Gospel Power

This morning we look to the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel Paul proclaimed, the same gospel I proclaim today, and we see that Paul declares with confidence that he will never end up feeling like the Zoom Zoom sales department. There is no shame in the gospel he has presented. No one will ever be bamboozled by this gospel. And so we are going to look at Romans 1:16-17 this morning, but to get there, we need to get some context, so I will be reading from the beginning of the chapter in a moment.

There is a reason we need this context. You see, in many bibles, verses 16 & 17 are separated as their own paragraph, and many bibles have a subtitle there. Mine says “The righteous shall live by faith”. However, Paul himself did not separate these from the longer greeting of the letter, nor did he put in subtitles over different sections of his letter. Those came later. He also didn’t number the chapters and verses, but enough on that.

In verse 16, most translations rightly start with the word for. However, at least a couple translations leave the word for out, and this is too bad. It lends to the wrong understanding that this is somehow a new and separate though Paul is beginning, rather than part of the previous words, the greeting. So I will read from 1-17, and this way we can see what Paul is building to:

Romans 1:1–17 ESV

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

In the intro to this letter, Paul begins by saying who he is, what he is called to do, and who the letter is written to, and then he commends the church by telling them he thanks God for them, praying for them, longing to come and visit them, and that he is obligated to share the gospel. Now he continues, and declares he is not ashamed, because this gospel is powerful and has salvation power for those who believe it in faith.

Paul isn’t selling finding out he forgot to put out the guest towels, he hasn’t found out he worked for a company that has ruined its reputation. He knows and has confidence that the gospel is reliable. I am not ashamed. He has and will have no feelings of guilt, he will never be embarrassed, he will have no remorse for preaching this gospel. Paul is saying “I don’t have to worry about having wrongly put my faith in this gospel”. He has confidence and loyalty to Jesus Christ.

Paul has not put blind trust in Jesus, he has been radically commissioned by Christ for this mission. His life was interrupted by the Author of this gospel, and Paul has realized that this gospel is not something believed on because of an emotional experience alone, but rather that the Holy Scriptures pointed to Christ, and when the scales fell off His eyes, He knew the truth of Christ because God himself had revealed it to him.

Paul is not ashamed of this gospel, even though he has endured the kind of suffering that most people would feel some shame for because of his preaching. And we have nothing to be ashamed of if we believe it; though the world may mock us, we can know with confidence that this gospel is true, as long as we stay reminded of God’s Faithfulness. No, we need not be ashamed, in fact, it probably should be the other way around. One writer said the real wonder is that God is not ashamed of us. He is faithful when we are faithless.

So there is no shame in the gospel, and Paul adds that the gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. We will get to the Jew first and the Greek in a moment, but first, let’s consider what Paul meant by “the power of God”.

The word translated power here is due-na-mees. The same root word is the word that the word dynamite comes from, but this doesn’t mean Paul was talking about some explosive, destructive power. After all, dynamite was not yet around. But the word Due-Na-mees means strength, force, or capability. It could mean that there are resources available to make something happen.

And who has more resources than God? So God’s infinite resources are applied to the goal of salvation through the gospel. And the gospel means the good news, the glad tidings. Paul is saying that he is not ashamed to tell the good news about Jesus because when he shares this good news, God uses his preaching and brings salvation, and not only that, but God puts his inexhaustible resources to work to bring about the salvation of everyone who believes. When someone believes this gospel, it is God who gets the credit for the salvation, not the preacher, not the church, and certainly not the one being saved because of their faith. The credit, all of it, is God’s.

Sometimes people who have been granted the privilege to share the gospel and have seen people respond to it call themselves “soul-winners”. I think we need to recognize that there is one Soul-winner, and that is the one whose power is in this gospel.

What does he mean, “to the Jew first and also the Greek”? Jesus himself said salvation comes from the Jews, and this is true, and Paul’s pattern of preaching was to first go to the synagogue and preach. And there he may have some Jewish converts, and some who reject the gospel, and then he feels free to move on to non-Jews, also called gentiles.

And I won’t spend too much time on this, but when Paul said also the Greek, he is not saying only Jews and people from Greece get to hear the gospel. In Paul’s phrasing, Greek is just a way of saying everyone else who is not Jewish. Some translations say Gentile instead of Greek. In other words, Paul is saying this gospel is for everyone. It isn’t the gospel for the Jews, it isn’t the white man’s gospel, it is for all who believe, and in the way off speaking at that time, Paul is simply saying the gospel is for everyone, regardless of their ethnicity.

In fact, there were non-Jewish people who were referred to as God-fearers. They were people who were not Jewish by blood, but believed that the God of the Jews was the true God, and many of them worshiped at the temple and were considered to be converts or proselytes to Judaism. So when Paul went to the synagogue to preach the gospel, both Jewish and Greek, or Gentile believers in the God of the Bible, would be among the first in each community to hear the gospel.

Moving on to the righteousness of God. God’s righteousness is a bankable righteousness. It is a word that means justice, fulfillment of the law.

Righteous is fulfilling obligations. A person who fulfills a covenant or contract is righteous, though we may not use that term so much today, but they would be trustworthy, have a good reputation.

We have a resource that we can use today to see if a business is trustworthy. Among the ways we can see how reliable something is or how dependable a business is, we can use Yelp, or Craig’s list, or Angie’s list, or we can see the Better Business Bureau stamp of approval, or we can look at JD Powers ratings, and so on. I like to purchase things from website that have ratings on them. I don’t normally take my chances on a product that has less than 4 stars on Amazon. The more the product costs, the more carefully I research the reviews, and there are two things to look at. The ratings for the product, and the ratings for the customer service. Both are important.

Someone once recommended a particular brand of sandals to us, and I bought them for myself and the girls. Some time later, I noticed that the stitching on one of my sandals was coming undone. I went on the website, filled out a warranty request, snapped a photo of the sandal and the receipt, and a day later I received an email from the company giving me credit to purchase another pair free of charge from the website, and they didn’t even make me mail in the defective ones.

I ordered the new ones and shortly afterward they were in the mailbox, and I think that is pretty righteous. Of course, we all have stories that go the other way as well, but Paul says here that not only is the power of God at work in the gospel, by which he means the presentation of preaching of the gospel, but that God’s righteousness is revealed. His infinite power is working this out, but also his perfect Yelp rating is behind it, so that the salvation to all who believe is solid, and both the preacher and the hearer can have complete confidence that they will never be put to shame because of this gospel.

Does God “make righteous” or “count righteous”? Well, for many centuries this was an ongoing argument between the Catholics and Protestants. And there is a lot of discussion that can go with this, but rather than focus on the argument, let’s consider what is really happening when someone believes this gospel. Righteousness is a gift which has the character of power and God is sovereignly active in it.

Perhaps another way to think about it is that God’s righteousness enables and in fact achieves man’s righteousness. The person whose righteousness comes from faith in God at once relies on His faithfulness and recognizes one’s own inability to become righteous. God’s righteousness is imputed on the believer. Only he can do this. We cannot do it for ourselves. The bad news is we can’t save ourselves, the good news, the gospel, is that He provides us with imputed righteousness.

One thing that is prudent is to be careful of who you cosign a loan for. I have heard advice given to those who would cosign. Some say never do it. Some say if you cosign, assume you will be paying off the whole loan and be prepared to do so. The person who needs a cosigner is one who cannot get the loan on their own merit. The banker looks at their righteousness. Do they have the resources, the power, the due-na-mees, to pay back the loan? Do they have good character that has proved reliable in the past?

And the banker that tells the person seeking the loan they need a cosigner has determined that one of these two things is lacking. Either the person does not have the resources to make the payments, or their character in regards to paying their bills, which is reflected today through credit reports, is either not established, they have never proven they can pay back a loan, or they have either paid late or defaulted in the past.

Someone is needed to cosign, someone who has the resources and the reputation, or righteousness, to make the banker feel comfortable that the loan will indeed be paid. If someone with good reputation and good credit cosigns, and the payments are not being paid by the one who got the loan, the cosigner will make good for the sake of his own name, and thank God, we need not rely on our own ability to be righteous, but God will make righteous those who believe for the sake of His name.

So believing the gospel is like realizing that we have a debt, a sin debt, that we are utterly unable to pay back on our own. And the banker needs to be paid. We have no capital of our own, no resources, we have no righteousness on our own, no reputation to rely on. The only thing we can do is call out to our cosigner and say, “I can’t pay. I am trusting in your promise to pay for me.”

Psalm 31:1 ESV

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me!

Isaiah 46:13 ESV

I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.”

Isaiah 51:5–8 ESV

My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed. “Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool, but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations.”

So in the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. So what does he mean from faith for faith? Another way to put it is to say the from God’s faithfulness to man’s response of faith.

Finally, we see that reference Paul makes to Habakuk 2:4, the righteous shall live by faith,

Habakkuk 2:4 ESV

“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

Galatians 3:11 ESV

Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Hebrews 10:35–39 ESV

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

And then in Chapter 11, the writer of Hebrews drives home, using example after example, in what some call the heroes of faith passage, because this is an important point to understand, that it has always been and always will be that the only way anyone is saved is through faith. The only way anyone can be declared righteous is through faith. The writer of Hebrews is saying throughout chapter 11 “look, it is by faith. It is the assurance of things hoped fro, the conviction of things not seen.”

In Hebrews, we see that it is by faith we believe God created the universe out of nothing, Ex nilo. Abel offered his sacrifice by faith. Enoch was taken up by faith. Noah built the ark by faith. Abraham obeyed God by faith, lived in the land of promise by faith, Sarah received power to conceive by faith. On and on.

Then he says that these all died in faith, not having seen the thing they believed in because of God’s promise, that is, they did not live to see Jesus die for their sins to make good on that promise.

People often ask how the old testament saints were saved if they hadn’t heard of Jesus. They are saved because of faith. They believed God, and even though they had little to go on other than God’s promise, they believed in faith, and this was counted as righteousness. They were commended for their faith, and God has provided something better for us:

Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Romans 1:16–17 ESV

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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

You will never need to be ashamed of this gospel. You never need to be, but are you sometimes? Let’s take a moment of honest reflection. What would being ashamed of the gospel look like? Well, I’m afraid it would look an awful lot like many Christians today. Perhaps you have hear things like this: “I’m a believer, but my faith is private. I don’t go around making a big deal of it”. “I just want to live our a good life, maybe someone will notice and then I will share my faith”. You know, there is a famous quote attributed to St. Francis of Assissi. Supposedly he said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Use words if necessary.” I’ve heard this quote from pulpits probably dozens of times in my life. There are 2 problems with this quote. One minor problem and one major problem. The minor problem is that St. Francis probably never said it. No historian has ever found a direct link between him and the quote. I have no idea whether he said it. However, I would like to address the major problem with it, and that is that it is profoundly unbiblical. You cannot preach or share the gospel without words. You will never find someone was converted because some Christian was nice to them or was a good neighbor or a good coworker.

The power of the gospel Paul writes about is not in niceness or politeness. Now, certainly you should endeavor to be a kind and generous and nice person, but make no mistake. No one will ever be saved, no one will ever get up with a true salvation testimony and say, “I am saved because of the niceness of a person who was in my life.” Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of Christ. You cannot hear what was never spoken. You cannot hear actions. The gospel must be shared.

Yet why do so many Christians go covertly into their lives? How many of those friends and neighbors may say, “yes, he is a nice person, or she is so kind”, yet when asked why, all they can do is shrug their shoulders? Could it be that many professing Christians have never shared the gospel with people do not do so because they are ashamed? Perhaps you are sitting here this morning and you know that you cannot provide a good explanation as to why you do not share the gospel.

Not sharing the gospel could be a symptom of a serious problem. Perhaps you are not confident in your own salvation, so you share not. Perhaps you feel ashamed that someone may break away from you, and so you share not. In other words, for the sake of someone’s friendship, you avoid sharing what may save their eternal life. Perhaps you do not have any burning desire to see the lost come to Christ. This is also a major problem. There may be many other reasons why people do not share the gospel, but in some way or other, they are probably wrapped up in these ones.

What can we do about that? How can we join Paul in having such confidence in the gospel, knowing it is the power of God for salvation? How can we share his passion for the lost? The answer to almost every major problem in life is very simple, yet very difficult. Repent and believe. Repent and believe is what the sinner who has never come to Christ must do. Repent and believe is what every Christian caught up in a sinful pattern must do to break free. And if we would have a sinful pattern of disobeying Christ, and not sharing the gospel, then we have something we have to do: Repent and believe. Repent means to turn. Turn around. Change the behavior. Repent, and believe.

The result of repenting and believing? Restored Joy. Restored relationship. Restored passion.

Are there any in the church who have been here for years and remain unconverted? Are there any hypocrites here? Have you been pretending to be a believer but have never truly come to Christ? Repent and believe. Have you found yourself convicted by this sermon, realizing you have failed Christ by not sharing his gospel with the lost He has placed you in the midst of? Repent and Believe.

Confession of sin is a first step. Confession is simply agreeing with God that the sin you have committed is a sin. But confession alone will not save you or change you. You must take a step beyond confession and repent, turn around. Turn from the sin and turn towards Christ and his way, his life, his commands, and His Great Commission.

The verses I have been preaching are a bridge. Paul wasn’t done yet when he said that he was not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation, in it the righteousness of God is revealed, and then Paul continues with a “for”, this means that he is about to expand on the thought he was just making. What is the “for”?

Romans 1:18–25 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

The gospel is not to be ashamed of, for the wrath of God is being heaped up against all unbelievers. They are rebels against God. Their sin ay be funny and amusing to them, but it is deadly serious, and all unbelievers are going to experience the wrath of God. There is only one thing that is powerful enough to stem the tide of the wrath of God that is inevitably coming to the unbeliever, and that is the power of the gospel, the power of God for salvation to all who believe, so we must not be ashamed of that gospel, we must embrace it and embrace the proclamation of it as our own duty.

God is still saving wretched sinners, and he has called you, Oasis Church, to be part of his miraculous, powerful, saving work. This power is found in the gospel. Are you ashamed of it? Ask yourself why. Do some soul-searching. Repent and believe. I do not claim to know the hearts of all. God does. But the chances are there are people in here, perhaps some who have been coming to church their whole lives, who have yet to truly repent and believe. What will keep you from it? Let you pride be broken and come to Christ! Repent and believe. God can still save you. He would delight to do so! IT is to His glory and honor when a sinner repents. Heaven rejoices when sinners repent.

If you have been in the church for many years and have never or rarely shared the gospel, now is the time to repent. Now is the time for revival to come into your life and into this church. If you would like to see God move, He will. Repent and believe.

Finally, if you have been fearful to share your faith, repent of that fear, and ask God to grant you the confidence and empowerment of His Holy Spirit to share the gospel. This is a prayer that I know He will answer.

Jude 24 ESV

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,

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