I Am Not Ashamed of the Gospel

(Romans 1:8-17)

Introduction:

The title of our lesson this morning is . . . and this title is taken from the next to last verse we will read this morning, verse 16. And it does seem to me as if many in the church today are ashamed of the Gospel, aren’t they? Many of the high profile so-called evangelical leaders are getting shy about proclaiming the whole counsel of God! Some years ago, in what has since become even more true of the church, John MacArthur wrote a book entitled Ashamed of the Gospel, When the Church Becomes Like the World. In that book, he gave an example of a well-known pastor writing in a Christian magazine. He wrote right before New Year’s Eve and he was resolving to do better in the coming year. “That means,” he wrote, “wasting less time listening to long sermons and spending much more time preparing short ones. People, I’ve discovered, will forgive even poor theology as long as they get out before noon.” Bad doctrine is tolerable; a long sermon most certainly is not.

Sometimes a long sermon is the result of a preacher’s inflated ego, but whenever our first consideration is that we get out of church before noon, then you can bank on our churches being weak and ineffective in their witness, can’t you? And you can also bank on most individual Christians being weak and ineffective in their witness too. As the pulpit goes, the old saying tells us, so goes the church! And that is a truth some of these pastors who have decided to preach a feel-good Gospel need to take to heart. Listen, any preacher that has decided to empty the Gospel of its reason for being had better be sure they are right, because if they are not, then I sure wouldn’t want to be them when it comes time to explain themselves to the righteous Judge.

And what is the reason for the Gospel? Why is the Gospel such good news? Let me tell you it ain’t good news because God wants to bless us, although He most certainly does, but the Gospel is good news because, for Christ’s sake, God will not pour His wrath out on us for our sin! And the church had better get back to the basics if it wants revival in America, because revival will never come if all we have are a bunch of self-satisfied, self-centered, unregenerate sinners sitting in our pews. What the church must have for revival is a bunch of repentant sinners on their knees at the altar! And guys, we won’t get that by patting folks on the head and telling them they are OK! That God loves no matter what! God does love us, guys, but God hates sin! And we are not going to have revival through church growth programs either. Revival comes through the prayer and repentance of God’s people.

The Apostle Paul spends the better part of three chapters in this wonderful letter to the Roman churches telling them that they are sinners, that the whole world is lost in its sin. He doesn’t tell them they all they need to do is think positive thoughts, he tells them they must take an honest look into their soul, realizing the depth of their sin. Paul didn’t preach a message of self-worth, he preached one of our depravity, and of the matchless worth of Christ. The good news ain’t good unless we know the bad news first, is it? And we will spend a couple of weeks on our passage this morning, taking our time, as we attempt to come to grips with, not only the thought of the great Apostle Paul, but really we must come to grips with the deep thought of the Holy Spirit. God is speaking through Paul in the book of Romans in a profound way. And among the many things we will see in this passage are Paul’s motivations for ministry, the many different reasons Paul wanted to come to Rome to see these Roman Christians.

I. Paul’s Thanksgiving and Prayer (Rom. 1:8-10)

1. Gratitude (1:8)

(1 One of the very first things we see here is Paul’s thanksgiving for the Roman believers. Paul lived and breathed gratitude to God for all things, didn’t he? Paul is saying in verse 8, before I go on to other matters, let me tell how grateful I am for you! That is wonderful enouragement, isn’t it? We have to always consider the times that the early church found herself in, especially here in the capital city of the mightiest empire the world had ever known up to that time. Everywhere believers lived, they were a minority, weren’t they? Often a persecuted minority. So, for someone of the stature of the Apostle Paul to write and tell these Roman Christians how his heart was filled with thanksgiving because of them would have been a great encouragement. Look at your Bibles verse 8.

(2 In all of Paul’s epistles, except for Galatians, he wrote how thankful he was for the churches there. Paul was so angry over the false teaching that the Galatian churches had embraced that he allowed his anger to seep into the letter he wrote them. But were these praises he handed out obligatory compliments, or were they sincere, straight from the great Apostle’s heart? Sometimes we compliment people, or tell them how much of a blessing they are to us, to kind of steer the conversation away from substantive language into pretty meaningless bromides, or cliches. We don’t really mean what we are saying, right? But I would say that what Paul is expressing here are sincerely felt emotions that he had for this fimly established Christian presence in the mostly pagan city of Rome. He was grateful for them. They blessed him.

(3 And so notice also that Paul wrote that their faith was known throughout the whole world. Now, does that mean the Chinese had heard of this church at Rome? Or the folks down in Ethiopia? Well, the Chinese might not have, but the I’m going to say the Ethiopian eunuch that Phillip led to the Lord out there on the desert started a revival when he got home, and so some of the news from other churches got down there, too. Sometimes we get this false idea that everything that happened in the ancient world happened in isolation from everyone else, that news didn’t travel long distances. History, of course, tells us just the opposite, doesn’t it? News in NT times didn’t travel nearly as quickly as it does in our rapid-fire information age, but news did get from one place to another, even traveling for great distances. This was true for much of the ancient world even before Rome, but was especially true after the Roman armies had enforced the Roman peace, and built the vaunted Roman roads. People traveled, and when people travel, news travels, right? You see, NT times occurred right at the height of the Roman Empire. God placed the Gospel message during a time when news would have the greatest chance of traveling quickly. And along with the good news of the Gospel, news of the churches was spread about as well.

(4 And so Paul is saying, I believe, that much of the Roman world was abuzz about the faith of the church at Rome. I wonder if that can be said of the faith of the church in America. You know, sometimes I feel that I might come down too hard on certain practices of the church in our country; that maybe I’m stepping out of line. After all, I only have a couple of years of Bible college; I didn’t graduate from seminary; I really only graduated from high school. But I am not stupid, and I can read. I read a lot! And listen, I have read the Bible from, In the beginning, to even so come, Lord Jesus, many times in the nine years I have been saved. I have taught through over half of the NT verse by verse, and some of the OT as well. I have never gone off on my own when I prepare a Bible study, I systematically consult far more learned men than myself, allowing their insights to inform the insights that I believe the Holy Spirit has given me.

(5 So, what I am trying to get at, even though I fully realize my shortcomings, it is nearly incomprehensible to me how an alleged preacher of the Gospel can stand up in his pulpit time after time and not ever mention the word sin! Listen, nobody wants to talk about sin; I don’t! I wish sin didn’t exist, I wish we all did the right things all the time! But we don’t, do we? I don’t! You don’t! No one does! That is why Jesus came to die, isn’t it? Hear me now, you cannot, you cannot, preach the Gospel and never mention sin! You might be preaching something, but it ain’t the Gospel. The good news, as I said, is not even sensible until we know why we so desperately need it. You say Jesus died on the cross? Why? To make us feel better about ourselves? To give us a bigger home, a better car, so we can send our kids to the best schools? So that we might have a relationship with God? So that we might be more able to meet the needs of others? So that we might be successful? All those might be true, but they are not the reasons Jesus came into the world to die, are they? Guys, Jesus died on the cross of Calvary for God’s glory, and so that we might avoid the wrath of a holy God poured out on us for our SIN! Look over at 1:18. You see, if we truly believe that God hates sin, and is truly angry over our sin, then at that point the Gospel becomes very good news, doesn’t it? Otherwise, you know what? It is really stupid and meaningless. And Paul says in verse 8 that he is really thankful to God, through the Lord Jesus Christ, for the steadfast faith of the Roman believers.

2. Prayer (1:9-10)

(1 And then he goes on in our next two verses and tells his readers how much he has prayed for them, lifting them up to the Lord. Look at your Bibles, verses 9-10.

(2 Paul was a praying man, wasn’t he? In every letter Paul wrote he told the recipients that he prayed for them, that he prayed for their success. He also frequently asked his readers to pray for him, as well as each other. In 1 Thessalonians 4:17, Paul wrote, Pray without ceasing. In Philippians 4:6 (KJV)

6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. Jesus prayed, didn’t He? Everywhere you turn in Scripture you run full into men and women who pray. Prayer is a fundamental part of the life of every believer.

(3 I will even go so far as to say that there will be no prayerless Christians in heaven. It is not that prayer saves us, or that our prayers are always what they should be, but it is that the Holy Spirit will not allow a true Christian to live his or life out without ever praying! The people of God pray! Right? And so did Paul. Paul prayed for the people who were under his authority. He prayed for those that God had given him to serve. The word prayer is found around 55 times in the NT. The words pray, praying, or prayed over 100 times. Praying is central to the life of believers, isn’t it?

(4 One of the great joys of being a Christian is when another believer comes to you and tells you they are praying for you. Not just when you are having trouble, but they just tell you that they are praying for you and your family. They got you on their prayer list. That is such an encouragement for us, isn’t it?

(5 But prayer sometimes doesn’t come easily to us, does it? And sometimes we take our responsibility to pray too lately. All of us do! We don’t allocate enough time during the day get alone with the Lord to pour our hearts out to him. We find prayer to be a difficult discipline at times, don’t we? One of the reasons we find it so difficult at times is that it is a discipline; prayer is something we must purpose to do, and it is something the devil will delight in hindering us from doing.

(6 Have you ever been praying and then had a thought totally unrelated to what you were praying about pop into your head? Our minds wander. We are easily distracted. And there might be no time that we are as vulnerable to the attacks of the devil as when we are attempting to clear our minds of all distractions, and kneel down to pray. Why is this so? I don’t know for sure, but it might be because the devil knows how powerful prayer can be. The time spent alone with God changes who we are, doesn’t it? And the devil doesn’t want that! Many years ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words, “A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others.” It is going to be really, really hard to continue to hate, harbor bitterness, or have nothing to do with someone you are praying for regularly.

(7 Paul’s love for others had its genesis in his faithfully praying for others, didn’t it? That is why we pray for others; that is why we pray for God to work in our lives; that is why we pray period! Not to change God’s mind, but to change us! God works in our lives in many ways: corporate worship, Bible study, fasting, private meditation on God’s Word; but there is no more powerful method for God working in a believer’s life than through the medium of prayer. Where we get alone with God and pour our hearts out to Him.

(8 Paul wrote powerfully of the difficulties believers can have praying later in the book of Romans. In chapter 8, that most glorious of chapters in this most glorious of Paul’s letters, he writes a curious thing, doesn’t he? He writes that the Holy Spirit, God Himself in the Person of the Spirit, aids believers when they are having a tough time praying, when the storms of life are building on the horizon, or are right now howling through a believer’s soul. That fact is a great comfort, isn’t it? Let’s turn quickly to Romans 8:26-27 and see what Paul means. As always, when we get to this passage in our study, we will discuss it more fully, but I do want to touch on it this morning. Look at your Bibles, Rom. 8:26-27.

(9 Let me ask you a question: Is there anyone here who has never had a time in their life when prayer was difficult, if not impossible. When you wanted to pray, but for whatever the reason, prayer just wouldn’t come? The words you wanted to say to the Lord were locked someplace tight, and you just couldn’t find the key? If we are honest with ourselves, we must all admit there are times when we cannot pray. There are times when we desperately need a fresh touch from the Lord, but are unable to do anything more than present ourselves to Him, locked away in our silence and solitude. What is Paul telling us here in these two verses?

(10 Sometimes the agony of our lives prevents us from praying. Sometimes it might be the very nature of our brokenness for some sin in our lives that prevents us from coming to Lord with real words, or even a real coherent thought. I will confess that that has happened in my life. But here is how A. T. Robertson interpreted verse 26: The Holy Spirit says those things we want to say but cannot mouth. The Spirit lays hold of our weaknesses along with us and carries His part of the burden along with us as if two men were carrying a log, one at each end.

(11 The Holy Spirit comes along side of believers and makes intercession for us when we are in such turmoil all we can do is just bring ourselves. That is a marvelous act of grace, isn’t it? The Holy Spirit does not give armchair advice. He rolls up his sleeves and helps us bear our weakness. That is real help. That is real comfort!

(12 So Paul prayed for these people in Rome, also telling them that he wanted to come there to be with them. He was thankful for them, he prayed for them, and he wanted to visit them. Paul was the real deal, wasn’t he? A brilliant theologian, a tireless evangelist and missionary, a prolific letter writer, and a man with a genuine pastor’s heart, loving people as the Lord Jesus Christ had commanded him.

II. Paul’s Desire for Mutual Encouragement (Rom. 1:11-12)

1. Mutual Encouragement and Comfort (1:11-12)

(1 Go back to chapter one and let’s pick back up at verses 11-12. Look at your Bibles.

(2 What does Paul mean by spiritual gift? The language suggests that the spiritual gift he is talking about is similar to the spiritual gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit. But that can’t be, can it? The word gift here is the Greek word charisma, from which, of course, the charismatics derive their name. And the word is most often used elsewhere in the NT in relation to gifts conferred upon believers by the Holy Spirit. So what does Paul mean?

(3 The key to understanding this is probably found in verse 12. There is mutual comfort, mutual encouragement, to be found in exercising our spirtual gifts. It is not necessarily that Paul is bringing new spiritual gifts to bestow upon the believers at Rome, but perhaps he is merely seeking to establish gifts that have already been given by the Spirit. That seems to make more sense of the passage when we consider what most of us already know about spiritual gifts. Those gifts are only given to believers by the Holy Spirit. In 1 Cor. 12, Roms 12, and Eph. 4 we have the fullest treatment of spiritual gifts in the NT.

(4 Now, let me say that some do take this verse to mean that Paul is going to confer on the Roman believers spiritual gifts by the laying on of apostolic hands. In Acts 8:17 we see that this was a NT practice. Acts 8:17 (KJV)

17 Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. But in no way does this mean that the gifts originated with Paul, or were Paul’s to bestow on whom he would.

(5 But I want us to notice an important principle here. One that we hear all the time, but often only pay lip service to. Spiritual gifts aren’t just given out by God for our own exclusive enjoyment or amusement, are they? Notice two very important words, one in verse 11 and the other in verse 12: established and comforted. Our spiritual gifts are to be used for the strengthening and encouragement of believers, right? We are to exercise those God-given gifts in the church. Paul goes on at length in 1 Corinthians about the misuse of the gifts by the church at Corinth. This church wasn’t doing much of anything right. They were tolerating immorality, abusing the Lord’s Table, communion, they were neglecting the poor among them, and they were using their spiritual gifts not in humility and service to others in the church, but they were using them to draw attention to themselves, seeking to glorify themselves instead of the Lord.

(6 But that is not what Paul tells us here, nor is it what he is telling us elsewhere in Scripture. You know, getting back somewhat to the subject we started out on in about the church’s drift from preaching the full counsel of God, the full Gospel of sin and forgiveness, we also seem to be doing much the same thing with spiritual gifts, aren’t we? Because we increasingly view everything from the standpoint of, what can I get out of it? Does it make me feell good? Does it satisfy me?, we have lost sight of what our spiritual gifts are for. God has given them so that we might place them in the service of God and of others in the church! If there ever was a generation of people, more than ours, who were more interested in their own well-being at the expense of others, I don’t know which it might be. Even in the church, we seem to be far more interested in what we get out of worship instead of in how we can honor and glorify God.

(7 But here is the paradox, the seemingly contradictory result of our serving and placing the Lord, and others, over ourselves. When we seek to ecourage and strengthen others, not only are they blessed, but there is mutual encouragement and blessings as well. We will receive blessings from our service, won’t we? The person who is so inwardly focused they see only their needs and never the needs of others is, for the most part, one miserable human being, aren’t they? The headlong pursuit of self-gratification being the sole reason for living almost never translates into personal happiness, does it? It almost never generates a sense of purpose in our lives. At the end of the day we are left with emptiness, constantly needing more and more and more of whatever it is that we are attempting to fill our lives with.

(8 It is like the drug addict who is forever chasing that first exhilarating high he got, but never quite getting back to the pleasure he first received. No matter how much he does, the perfect high always eludes him, and before he knows it, he is trapped, trapped in an endless round of searching for money, finding the dope, and then getting high. And so it goes, on and on! And to one extent or the other that is the way of all life lived for self, to the exclusion of living for God and others. But Paul would have none of that, would he? He wasn’t about living for his own personal gain, was he? Everything Paul did was for the glory of God and for benefit of others. Look at verse 12 again. I think it is also of some interest to note that Paul did not consider himself to be an evangelical superstar, did he? I think that even though we try not to do so, we have developed an attitude about famous public Christian preachers and teachers that is not Biblical. We have inadvertently placed them on a slightly higher plane than the common Christian sitting out in the pews. And for the most part we don’t mean to do this either; but with the advent of the overwhelming power and immediacy of visual media–TV, Internet, DVD, and all the other means of showcasing the Gospel–it is almost inevitable that those preachers who are seen most often grow into figures of power inconsistent with the principles of servant-leadership. That is unfortunate for many reasons, not least of which it diminishes the centrality of Christ in our worship and in our lives. The message and the Christ the message reveals must be supreme, not the messenger. And Paul further develops this theme in our next verse.

III. The Result of Spiritual Gifts (Rom. 1:13)

1. Fruit ( 1:13)

(1 Paul does several things in this next verse, but what we want to center our attention on is the result of spiritual gifts. What are they for? Why do we have them? We touched on this earlier. Gifts are practical in nature; they are not for private use, they are to be shared, right? They are to be used in the workaday world, not stored up for some sort of mystical, ecstatic experience. They are for God’s glory and to develop fruit in our lives and in the lives of other believers. Look at verse 13.

(1 I think we should be careful to note something about the relationship between spiritual gifts, spiritual fruit, and salvation; because there is a definite connection between all three. If the first two aren’t evident in your life in some manner, however small, it might be time to examine your life to see if you are really saved. And if you have never been saved there will never be any spiritual gifts or spiritual fruit manifested in your life.

(2 In verses 11 and 12 Paul wrote that he wanted to establish the Roman believers in their spiritual gifts, and that he wanted to both comfort them and be comforted by them in those gifts. Here in verse 13 he writes that he wants to have some fruit among them, a great harvest of mutual encouragement. Jesus spoke eloquently of spiritual fruit, didn’t He? He spoke in the Gospel of John about the necessity of believers having fruit that is evident in their lives. In John 15 Jesus spoke of Him being the vine, and of believers being the branches of the vine, abiding in Him. And if we do abide, or stay, in the Lord we will develop fruit, won’t we? Jesus said that there would be fruit in our lives.

(3 But what are we talking about? What are fruits of the Spirit? Turn with me to Galatians 5:22-23. Paul gives us here, not a comprehensive list of all the tangible fruit, but he does give us a good sampling. Look at your Bibles, Gal. 5:22-23.

(4 Paul has contrasted these wonderful attitudes of the heart with a rogue’s gallery of sins of the flesh in the preceding four verses of chapter five. And if we have been saved and if we are walking in the Spirit and not the flesh these fruits of the Spirit will be evident in our lives–to one degree or the other they will be.

(5 You can easily see that the fruit of the Spirit is the moral character developed by the power of the Spirit. This not something done on our own in our own strength. To be meek, for instance, in the face of an injustice done to us goes against the grain of our human nature, doesn’t it? When someone verbally abuses us our first inclination is to attack back, right? To stand and take it is thought to be unmanly, isn’t it? We have to stand up for our rights! If we let people get away with taking advantage of us we will forever be at their mercy! Right?

(6 Well, Jesus had a little something to say about that, too, didn’t He? In The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave us many ways of behaving that cut against the grain of human nature. Which, of course, was the main point of the sermon. Jesus was telling us how human nature was meant to be, not how it has become as a result of the fall. And He was telling us how we are to react when someone attacks us. Listen: Matthew 5:38-39 (KJV)

38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Matthew 5:43-44 (KJV)

43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

(7 Listen, Jesus isn’t telling us that when someone physically assaults us or our families we can’t defend ourselves, but He is primarily talking about insults here. The language has more to do with someone coming up and lightly smacking us on the face in a contemptuous manner. Jesus is saying that we are let it go, right? And then He is telling us to pray for those who abuse us!

(8 Go back to Romans with me and look at verse 13 once more before we close. Paul wanted to have some fruit among the Roman churches much as he had in the other Gentile areas he had been. The title of our lesson this morning has been I Am Not Ashamed of the Gospel. Next time together as we study part two of this lesson together we will delve more fully into what Paul is talking about. But one of the weaknesses, among many, of the church in America is her refusal to preach the full Gospel, the full counsel of God’s Word. Many churches that preach the truth of sin and redemption and forgiveness forget to preach the truth of the loving kindness and meekness of the Christian. We have an unfortunate tendency to always be in the prophetic mode, thundering, Thus saith the Lord! Sometimes that is the proper voice of Christians; we must preach truth, right? But those who preach a social gospel, those who preach a gospel of self-help and self-esteem, are really not even preaching the Gospel at all, are they? Sometimes in order to get better we must fully understand how bad we are!

(9 Paul preached the Gospel, didn’t he? He preached the full council of God. He peached it without wavering, unflinchingly, but with meekness and love! All the Apostles did so, didn’t they? And they turned the world upside down. It has never been the same! For all of her faults, and they are many, the true church of the living God has been a bulwark against evil, a help to the poor and downtrodden, and a tireless proclaimer of the truth of the risen Christ!

(10 Do you know Him this morning? The consistent message of the church throughout all of her history has been that there is no other way to salvation other than the cross of Christ. But what with the push in America toward all opinions being equally valid, to stand up and declare that any opinion that contradicts the truth of Christ is not only wrong, but will keep you under the wrath of a holy God is just not being preached with the courage and conviction of past generations. It seeems that believers are increasingly ashamed of the Gospel, aren’t they? But I am going to tell you, based on the inerrant Word of the living God, that there is no other way to heaven except by the Lord Jesus Christ! That is TRUTH, capital letter truth! And that comes straight from the lips of Jesus Himself! In John 14:6, John 14:6 (KJV)

6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.