The open invitation. First John four ten and this is love, not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Hey, if you know what propitiation means, this one's an excellent one.

Absolutely excellent. This might not be elevator talk. Not everybody's gonna go propitiation with you, okay? Are there any succinct statements in Romans? Yes, there are.

It's it's about five, four, five of em that I thought of immediately. God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our lord. If anybody says the substitutionary atonement is not in the Bible, they're crazy, okay? It's all over it.

Romans eight one, therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans eight thirty two, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? He did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. That's a good one. What would you say?

If somebody asks you 10 words or less, what's the Christian message? Give it to me straight. What would you say? Well, those are the ones from the Bible that I thought of that I just shared with you. Paul says, he's not ashamed of the gospel.

If somebody ask him in an elevator, probably wouldn't even have to ask. He's going to tell him, you know? I'm not ashamed of the gospel because I know that it's the power unto salvation. So, for the four right there, I like it. It's a it's a directional word.

It is unto. It's the power. The gospel is the power unto. It leads the way to salvation. It it saves them but it's unto salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also the Greek and that reminded me again of my slide.

So, if I were to change this just a little bit based on this verse, the message of the cross becomes the gospel. The gospel to those who are perishing is foolishness to those who are being saved. It's the power of God and actually in this one, it's the power of God unto salvation or the power of God for salvation. So, it's even more explicit here in Romans than it was in Corinthians and it's to everyone who believes. So, it comes back to being about faith.

It's down to faith. What it is that you believe. Now, the next verse gets into the just will live by what he believes. The just will live by faith or by what he believes, he will live. You can take it both ways.

We'll talk about that next week. To everyone who believes. So, when I hit the everyone in this one, I wanted y'all specifically y'all that or everyone in here that hear this, that come here each week. I know we have some visitors too. Bless your hearts.

I'm gonna give you an assignment. You can turn it into your pastor next week wherever you go, okay? So, the assignment is and I'm serious about this. I want it written down on paper. I don't ask for much.

Maybe I do. Anyway, everyone who believes, everyone of you who is a believer in this room right now, I want for you to think about what is the gospel. I know Romans explains it for 16 chapters. I know that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are called gospels because it's the truth about Jesus from someone's point of view. I want for you to boil down the gospel into a one sentence.

Just one sentence. I give you the 10 words but I'll give you grace if you go over 10 words, okay? One sentence. Seven words, six words. I had one person that just said, but God, he had it down to two words.

I said, that didn't count. You come back next week. No, I'm just kidding. Whatever it takes down to 10 words or less, boil down the Christian faith. What is the gospel in 10 words?

And I want you to write it down on a piece of paper and bring it in next week. I'll figure out what we do with them, whether we turn them in during the offering or what we do with them but I want for you to bring it back and I'm serious about that. Several people brought them up to me during the connect hour. Would you do that? Will you, please?

Boil it down. Now, the reason I'm asking you to do this, there are couple of different things but I hit a quote this week that kinda stopped me in my tracks. It said, and it's a CS Lewis quote and I didn't bring it. I don't have it on. CS Lewis quoted, the gist of it is this, if you can't under, if you can't express what you have to say to anyone, that means anyone.

If you can't express what you want to say to anyone, so that they can understand it either you don't understand it or you don't believe it. You agree? Good. Florian agrees with me. I agree too.

If you don't unders, if you can't express it in a way that everyone can understand, then either you don't understand it or you don't believe it and so boil down the gospel, get it down to the irreducible minimum and I know that these are gonna be a little bit based on perspective. We saw where people were coming from in their statements of the gospel. I'm saying, hit it as close as you can to the center of what you think it is. I remember when I met Bob, the first couple of times that I met, I was talking to Tanya, talking with Tanya and Bob and and she said that she had been saved as a child reading the Bible and Bob said, where? Where were you?

Where was it that you that you knew? And I thought, that's an interesting perspective. Bob analyzes everything and I love that and so he was thinking about where where was it because as you read through, it's all pointing to Jesus, the whole Old Testament is but you don't really know that until you get to the New Testament and so, he was saying, where was it that you knew first? So, I'm saying, boil this down, get it down to the gospel. You can say, according to Bob or according to Nate and I think we're gonna come up with stuff.

Now, the next verse here says, for in it, the gospel. In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. That's powerful. So, if we don't know what the gospel is or it's just this amorphous thing that's out there that we don't really understand, how's God gonna reveal himself to this community? How's he gonna reveal himself to your circle, your people?

For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. I don't want you to put your personal slant on it. I think you're going to. I want you to hit as close as you can to what is the Christian message. 10 words or less or a sentence.

For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the righteous one shall live by faith. That's a quote. We've actually been over this, the righteous one will live by faith. We've been over this in a sermon before.

It's picked up from an Old Testament passage in Habakkuk and it's mentioned here and it's mentioned in James and we'll see it multiple times and I'll come back to this verse a lot. Consider the gospel and if that's what you believe, where you put your faith, then you're going to live according to that. We'll talk about that next week.