Sunday Sermon: Not Ashamed of the Gospel (Romans 1:16)

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You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

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Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an

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Old Testament book on Thursday and our Q &A on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series.

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Here is Pastor Gabe. In honor of the word of the King would you please stand.

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Again as I read again Romans 1 16 and to keep things through context

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I'm going to read through verse 20. Hear the word of the Lord. For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the

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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.

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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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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.

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You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father as we come into this passage today this very simple verse through which

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Paul declares that he is unashamed of the gospel knowing that it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

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I pray Lord that we are reminded of the gospel and we come to an even deeper understanding today of its power not just to save us who first heard it and believed and have come to faith in Jesus Christ but even to sanctify us through the same gospel that we heard that has justified us we are being sanctified through this same gospel message as well being reminded continually of the

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God who saves who sent his son Jesus into this world to be the propitiation for our sins.

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We have sung about it in our songs this morning. We think about it as we celebrate the holiday season the incarnation of the son of God to mankind to take away the sin of the world and so Lord we are reminded even of these gospel points as we come to this today and may it revive our hearts renew our strength to trust in you and in your word it is in Jesus name that we pray amen.

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A few years back there was a Christian rapper who managed to become at the time the best selling independent artist in the country.

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He had the best selling independent album and number eight overall on the

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Billboard top 200 which is quite a feat for anybody let alone for a Christian independent artist.

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He was one of the one of the I'm sorry he was an artist as a part of a label that was called 1 1 6 and this was a collection of Christian rappers who took their name from Romans 1 16 1 1 6

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I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation all who believe from 2008 to 2022 they toured the country and it was called the unashamed tour.

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Well this rapper had the opportunity to perform on Fox 5 New York wearing his 1 1 6 hat before performing his latest chart topping song one of the hosts touched his hat and said 1 1 6 what does that mean and the rapper said well that's my team and the other host said your team well what is that explain that the rapper kind of swayed back and forth laughed nervously and he said you know my team there he was on live television with a hat based on a verse that said

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I am not ashamed of the gospel and it kind of sounded like he was a little ashamed of the gospel and it broke my heart when

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I watched it and I will admit that I was appalled by the fact that he couldn't at the very least even quote the verse but it also put the fear of God in me seeing that because how many of us have worn clothing with something

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Christian on it or we have hitched our wagon to some sort of Christian fad and maybe we thought we were brave or bold for wearing this out in public or being a part of this

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Christian trend but if you were put in the position to have to explain your faith and what the gospel is would you stammer nervously too no one's holding a gun to your head no one's threatening to kill you if you share the gospel you just find it awkward or maybe you're afraid of what people will think of you or say about you if you were to talk about Jesus maybe you begin to feel like Peter who denied

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Jesus it is of course a weakness of our flesh what must we do to strengthen ourselves so that when the time comes we may be able to stand firm and say that I am

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NOT ashamed of the gospel as we come into this portion of these two verses this morning

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I'm gonna look at three things first of all I want to review the context in which this statement sits so we're not just isolating

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Romans 116 out by itself but we're understanding what Paul means when he says it even here in this letter number two let's revive our hearts being reminded of what the gospel is not just in a broad biblical sense but we'll even consider it in the context of Romans itself what does

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Paul mean when he says I'm not ashamed of the gospel and what is the gospel that he is about to share and then thirdly let's reveal some weak areas observing our

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Christians today might demonstrate shame for the gospel and in that will also find application for how we can guard ourselves from falling into those same kinds of traps or those same kinds of shames so once again we're going to review we will revive and through his word will reveal so first of all let's do a little bit of review of what we've read so far in Romans and even talking about our overview of this book so that we can see kind of where we are going from here when

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Paul says in verse 16 I am NOT ashamed of the gospel why does that statement sit right here the way that it does now remember as I said to you many many times our chapter and verse markers in the

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Bible are not divinely inspired Paul was not inspired to write okay verse 16

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I am NOT ashamed of the gospel it was hundreds of years later that these chapters and verses were added in this way and especially we don't get these neat little paragraphs in the original

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Greek with these headings that if you're reading from the English Standard Version you'll notice 16 and 17 are set by themselves and the heading over it says that the righteous or the just shall live by faith so this is a a continuous letter that would be read before the congregation of the church in Rome so when you get to verse 16 what is what is

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Paul saying when he says I am NOT ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation remember what we just looked at last week

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Paul's desire and his expression to come to Rome he wants to come to what is basically the capital city of the world at that time the largest empire on earth and Paul wants to come there and share the gospel with them and he says to them

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I've been delayed in coming to you this church that has existed for about 25 years up to this point and they've not yet had an apostle come and teach them

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Paul says God is my witness I've wanted to come to you but I've been prevented from coming to you but it seems like now everything's starting to line up just right that I may come to you and I may be an encouragement to you and you may be an encouragement to me and remember we've also considered the persecution that these

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Christians have been under sharing the gospel in their own context there in Rome and yet Paul says to them

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I'm not concerned about that whatever persecution I may fee may face and coming to you for I'm going to come to you and I'm going to share the gospel and we know kind of as the story unfolds exactly how

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Paul got there right he was arrested in Jerusalem for sharing the gospel he was put in chains he was brought to court and he made an appeal to Caesar so that he might be taken to Rome and be able to make his appeal his appeal before the emperor himself and so he gets on a

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Roman pleasure cruise to Rome that wasn't the way it was actually he was bound in chains and put on a ship as a criminal some of his friends were still along with him even though he was treated as a criminal but he had

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Roman guard that was protecting him because the Jews were trying to kill him because he was proclaiming Christ as Lord and so Paul ends up on this ship going to Rome is shipwrecked on the way there and yet he says to the people that are on the ship

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God is telling me that we're going to be shipwrecked but do not doubt and continue to trust and God is going to deliver us to our place of refuge they come to the island of Malta and the people that live there on the island

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Paul even ministers to and witnesses to them they shipwrecked they're shipwrecked on this island and Paul's sharing the gospel with people and while he's gathering sticks to throw into a fire a serpent jumps out and bites him on the hand this is all kind of in this route to getting to Rome right and I that I remember reading that part of the story in Acts and as I'm going through all of this

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I remember it making me laugh and just going that see that would be the point where I would go God come on I'm trying to share the gospel here and all of these different bad things keep happening now a snake is biting me on the hand and as the people see this viper bite on the apostle

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Paul they think oh this man is done in and what do these pagan Romans think about such things well if a man is going to keep getting afflicted like this shipwrecks bound in chains getting bit with snakes somebody really doesn't like this guy they think the gods are against him but yet what does

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Paul do he shakes the serpent off his hand right into the fire and then they're amazed that it doesn't afflict him at all he's perfectly fine because of the power of Christ that heals him and there are people on the island that are even healed through the apostle

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Paul's ministry and his sharing of the gospel there and so then Paul eventually does make it to Rome he's placed under house arrest and he's there for a couple of years people could come and see him but he couldn't go anywhere he's chained to a praetorian guard we know from what is said to the letter in Philippians that Paul says what's happened to me is actually served to serve toward the sharing of the gospel the whole praetorian guard are talking about it these guys are chained to me and they have to listen to me share the gospel and so some of them are getting saved as a result of this whole thing so this is what

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God had in mind for Paul in coming to Rome and sharing the gospel and Paul before getting to that point has written this letter to these

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Christians and has said to them I am not ashamed I'm not worried

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I am not concerned about what they will do to me because I know that the gospel is the power of God for salvation and as we'll see later on coming into Romans 8 if God is for us what can man do to us we are more than conquerors through him who loved us and these very things being on the apostle's mind as he writes this letter to this church and gives them assurance of his arrival what if Paul doesn't want to come because he hears about us being persecuted the stuff that we're under while we're here in Rome Paul gives them this assurance

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I'm not ashamed I'm not ashamed of the gospel I want to come and share it with you and be an encouragement to you and you an encouragement to me that we may be reminded together that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes now as I've said to you from the very introduction of this letter that these two verses here 16 and 17 even serve as the thesis statement of this letter because what

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Paul is going to share from here on is going to be the gospel it's it's the entire book of Romans and not just the gospel but even the implications of this gospel how now shall we live in light of the gospel that we have heard proclaimed now

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I'm going to put a pin in that one because I'm going to come back to in just a moment that gospel that Paul shares in the book of Romans we've done this before kind of did like a

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Romans road sort of summary as it's called but I'll come back to that here in a moment this is where we see this verse sitting in context as Paul makes this declaration that I am not ashamed of the gospel and and next we want to understand exactly what the gospel is itself so this has been our review with regards to this verse and where it sits at the beginning of this letter next let's have our hearts revived by a reminder of the gospel itself what is the gospel we revive our hearts with reminders of the gospel of Jesus Christ and this is not simply going to be a reminder of what the whole bible says regarding the gospel we also want to pay special attention to the way that Paul lays out the gospel here in Romans what is it that we have coming up and how does

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Paul explain the gospel in this letter but first an understanding of the word itself what is the gospel in Greek it's evangelion and that just very simply means good news that's your definition of the gospel your two -word definition of the gospel is that it is the good news the good news about what it is the good news of Jesus Christ in fact if you want to get a one -word summary of the gospel the one -word summary is just simply

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Jesus our one -word summary of the gospel is Jesus knowing the son of God by faith in him we have come to know

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God himself and the forgiveness of our sins and fellowship and reconciliation with God one of the most common one -verse summaries of the gospel that we like to reference is

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John 3 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life a couple of years ago

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Becky and I had the opportunity to go to Alaska that's quite different from Arizona but while we were up there there was a preacher that had preceded us there and he went up into areas that were like beyond where we got to and way up there in the north where nobody lives or few people live a size of a church up in that area might be 20 or 30 people that would be a mega church up there in that location of the northern portions of Alaska and this particular preacher that I had heard about was was preaching a kind of a series of revivals up there in some of those churches in which like ice truckers would come so these guys burly men that risk their lives to drive their product across ice would come to these church services and this one particular really big gruff trucker guy comes into this service and he is listening to the preacher night after night share the gospel and as big and as rough as this guy looked yet he had this expression on his face of great sorrow and sadness and every night that went by as this preacher preached he never looked any more happy the next night than he had looked before and so the preacher singled him out after one night of preaching and came up to him and said sir

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I just want to ask why you seem so sad is there something I can pray for you about is there a way that I can encourage you and he said to this preacher

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I've been listening to you preach night after night after night and I still don't get it and the more

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I listen to you preach and the more I listen to you share the gospel and the less I understand it the more sad it makes me

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I want to believe I want to know God and forgiveness of my sins in Jesus Christ but I just don't get it and so this preacher sat down with him and and he had him open a bible and he's sitting there with these big burly hands that practically covered the pages of the bible that was sitting in his lap and he said just read

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John 3 16 for me read that and they read it over and over and over again and the preacher tried to explain it to him and give it more context to God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son but the the trucker just wasn't getting it it wasn't getting into his mind and into his heart and he did this for more than one night the trucker would come back he would go through various verses with him and would occasionally come back to John 3 16 again and finally on the very last night of the preaching while that preacher was there the trucker is sitting there with the book in his hands and he says okay

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I'll read it one last time and I'll pray and ask that God would reveal these things to me and that I would understand them as the truckers there with the bible open in front of him he reads it again for God so loved the world and tears filled his eyes and started streaming down his burly face into his dirty beard and his hands begin to tremble and he looked at the preacher next to him and he says oh oh

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I've got it I've got it I've got it he loves me he loves me he loves me and the preacher is kind of confused and he's like well he's explained to me what it is that you mean what what is it that you've got he's like are you kidding me have you ever read this verse before and finally the power of God working in his heart to understand

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I'm a sinner in need of a savior and Christ is that savior and whosoever believes in him will not perish under the wrath and judgment of God that we all deserve because of our sin but we will have everlasting life that's why we love john 3 16 that's why we keep coming back to that verse and using that one over and over to share an understanding of the gospel with others there are many other verses that we could come to acts 2 21 whoever calls on the name of the lord will be saved first corinthians 15 3 through 4 this is the gospel simplified the way that Paul would preach it for I delivered to you as of first importance what

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I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures

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Ephesians 2 8 and 9 for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of God not a result of works so that no one may boast 1

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Peter 2 24 he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds you have been healed revelation 11 15 the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our lord and of his

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Christ and he shall reign forever and ever even knowing

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Christ reigns is good news and these are our short one verse summaries of the gospel that we might reference that's the short version actually of the gospel what would be the long version of the gospel the long version is this right here the whole

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Bible is the gospel all 750 plus thousand words from Genesis 1 to the maps if you have read the entire

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Bible you have read God's declaration of the gospel and incidentally here

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I've given you the two best Sunday school answers that you can give what's the answer

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Jesus what's the answer the Bible okay right whenever the teacher asks you a question if you're giving one of those two answers and you're probably giving the right answer to the question so that's what we have with regarding the gospel the answer is

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Jesus the answer is his very word when we read the

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Bible from beginning to end we read the story of how God created everything from the beginning to be good and perfect even in Genesis 1 he looks at it and he says that it is very good he creates mankind in his image man

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Adam and from from Adam takes a rib and fashions woman and brings the two of them together tells them to be fruitful and multiply gives them a command a command that's given first to the man which he then guides his wife in an understanding of the instruction of the

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Lord you may eat of any tree that is in the garden but you may not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil which is in the midst of the garden because in the day that you eat of it you will surely die so in this covenant that God has made with man if you do what

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I tell you you'll live but if you disobey what I tell you you will die that is the law of God from the very beginning the covenant that God makes with man and of course we know that Adam failed in that the woman was tempted by the serpent to eat the fruit that God told them not to eat she takes of the fruit gives it to Adam who is with her and he eats and their eyes are open and they realize they are naked and they are filled with shame and they try to hide from God and when

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God confronts them he curses man and all of creation and so that everything is under a curse and exactly what

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God said would happen because of your sin is exactly what happened in the world death came into the picture now because of man's rebellion against God all things were subjected to futility as we'll read about in Romans chapter 8 the curse that God put all of creation under because of mankind's sin against God why are things hard for you today why were you in pain when you woke up this morning why do you find it difficult to find meaning and purpose in anything that you do why is it that your work never fully seems to satisfy why can you buy the latest gadget and it makes you happy for a few hours but suddenly you're unsatisfied with it and you need to go buy the latest model in order to feel that feeling of elation again why is it do you find yourself addicted to substances and you will try the substance once and it gives you this feeling of elation when you come back to it the second time it doesn't quite have that feeling that it had the first time and so you take more and more of it to get a better feeling or get that buzz or that high that you got the first time that you took it why is it the stuff that you are so committed to in your life even your hobbies or your friends or other things why is it that they will seem to even disappoint you or let you down nothing ever seems to make sense and the answer to that question is sin sin is the reason why none of this stuff ever seems to satisfy and all things have been subjected to this corruption and everything is under this and it's our sin that's made it this way my friends sin is the very reason why we die mankind's sin one man's sin sent all of the universe into chaos that's how serious sin is that's how holy god is and how unholy we are god expected of that first man holy and righteous perfection if you do not eat this fruit you will live but if you eat of this fruit you will die and man ate the fruit and sinned and all things came into futility and part of that curse is that everybody who is descended from the man will receive his sin nature but it's even in the curse that god gave to the serpent that god gave the gospel in genesis 3 15 god said i will put enmity between you and the woman between your offspring and her offspring he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel and this is what we call the proto evangelium or the first gospel this was of course a reference to christ who would come to destroy the works of the devil first john 3 8 and he would save his people from our sin and rebellion against god by becoming a sacrifice on our behalf that was even declared by god in genesis chapter 3 and christ would be the fulfillment christ would be the chosen seed and as i talk about romans 1 16 being the uh the thesis statement of the rest of this book you could consider genesis 3 15 to be the thesis statement for the entire bible because the rest of scripture from then on is revealing to us that christ is the chosen seed he is the one who will put enmity between the woman and satan who will crush his head jesus is the snake crusher as i believe it was kevin de young put it that way this is the time of year when we remember the incarnation that god sent his son into the world to save sinners and in sending his son he did not send his son through ordinary generation he sent him to be born of a virgin why does that matter why do we sing that in our christmas carols in one of our songs that we sang this morning mentioned the virgin or in silent night round yon virgin tender and mild in what child is this raise raise a song on high the virgin sings her lullaby why is that so relevant that it finds its way into our christmas carols because if jesus is born of ordinary generation which is how each and every one of us have been born born of the seed of man then jesus is born in sin like all of us are and he can't be that pure and spotless lamb who takes away the sin of the world but because he's not born of ordinary generation he's not born under what we would call the federal headship of adam he's not born in sin he doesn't inherit adam's sin nature he is born without a sin nature he is born without that natural rebellion that we all have that proclivity to sin like the rest of us want to do he was born with a clean record and he kept his record clean you and i are not born with a clean record nor can we keep that record clean but everything that jesus did was sinless he did what none of us are even capable of doing and he kept the law of god perfectly it was necessary for him to do this he not only kept the law but he kept it on our behalf because he's very god and very man so all of the righteousness that he did in his humanity that which we call his active obedience he credited to our account we are clothed with the righteousness of christ when we put our faith in him the very righteousness that he accomplished by his life he gives to us when we become followers of jesus in what is called his passive obedience he died on the cross for our sins and there god made him who knew no sin to be sin for us 2 corinthians 5 21 now i echo the frustration of phil johnson when he says i don't really like these terms that much active and passive obedience but that's the terms we use those are the expressions to summarize this theology that we not only have jesus dying for us but living for us so that when we put our faith in him his righteousness is given to us as we heard from isaiah 53 this morning the lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all and the death he died he died to sin once for all romans 6 10 the just for the unjust god put our sinful record upon christ and as said in colossians 2 14 he nailed it to the cross but christ didn't just die for our justification he also rose from the dead for our justification as said in romans 4 25 and his impeccability his sinlessness his righteousness is imputed to us that god may be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in jesus this is a doctrine that we refer to as double imputation our sins were placed upon him when he died on the cross his righteousness is given to us that we may stand before god worthy because of what christ has done all who come to christ come to god we have fellowship with god jesus is our access to god the god man who made us right to stand before the lord justified and one day when it's all said and done we will not just be saved from the penalty of sin we're not just rescued from the power of sin we will be saved from the very presence of sin when we are glorified in our mortal bodies and as said in philippians 3 21 we will be made to be like him we will be made to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself as summarized by dr vody bachem that's the gospel that we preach that's the gospel that we need that's the gospel that's more than enough we who were once the objects of god's wrath because of our sin and rebellion against god through the person and work of jesus christ he has made the children of his love and we have become adopted sons and daughters of god and we're not just saved by the gospel that we just heard we're also sanctified by that gospel because see now as the sons and daughters of god with his holy spirit dwelling within us we begin to take on the family traits because the holy spirit has said to us in romans 8 is shaping us and making us more into the image of christ who is called our older brother he is the firstborn of many brothers since the scriptures say now this as i've kind of like given a summary of what the the bible unfolds for us here this is the longer explanation of the gospel how about the romans explanation of it because as i said what paul is going to share here is uh where he goes on from here he's going to unfold the gospel as we go through romans together and i said this to you in our introduction there's a form of evangelism that's called the romans road in which we summarize various points from the book of romans and we'll use those verses and those points to help lead a person to an understanding of our sin and need for a savior and pointing to christ as being that savior now there seems to be a movement among a certain segment of evangelicals to uh to discourage the whole concept of beginning with sin why do we begin with sin the bible doesn't begin with sin the bible begins with perfect creation so if you're going to share the gospel with somebody that's where it is that you need to go but that's not the way that paul does it so certainly you can begin sharing the gospel that way just as i've done here this morning but the way that paul starts is he starts with sin he starts with the bad news in order for the gospel to be good news you first got to hear the bad news you're going to hell you're under the wrath of god all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god that's the case that paul makes in the first three chapters of romans where we go next right after verses 16 and 17 the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth very simply we love our sin more than we love god and are willing to suppress the truth so that we can have whatever our flesh desires romans 2 5 says because of your heart an impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when god's righteous judgment will be revealed romans 3 10 to 12 none is righteous no not one no one understands no one all have turned aside together they have become worthless no one does good not even one and again that summary in romans 3 23 all have sinned we have all fallen short of god's perfect holiness and gloriousness that's the bad news and once your heart hears the bad news and you realize you're under judgment and if you stood before god today you would perish now you are convicted now you are humbled and ready to hear the good news so that as romans 3 24 and 25 goes on to say we are justified by his grace through the redemption that is in christ jesus whom god put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith and we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ romans 5 8 says god shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners christ died for us romans 6 23 the wages of sin is death but the free gift of god is eternal life in christ jesus our lord romans 8 1 says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus and romans 10 9 if you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead you will be saved these have been our reminders brethren of the gospel of jesus christ that has been proclaimed to you and i hope that you have come to believe that by faith in jesus christ your sins are forgiven and you have everlasting life with god forever in glory so as we've done a little bit of review and we've done a little bit of reviving let's do a little bit of revealing here now as we as we come to focus on the first part of this verse at least for this week i am not ashamed of the gospel what are some ways that we might demonstrate shame in the gospel the first way let me give you five the first way that we might show that we are ashamed of the gospel might not be what you would expect it's just very simply that we fail to have faith in the gospel if we don't believe the gospel that's shame that's being ashamed of the gospel of course you can look at some cynic or skeptic the one who makes fun of christianity of course they're ashamed of the gospel they might make you feel ashamed of the gospel the way they may make fun of you for it but on a more personal and private level you may doubt that the gospel is truly the power of god for salvation for you when you sing amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me in the privacy of your mind do you wonder but did he really am i am i really saved has he saved a wretch like me am i really all that bad what do you begin to do if you doubt your salvation you'll probably start to do things to make up for what you think you lack all i have to do is these works and maybe if i've done enough of these things then i can truly feel comfortable with my salvation i can feel like i've done something yeah god takes care of 99 of my salvation i'm just doing the one percent part well if that's the way that you feel about it then god's grace really isn't all that amazing to you it's only 99 amazing but not not fully amazing and if your defenses are down in this way that you don't think that god has truly saved you then you're going to be tempted to fall into sin believing that you're not truly set free from this anyway so what difference does it make if i sin a little you're not turning to christ and trusting in him to save you and make you righteous you still feel shame and you do not trust that he indeed takes away every sin and that's being ashamed of the gospel might be a private shame it might be something that no one else sees it's not in your public witness but if you doubt the power of the gospel in your life then you're ashamed of the gospel one of the most common questions that i answer as a pastor is how do i know if i'm really saved and i don't mean to rip on anyone if you've asked that question or feel that way but underneath that question is shame for the gospel you are not fully convinced that faith in jesus christ is is really enough and this is not just a problem with the laity there are many preachers who have even gone through this i remember talking with a couple one time who said that they had just lost their father that year and he was a preacher had been a preacher for many years for decades 30 plus years or something like that and after he passed away they went and found his journals and they opened up his journals and began reading through them and came to find aspects of his heart of his heart they had no idea he doubted if any of this was even true at all but the reason why he pressed on and continued as a preacher even though he wondered if it was even true is because for two reasons they said number one is he just didn't want to be an embarrassment to anybody and secondly he didn't know how to do anything else so i want to provide for my family this is the job that i know how to do so i'm just going to continue to fake it and he was not really convinced of the things that he preached in this very way we might demonstrate a shame for the gospel that's the first way the second way that you might be ashamed of the gospel is a shallow understanding of the gospel so for you and your christian walk you're you're just never really in it you don't desire to grow in it you don't study anymore you hardly listen or ever even want to know more than you already have it's like you've punched your get out of hell free card so what else do i need to do beyond that it's just icing on the cake right and when you simplify it in that way when you plead ignorance or you don't desire to grow in it any more than you already have it's a way of demonstrating being ashamed of the gospel a third way that you might be ashamed of the gospel is that you don't share it with anyone at all maybe you would profess or proclaim that it is the power of god for salvation for you but if you're afraid of sharing it with other people afraid of the ridicule or whatever sort of pushback that you might get from that then you're demonstrating shame in the gospel not truly believing that it is the power of god for salvation for others as charles spurgeon said do you have a desire for others to be saved if you don't you're not saved yourself you can be sure of that a fourth way that you might be ashamed of the gospel is that you modify it or soften it because the way that it's well the way that paul preaches it here in the bible that could that could really turn somebody off and so i'm going to change it or influence it in just such a way that maybe it'll be more palatable people for for people they will they will appreciate it more and better you see a lot of this happening in evangelicalism and american evangelicalism today the softening of the gospel to make it palatable to more people more people will appreciate this if i add some sugar on top spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down so let's soften it a little bit not truly believing again that just preaching the word of god has the power to change people's lives and so we rely on our own mechanisms and our own devices to be influential to people instead of understanding the power and the work of the holy spirit in a person's heart when they hear the word of god proclaimed it has great power as it is being proclaimed god saying in isaiah 55 my word will not return to me void without accomplishing this the thing that i have sent it forth to do but there are too many preachers and too many pulpits today who are trying to soften it and water it down that they don't believe it is truly powerful to change a person's life a fifth way that you might be ashamed of the gospel is that you don't live in it you've heard it proclaimed but it doesn't actually change anything about your life as i've heard paul washer say if you come into church tonight and you say sorry i'm late i got hit by a mac truck on the way here you better have mac imprinted on your forehead or i'm not gonna believe you if you're gonna make a claim like that being impacted by a truck there should be evidence in your life that you've been hit by a truck and jesus christ is a much greater power than a mac truck and so if you're gonna say that i know jesus and i believe in him and i am a follower of christ then there should be some evidence in your life that that has actually taken place the gospel not only is the power of god for salvation but has implications to it that we would live according to those commands and instructions and exhortations that god has given to us this would be the demonstration that our faith is real and is genuine and for those whose lives have not been changed by it who don't live in the gospel of christ this is a demonstration in their own lives of shame in the gospel and so to summarize these once again five ways that we might demonstrate shame in the gospel number one is that you just don't believe the gospel number two you have a shallow understanding of the gospel and don't desire to learn any more about it than what you may have heard the first time third you don't share it with anybody afraid of what they might say or think fourth you modify it or soften it so that it would be appealing to more people you think the gospel needs help god needs help with this presentation and he's got just such a guy to do it and fifth might be ashamed of the gospel in this in the way that you don't live in it and i highlight these five so that they would serve as warnings to us that we not fall into those same pitfalls of being ashamed of the gospel but that we would indeed love the gospel and believe it we do believe that it is the power of god for salvation forgiving our sins and leading us in righteousness we do desire to know more about it because it's more than just the one verse summaries that we've been given but there's great depth to it so that there are men theologians preachers even laity who've invested their entire lives in studying this bible and they get to the end of their life and feel like they've even barely scratched the surface we would desire that others would hear the gospel and come to salvation as well we understand that the truth is hard because we've offended god but sharing hard truth is certainly much better than spending an eternity in hell so i've heard john macarthur say you don't need to be worried about offending people they've offended god let them be offended for a while so that the heart would be convicted and they come to understand the truth and finally that we would even live according to the things that have been said to us in the scriptures concerning the gospel it changes our lives we desire to turn from sin and live in the righteousness of christ that we say that we've been clothed in when we believe in him and follow him you've been listening to the preaching of pastor gabriel hughes a presentation of providence reformed baptist church in casagrande arizona for more information about our church visit our website at providencecasagrande .com