I am Not Ashamed
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
The gospel of Jesus Christ. That there is a loving God that saves the lost. This is the message of the church, all of God’s children. The message, that there is a loving God that draws those that are far near, who turn enemies to sons and daughters. Who sets those in bondage free. The gospel that is the greatest news that we can ever hear. The message that we have set our hope of eternal life on. It is the message of Paul, the driving force in his life, his ministry to the Lord. To take the promise of redemption to the Gentiles.
In his greeting he speaks of the gospel. In the passage last week we looked at the motives that Paul shares to the Christians in Rome. He has heard of the effect on their lives and their faith is being heard of all over the world. He longs to be with them to strengthen and encourage them and to be mutually strengthened in return.
He has this urgency to be with them and to explain much of what has been revealed to him. We see in the letters of the New Testament, the struggle that the early church dealt with against groups of people that would take the simple message of salvation and twist it, discount it, mold it, adjust it, or ignore it. There were constant threats to the truth of the gospel.
Paul writes to this church because he has been prevented from going there in person. He communicates foundational truths about the work and will of God. He is likely filling in the ares that they may not have been taught and also defining doctrines and truths that need to be held up in the church. As the church is the pillar of truth as he calls it in his 1st letter to Timothy.
He has introduced himself as the author, shared his motivations with them and now he comes to the theme of the letter. Turn with me to Romans 1:16-17.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
This is a message that Paul has full confidence in. He is not ashamed of it. He is not embarrassed to be called a Christian, he does not feel guilt or shame to call himself a slave of the Lord. These are the words of his Lord. And he stands out to the front of the line, like David before the giant Philistine Goliath. There is a boldness in men who are not ashamed of their God and his will for their lives. They lose their own life in living for the one who saved them.
Jesus taught the crowd.
34 Calling the crowd along with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me and the gospel will save it. 36 For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life? 37 What can anyone give in exchange for his life? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
This letter will be a bold proclamation of the will of God as he has revealed it to Paul. In it there will be reoccurring themes that flow through his writing. All of which he has already addressed indirectly in his earlier part of this letter.
He will expound on the work and power of God. The power of God as shown through the saving work of Jesus. That this Salvation is recieved by faith alone. The one who believes will be a new creation, will be one of God’s righteous ones in position. And the transforming work of God will be shown in his peoples obedience and application of his word in their life.
Today we are going to set that framework of his letter. To look at each of these areas to briefly set up how we can gain much from this letter.
Paul will write about the:
God’s power in the Gospel.
Salvation by Faith
The Righteous will Live by Faith
God’s Power in the Gospel
God’s Power in the Gospel
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.
Paul, says I am not ashamed of this message because it is the power of God for salvation. This message isn’t a meme or a bumper sticker. It isn’t something that comes and goes with this fad or that fad. Forgotten from one generation to the next. It is the power of God. In the good news of Jesus is the power of God.
What is power? What do you think of when something is described as powerful?
Power comes down to the ability to accomplish a task.
I cannot count how many times we have taken down and moved these chairs. But every time we do there are children that want to help so much. They will sit there and push and push, they will try to pull and eventually. They move on to something else. Even though they have the greatest intentions of helping it just isn’t in their power to do so.
Power comes from a root word that means. Power : be able or can
This is what the Greek word used by Paul means. The word he used is dynamis which is where we get dynamite. An explosion that can move a mountain.
When the bible uses this word, it is communicating that a person or God can do certain things. For instance Power was given to the Apostles. When they were performing miracles they were ask where their ability to do this came from.
7 After they had Peter and John stand before them, they began to question them: “By what power or in what name have you done this?”
Stephen was full of grace and power.
8 Now Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people.
He was given the ability to do great wonders and signs. This power cause him to be able to do things that others could not.
Stephen’s power and that of the prophets and apostles is nothing compared to the great and eternal power of God. If he is sovereign, meaning that none have higher authority than him, if he is all powerful, it means that nothing can hinder what he wants to do. His power is unending without beginning or end.
20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
God gave different people power at different times to bring forth his plans and to testify to the power his name. He gave so many abilities in the bible to people. miracles: to heal, resurrection, Power to cast out demons.
Even today we have the power of God at work in us.
20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Here in this passage he in not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for salvation. Almost everyone here could move a chair from one side of the room to the other. That is in our power to do. But there are less that can move a refrigerator, or a truck, as the task gets heavier, there are fewer and fewer that it is in their own power to accomplish.
When it come to saving sinners, there is only one who has the power to do so. There is only one who could perform the task, there is only one who is able to save sinners from the wrath of God. That one person is God himself. And of all of the ways that he could have decided to accomplish the task of salvation, he choose to use the gospel message of Jesus. A message that is the power of God to accomplish salvation for the lost.
The salvation for every one who believes.
Salvation by Faith
Salvation by Faith
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.
The Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Everyone who trusts in the message. The word for salvation means to rescue or heal. For there to be salvation a person must be rescued from something. Too many people see salvation as something other than a rescue. Salvation is to save them from the hurt in this life, or to save from financial crisis or many other things. But the gospel message only has one objective, to save sinners from the eternal separation, spiritual death, and punishment of God for their own transgressions and sins.
Think of what is accomplished in rescuing a enemy of God. Forgiveness, Grace, Mercy, drawing men and women that do not have any desire to come to him on their own, transforming who they are, taking them from darkness to light, giving them everything to live, dwelling in them, giving them new desires, bestowing spiritual gifts, turning hearts from rebellion to worship, giving spiritual life. Can any of this be done by Man?
8 Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, to make his power known.
The power of God for salvation of a specific people. everyone who believes. Everyone who puts their trust in the message of Jesus. The message that was given to the Jews first and also to the Greeks and gentiles. He will explain this in much more detail as there was a large struggle for Jews to leave a life of trust in work and to live in faith.
It is only the power of God that can save a sinner. It is something only He can do, the only one who is able. Like a man trapped in the most secure cell for crimes he is guilty of. He in himself has no ability to get out and no one has the ability to help them out of the cell. It is only God who can do this act of salvation.
The power to take a dead man and give him life. God has all power. Satan only has the power to distract, and draw away.
Man doesn’t have the power to save themselves. But we are told we do. Control your life, build your kingdom. Be you, get this or get that and you will be everything that you want. Get that money, it is not enough, get that car, it isn’t enough. Get the perfect spouse, they are not enough, biggest house, fame, fortune, status, find the perfect church, the holiest position. all of it does not have the ability to do this one thing, save a sinner.
The feelings of emptiness, guilt, sadness, discontentment, lead to discouragement and despair. All of the things that promise you a better life, do not come though for you. They let you down because they do not have what you need the most. You need to be changed, be something different that what you are today.
This is the power of God that is at work in those that believe. The power to save is only in the hands of God. Men can not earn it. Can not obtain it, Cannot buy it, Can not stumble upon it, They cannot work for it. It must be given by the only one with the power to save.
For we are helpless
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
For he did what we could not do.
3 For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering,
Not what the world thinks
18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved.
24 Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, 25 because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
Over and over again the bible will tell us of the power of God and the weakness of men. We have testimonies and histories. We have been changed and we still dismiss what is only in the ability of God to do and attempt to rely on our own power. Like the like child who doesn’t have the strength to even start to move the chair, they push and push, but to no avail. It doesn’t budge an inch but when you lean over to help. The child looks up defiantly and says “me do it”, “me do it”. Instead of accepting the help to do what they cannot they continue to struggle with a task they cannot accomplish.
There must be an understanding of what is in our power and what is in the Lords. What we are to do and what only he can do. We will see him at work and many times when we stop saying “me do it” we will see the great plan of God revealed before our very eyes.
Those that are saved are the ones who believe. Who trust in the power of God alone to save them.
One survey found that more than 60% of born-again Christians, between the ages of 18-39 do not believe that God is the only one who has power to save. They believe that Buddha and Muhammad are also people who have the power to save. If this is true then 60% of these professed Christians need to just read the first chapter of Romans to know that God’s word does not agree with them.
Another study found that a majority of Christians maintain a “works-oriented” means to salvation. Be a good person, give, be a faithful participant, don’t swear, follow the ten commandments. Pray enough, have faith enough, and the list goes on. But that would mean that God cannot save men in his own power but that he has to do part of the work and man has to do the other part. This is not the Gospel.
A large number of Christians believe that salvation can be earned.
A plurality of adults (48 percent) believe that if a person is generally good, or does enough good things during their life, they will “earn” a place in heaven. Only one-third of adults (35 percent) disagree.
A majority of Americans who describe themselves as Christian (52 percent) also accept a “works-oriented” means to God’s acceptance—even those associated with churches whose official doctrine says eternal salvation comes only from embracing Jesus Christ as savior. Almost half of all adults associated with Pentecostal (46 percent), mainline Protestant (44 percent), and evangelical (41 percent) churches, as well as nearly two-thirds of Catholics (70 percent), hold that view.
While about 65 percent of American adults describe themselves as Christians, only about half (54 percent) believe they will experience heaven after they die. Only one-third of adults (33 percent) believe they will go to heaven solely because of confessing their sins and embracing Jesus as their savior. Another one-in-five expecting to experience heaven are counting on earning their way in or because they embrace universalism (i.e., that God will let all people into heaven).
In MacArthur's commentary on this passage he writes.
Salvation through Christ is God’s powerful hand, as it were, that He has let down to lift men up. His salvation brings deliverance from the spiritual infection of “this perverse generation” (
It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The statistics show a fundamental misunderstanding of what belief is. It is trusting in the God for your salvation. Trusting in the word as the means to understand salvation. This is such an important part of the understanding of the scriptures. Paul uses this the verb form “believes” 20 times and the noun “faith” nearly forty times in Romans alone. 60 times Paul will reference or describe belief and faith.
For salvation is not by works so no one can boast but by faith.
8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast.
For the first 11 chapters of this letter Paul will write to correct error and teach about the power of God’s salvation. Then Chapters 12-16 will speak about a life lived that has been changed by the gift of God. In this gift God’s righteousness is revealed.
The Righteous Will Live by Faith
The Righteous Will Live by Faith
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
Paul is not ashamed of the Gospel because it is God’s power to save those that believe and it reveals the righteousness of God and the righteous will live by faith.
This is another main theme of the book of Romans. This theme of God’s revealed righteousness and the people of God will live by faith is repeated over 35 times in this letter. As God gives his righteousness to believers his righteousness is revealed.
Fighting against the natural man who thinks he is good on his own is shown the error of his thinking. The one who thinks that God isn’t holy and perfect cannot get through this letter unscathed. For the righteous of man is empty and dirty.
6 All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
For a believers righteousness in credited to him. Given to him. Not based on works but on faith alone.
5 But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.
Paul believed this personally for himself.
8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.
And this is critical to the understanding of the work of the cross and the gospel of Jesus.
21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. 22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith. This is a phase that many disagree with what is really ment here. There are tons of “faith to faith” devotionals, books, ministries, and other things that are completely heretical. They take this phrase and twist its meaning. But when you look back at what Paul has already written. Salvation is given to a person at the moment of faith and belief. This is one half of the coin. Those who have been truly saved will live in obedience to God’s will for their lives. They will seek to honor the words of God in their lives. Faith and obedience are always closely linked.
James talks about the connection between faith and works. Peter tells the church to supplement their faith.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, 6 knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, 7 godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins. 10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. 11 For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.
Those that dismiss the will of God, must question if they have been saved at all. We are not talking about struggling to do the will but just disregard to Holy Scriptures. To Love the Lord
36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
How can a person claim to Love the Lord if they do not care to hear him speak? Jesus said they will know you are my disciples by how you love one another.
How can a person say they have put their trust in Jesus as their Lord and savior and then not trust his words. The bible teaches that faith and obedience are hand in hand. You cannot have believed in the saving gospel of God if you are not seeking to live in the light of that Gospel.
Even the great commission ties these two together.
18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
For the righteous will live by faith. The Romans were known as a people by their faith their lives reflected that trust.
5 This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the person who trusts in mankind. He makes human flesh his strength, and his heart turns from the Lord. 6 He will be like a juniper in the Arabah; he cannot see when good comes but dwells in the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land where no one lives. 7 The person who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence indeed is the Lord, is blessed. 8 He will be like a tree planted by water: it sends its roots out toward a stream, it doesn’t fear when heat comes, and its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit.
The gospel was given to lead people to an obedience of faith. This will be the focus on the second part of this letter as Paul addresses different ways that those that are saved are to live.
Conclusion
Conclusion
In these two verses Paul lays out his focus for this letter.
He will continue to teach on the power of God revealed in salvation.
He will teach on the details of salvation by faith.
He will teach on the life changed by this faith.
Are we ashamed of the Gospel.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Blessing/Benediction
20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
