I Am Not Ashamed Of The Gospel

Fifty years ago, one of the first Christian books I ever bought was How To Be A Christian Without Being Religious by Fritz Ridenour. It was a very simple explanation of the book of Romans, complete with little cartoon illustrations. I was a young Christian. I understood very little, but Romans deals with the core concepts of Christianity. This book helped me understand the basics.

Romans itself is quite complicated in places. It is a carefully constructed, tightly reasoned explanation of the gospel. It is the Apostle Paul’s most scholarly letter, but this book gave me enough understanding on which to then build my life and faith.

Today we start on a 10-part series on Romans, based on material from the Bible Society. I hope it will help us to grasp those fundamentals just like that book did for me. We will not look at every verse but hit on key passages and key teachings.

The person who has developed this series, Andrew Ollerton, likens Romans to a Mountain range:

• We start in the foothills being introduced to the gospel (Romans 1)

• Then we head down into the valley of sin (Romans 1-3)

• We then see how Christ alone can lift us up through salvation. (Romans 3-4)

• He brings us to a beautiful place of peace where we can rest. (Romans 5)

• Before we head along the narrow ridge of freedom… (Romans 6,7)

• …that leads to the summit of hope, giving panoramic views of God’s great purpose. (Ch.8)

• Then we head down into the cloud of mystery regarding God’s plan for Israel. (chapters 9, 10, 11)

• We then descend to more practical teaching: How can we live with devotion. (Chapter 12)

• How can we play our part in God’s community? (Ch. 13, 14)

• What is our ongoing mission? (Chapters 15, 16)

I am going to read Romans 1:1-17. Please do not count how many times the word “gospel” appears because it will distract you from hearing the bigger picture. Do not count the occurrences of “gospel”.

READ Romans 1:1-17

OK, how many times was it? (6)

The whole book of Romans can be seen as an extended explanation of the gospel. Gospel simply means “good news”. Paul said he has been set apart for the gospel – this message of good news. This is the gospel that had been promised in the scriptures, the Old Testament. It is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Paul’s role was to preach this good news. Very significantly, Paul said in 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”

Paul was a Jew. He had been a Pharisee, viciously opposed to the message of Jesus Christ. He had hated the gospel with a passion. He pursued and persecuted Christians. He was on his way to Damascus to hunt down Christians when Jesus appeared to him in a bright light, announced who He was and struck Paul blind. God told him that a man named Ananias would come and pray with him and restore his sight. Three days later, that happened. Paul was a new person and immediately began telling people about Jesus.

He became a great missionary, travelling all over the region of modern Turkey and Greece, facing much opposition and persecution but also seeing many people come to faith in Jesus. He started churches and helped the baby Christians grow to maturity.

Despite persecution he still said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.” He had been set apart for the gospel. He was gospel-focused. He said he was obligated to preach the gospel to Greeks and to non-Greeks. He had to do it.

It was probably near the end of his third missionary journey, while in Corinth, that Paul wrote to the church in Rome – about the year 56 AD. The church in Rome had not been planted by Paul. He had never been there. We do not know who started it. Maybe it was people who had been in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. There would have been a great deal of traffic to and from Rome; all roads led to Rome. Probably a number of other Christians also ended up in Rome.

Paul had not started this church, but he knew a lot about it and knew a lot of the members. In Chapter 16, he greets 27 people by name, often describing his relationship with them, but also the churches that met in their homes.

St Peter’s Basilica in Rome is the largest church in the world by floor area. It can accommodate 60,000 people, standing! But, of course, St Peter’s did not exist in Paul’s day. There would have been no church buildings. He wrote to churches meeting in people’s homes.

In Chapter 16, he also commends Phoebe to them. Phoebe must have been travelling to Rome and probably was the person who brought this letter from Paul to them.

Paul had many times planned to come to see them but had been prevented from doing so. He was hopeful though of doing that very soon. He said he wanted to impart some spiritual gift to them to strengthen them. He wanted to preach the gospel to them. He expected that they would also minister to him.

The list of names in Chapter 16 also gives an indication of the diverse make-up of the church. There are Greek, Roman and Jewish names. You might have noticed that Paul talked about the gospel being the power of God that brings salvation to all who believe: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. Jews and Gentiles (all those who were not Jews).

In 49 A.D, the emperor Claudius expelled all Jews (including Christian Jews) from Rome. That is mentioned in Acts 18:2. Five years later, he died and they returned. There are indications in this letter that the church was somewhat divided. For example, Paul urged them to accept one another, warned against pride, and talked about them as being parts of one body. Maybe, when the Jewish Christians returned, the church had changed and was now led by Gentiles and that was a difficult adjustment. Furthermore, it seems that the Gentiles might have looked down on the Jews for still wanted to obey the law – the dietary laws, observing certain days, etc. And the Jews might have seen the Gentiles as abusing their so-called freedom in Christ when they should have been obeying the law.

There is a lot in this letter about law versus grace, faith versus obedience. There is a whole section on the place of the Jews in God’s salvation plan.

But, underneath all of that the main theme is still the gospel. What is the gospel? How are we saved? Paul points out that all people are in need of salvation, whether Jews or Gentiles. The gospel is the same for everyone: we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the gospel of Jesus Christ is the means of salvation for all, for both Jews and Gentiles.

Let us quickly note a few other things from the introduction to this letter.

Paul described himself as a slave of Jesus Christ (v.1), and as being obligated to preach the gospel to both Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish (v.14). A slave… under obligation.

Freedom is one of the waypoints on that mountain journey that we will come to. Most people probably understand freedom as being able to do whatever we like. There are no restrictions. “Don’t tell me what to do.” But Paul saw freedom quite differently. True freedom is found through submission to Jesus as the Lord of our lives. True freedom is found when we devote ourselves to Jesus.

Again, when I was a young Christian, I read a book that said we think of freedom as the ability to do whatever we like – in other words, the freedom to sin. But are we free to not sin? Paul, in this letter, talks about us being slaves to sin, before we find the freedom in Jesus to not sin. What people tend to think of as freedom is not freedom at all; it is slavery.

A large part of Rome’s population were literally slaves. The demarcation between slaves and freemen was sharp but Paul felt no shame in identifying with the slaves – a slave of Jesus, commissioned to tell people the good news of Jesus.

In v.2 he refers to the gospel promised through the prophets in the holy scriptures. This is the gospel regarding His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. This gospel is what we read about in the Old Testament. It is all building up to Jesus. God had a plan.

Just last week we celebrated the resurrection. Actually, we celebrate the resurrection every Sunday. We meet on a Sunday because it was the day of the resurrection. v.4 says that Jesus was appointed the Son of God by the resurrection. That does not mean that He was not the Son of God before that. It means that the resurrection declared Him to be the Son of God. By the resurrection, God spoke and said, to anyone with ears to hear, “This is my Son!” It was a powerful demonstration and declaration of who Jesus is.

It was the resurrected Jesus who graciously brought Paul to repentance and commissioned and enabled him for his mission. His mission was to call Gentiles to faith and obedience – literally, “the obedience of faith”. Faith necessarily involves obedience. Paul uses the same phrase right at the end of the book (16:26) where he says that the gospel has been revealed “so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience of faith” – the obedience that results from faith. The book starts and finishes with that phrase. Paul’s focus is the gospel; his desire is that all Gentiles come to faith in Jesus Christ and live a life of obedience to Jesus Christ.

We will see later in the book that Paul, while being called to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, was perhaps even more passionate about the salvation of his own people, the Jews.

Romans 10:1

Brothers and sisters, my hearts desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.

Paul goes so far as to say that he would give up his own salvation for the sake of the Jews (9:3).

Back in Chapter 1, having said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes” v.17 says that this gospel reveals the righteousness of God. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ reveal both the holiness of God – He will not tolerate sin. He will judge sin. He did judge sin in Jesus – and the mercy and love of God. “The wages of sins is death” (6:23), but the Son of God died in our place. The gospel shows that God has done what is right – holy and merciful.

But it also reveals the righteousness that we can receive from God through faith in Jesus. We can be declared forgiven and righteous. There is a righteousness that God gives. What an incredible God! What an incredible message! What an incredible salvation! What incredible good news.

Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.” He had received grace through Jesus Christ and he was obligated to share that gospel. Can you say the same thing? I am not ashamed of the gospel. This gospel of Jesus Christ is how people can be saved. I have received God’s grace and I am now obligated to share this good news with others. Which aspects of that do you find most challenging?

As we study this book, maybe we will relate more and more to Paul’s teaching. I really suggest you read Romans in your own time. It takes only about an hour. Maybe read it several times. Some parts of it are tricky. Do not be put off; we are going to explore this together to discover the power of the gospel.

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