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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 1st chapter of Romans. Romans chapter 1, and find your place at verse 16. We stand here in the open air, hearing the Word of the living God.
We are thankful this morning for the opportunity to do so. We're thankful that we have the freedom to do so, and we'll continue to do so, so long as we have that freedom, and even when we do not have that freedom, we will do so even if it means our very freedom, or our very lives.
As Paul says in verse 16,. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed for faith as it is written.
Even the righteous shall live by faith. Father in heaven, as I seek to preach your Word, I pray that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit. Lord, I come this morning as an empty vessel to be filled and used by you, to look at a text that we have looked at several times before, but are always needed to be reminded of.
God, use this time in the life of these people to save souls, to draw the saved closer, to convict and to convert. In Jesus' name, Amen. Please be seated. I am very used to using a pulpit, but this morning I'm not using a pulpit.
I'm just going to stand with my Bible and preach as many men do who preach in the open air. They stand simply with their Bibles. Some stand on brick pillars when they have the opportunity. Some bring with them small ladders and they stand upon those ladders.
Some stand upon trash cans. Some stand upon park benches. And some stand only upon the ground level and lift their voices up above the heads of men so that they can be heard. Some men use amplification and some men do not.
This morning I'm blessed and I thank Brother Mike for letting me use his open air PA system so that the neighborhood may hear. And I pray that I won't destroy your ears in trying to reach theirs. This morning the question, do you understand the Gospel?
This question became very important to me this last year as I was listening to Pastor Paul Washer and he was talking about how he shares his faith with other people. And he said, you know, there's all kinds of ways that you can enter into a conversation with someone.
You can jump right to the heart of the issue and like D. James Kennedy taught, you can just look at someone and say, if you died today and you faced God and He said, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say?
That was D. James Kennedy's diagnostic question. If you died today and God says, why should I let you into heaven, what would you say? And that's an interesting way to jump right into the Gospel with someone.
Another thing that people try to do sometimes is to take people through a test of goodness and we've talked about that. Where you say, are you a good person? And most people will say yes. And you say, have you ever told a lie?
And they say, well yes, I've told a lie. And you say, what is a person who tells lies? They're a liar. Have you ever stolen anything? And they'll say yes. And you say, what do you call someone who steals things?
And sometimes they'll say a stealer and we say, no, it's a thief. You say, how about this, have you ever, Jesus said, any man who looks with lust has committed adultery in his heart. Have you ever looked with lust?
And if they say yes, you say, well, by your own admission, you're a lying, thieving, adulterer at heart. And you must face God on judgment day. What will you do when you face God? Guilty of having broken His law.
Will you be guilty or innocent? And they say, guilty. And what happens? And that begins the conversation of the Gospel. But this last year, I was listening to Paul Washer, and if you've never heard Brother Washer, he is a wonderful preacher, a missionary, and a man whose words are powerful and strong.
And when he preaches, it cuts to the very core of who you are. He's very powerfully used by the Holy Spirit. And Paul Washer said that when he sits with someone on an airplane, or when he sits with someone in Starbucks, or when he sits with someone anywhere that he has the opportunity whenever he's able to reach out with the Gospel, he'll simply ask a very basic question.
Have you ever understood the Gospel? Really understood the Gospel? And he said, more often than not, and the vast majority of the time, the person will think for a moment, and rather than being argumentative, rather than shrinking away or changing the subject, they'll say, you know, I really haven't ever really understood the Gospel.
And he said, and it is at that moment I say, can I share it with you? Can I share it with you? Well, that's where I'm here today. I'm here to ask the question, have you ever really understood the Gospel?
And some of you have been in this church for a long time. Some of you have sat under the preaching for almost every time I have preached for the last ten years, you've been here. And I still am concerned that you understand the Gospel.
The Apostle Peter in his epistle said, I tell you these things by way of reminder, because they're important for you to remember these things. You might say, Pastor, I've heard you preach the Gospel so many times.
But do you know it? Do you understand it? And can you proclaim it to the nations? Can you even proclaim it to your children? Can you proclaim it to your relatives? Can you proclaim it to your co-workers?
Can you proclaim it to anyone? Do you understand the Gospel? This is not a normal Easter message, and neither will my morning service at 10 .30 be a normal Easter message. There's no such thing as normal.
Especially when you talk about a man who rose from the grave. This is not normal. And so why should we follow a pattern? We follow where the Lord has led. And He's led me this morning to be concerned about your soul.
To be concerned about you. To be concerned about the people who can hear me. And to ask the question, do you understand the Gospel? The Apostle Paul says in Romans 1, one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture.
We've just read it. Romans 1, 16. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel. Why would he say, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel? Why would anyone ever be ashamed of the Gospel? And why would that even make sense for him to say, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel?
You need to understand that what you believe, and what we believe about Jesus Christ, is to modern man, and is to men of all times, shameful and foolish. We believe that God, the God who created heaven and earth, the God who sustains all things by the Word of His power, became a man.
And that He was born in a feeding trough. That He lived 2 ,000 years ago, in a time where technology was rudimentary, where science was elementary, and where life was basic and agrarian. He didn't have an iPhone.
He never drove a Mercedes. And yet, He was the God of the universe, made man. And He lived for 33 years, never committing one sin. He never sinned in a thought. He never sinned in a word. And He never sinned in a deed.
He lived a perfectly righteous life, both actively and passively. He was righteous in every way. He was righteous even as He slept. You ever had a bad dream, where you thought something evil in your dream?
Maybe you hated someone, and you had a dream that you hurt them? Or you had a bad thought about someone, and you had a dream that you were speaking of them, or saying something to them, or maybe even in a fist fight?
You realize Jesus never had a dream like that? Jesus never hated anyone? That He was righteous even when He was asleep? He was perfectly righteous in thought, word, and deed. And you say, why is that shameful?
That's not. What's shameful is that we believe that this perfectly righteous God-man was taken by sinful men, stripped down naked, put before several kangaroo courts, beaten with a scourge, which a scourge was a whip that had several pieces of leather lash on the end, and each one of those pieces of leather lash had something sewn within the end of it.
Maybe it was a piece of metal, or maybe it was a piece of bone, something that had been sharpened, so that when it grabs onto the skin, it holds on, and when it's pulled back, it rips the skin from the flesh.
And so when Jesus' body was laid on the cross, it was an open flesh that was laid upon bare, unsanded wood. And He drug it up a hill, and as He was dragging it up the hill, He collapsed underneath its weight, and so the guards took a man, and they forced him under that cross, and they made him carry it, and so He did.
And when He made it up the hill of Calvary, He was nailed to that cross, and He was suspended between heaven and earth, and He died a shameful death, naked, bloodied, beaten. That's how He died. We often see pictures, and during the time of the Renaissance, the pictures made a point to try to make Jesus look beautiful on the cross, that His body was only pierced at His hands and His feet and in His side, and that He was glistening in the sun, and there was a halo around His head.
That is not the picture the Bible gives to us. The Bible gives us a picture of a man whose arms have been pulled by the weight of his body out of joint, and here he hangs between heaven and earth, becoming asphyxiated as his lungs crush within his chest.
And with every breath that he breathes out, he can't breathe another full one in. He can't breathe in because every time he breathes out, it collapses more and more upon his chest until his heart erupts under the weight, and he dies, having succumbed to that very difficult death.
In the early days of Christianity, they found within a catacomb, a tomb, a marker that was placed there to make fun of Christians. Christians worshipped in the catacombs because it was the only place where they could go and be away from society, and they could worship without being put into prisons or to be fed to lions.
And yes, that did happen. People, because of their faith in Jesus Christ, were fed to lions. And they worshipped in these tombs, and they found within the catacombs, a picture of a man on a cross with the head of a donkey.
It wasn't the Christians who put the picture there. It was those who were mocking them. What were they saying? You worship a jackass! You see, to the world, the Gospel is a shame! And that's why Paul says, I am not ashamed of the Gospel!
I am ashamed of it! The world is! Dr. R .C. Sproul, when he was preaching the Gospel one day, he had a man stand up in the midst of the congregation that he preached to, and he shouted to him, he said, what you are preaching is primitive and obscene!
And Dr. R .C. Sproul, somewhat taken aback by the fact that a man would stand in his congregation and shout to him, stop what he was saying, he stepped from behind the pulpit, he pointed at the man and he said, you are right!
The Gospel is primitive! And it is obscene! But I am not ashamed of the Gospel! To the Jews, a stumbling block! And to the Greeks, foolishness! But to us, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God!
It is the power of God! Unto salvation for everyone who believes! It doesn't matter what race you are! It is to the Jew and to the Greek! It doesn't matter to whom you were born! It doesn't matter where you were born!
It doesn't matter what color you are! It doesn't matter what social status you are! It doesn't matter how much money you are! To all who believe, He gave the power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, and not of the will of the flesh, and not of the will of man, but of God!
I am not ashamed of the Gospel, the Apostle Paul said, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it, in the Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
And what that means, the righteousness of God, by the way, a righteousness we lack in ourselves, because you are not righteous. You are a sinner. And all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
The righteousness of God is revealed, meaning it is displayed, it is shown, it is given its revelation to us from faith to faith. And what that means literally in the original language, from faith from the beginning to the end.
You are justified by faith. I don't care what the Roman Catholics say! I don't care what the Mormons say! I don't care what the Jehovah Witnesses say! And if you hear my voice this morning, I say to you, we are justified by faith alone!
In Christ alone! Not of works, lest any man should boast, says the Apostle Paul. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. That is how you know that you have salvation.
Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the Gospel? We've said it already. We've said that the Gospel is the power of God and the salvation to all who believe. But what is it? The Apostle Paul says, I proclaim the Gospel to you.
That Jesus Christ died according to the Scriptures. That He was buried. And that He was raised according to the Scriptures. Why is it that those three things, why did Paul say that those three things make up the Gospel?
The death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Number one, the death. In Christ's death there is propitiation. What is propitiation? Propitiation means this, you're a sinner, and your sin deserves God's punishment.
And God has a righteous indignation against you, a righteous anger. When Christ was on the cross, the Bible says God took the anger that you deserve, the anger that I deserve, and He poured it out on Jesus.
And Jesus took and absorbed all the punishment. He took all the wrath of God for us. And in that He satisfied God's wrath. And that's what propitiation means. It means to satisfy the wrath of God. So in death there is propitiation.
But he didn't stop there. He didn't say the Gospel is the death of Jesus. He says it's the death, the burial, and the resurrection. Why is the burial important? Because in burial there's verification.
In burial there's verification because you don't bury living people. You bury dead people. Jesus was put to death by Roman soldiers, and He was put to death perfectly by Roman soldiers because they were good at it.
If there was anything the Romans knew how to do, they knew how to kill. And they knew how to kill well. And so the Roman soldiers put Jesus to death and they put Him in a tomb. And that verified the fact that He was dead and He was there for three days.
So the Apostle Paul says, the Gospel is the death and the burial, but also the resurrection. How is the resurrection the Gospel? Because in the resurrection there's vindication. You see, in the death there's propitiation.
In the burial there's verification. But in the resurrection there's vindication because the resurrection proves that Jesus is who He said He was. And when He raised, He was seen by over 500 people. Men, women, and children.
Some who walked with Him and some who did not saw Jesus. As Brother Jim said earlier, the men on the road to Emmaus didn't even know it was Him until He revealed Himself to them. But then they realized it was Him and He was alive.
Jesus Christ rising from the dead is the verification of our hope. It's the verification of the truth. If Jesus Christ be not raised, then you of all people are the most to be pitied, the Apostle Paul says.
If Jesus Christ be not raised, then we of all men are most to be pitied. Because we believe in a dead Savior. But we don't. He says, but in fact, He has been raised. The firstfruits of all who will be raised.
You will be raised if you believe in Jesus Christ because He was raised. He was the firstfruits. And the firstfruits is the promise. And the promise is that if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.
I may seem like a ranting madman. I may seem like a man who is simply shouting into the wind. But I speak this morning because I care about your soul. And I ask again, do you understand the Gospel? I'm going to tell you something.
Today, a lot of people don't understand the Gospel. Even people who go into houses of worship don't understand the Gospel. But I have proclaimed it to you today. The Gospel is that God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
And how do you do that? First, you have to understand you're not righteous. You have to understand you're a sinner. And you have to understand that that sin is an offense to God who is holy. But you have to understand that God loves you more than you love sin.
And God loved the world so much that He sent His Son that every person who believes on Him and that belief isn't just saying, I believe in Jesus, but that belief is faith. It's trust. It's confidence.
Every person who believes on Him will never perish, but will have everlasting life. Men, women, boys, and girls, do you trust in Jesus this morning? You in your houses, do you trust in Jesus this morning?
Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you, sir, do you know that you have eternal life? And if you don't know, I call you this morning, as the Apostle Paul called the men at Athens, to repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever.
Amen. Let us pray. Father in Heaven, I thank You for those who can hear me this morning. I thank You for the gift of Your Son Jesus Christ and the opportunity to proclaim Him. I pray that this simple gospel message has been understood by all who hear it.
And I pray, Lord, that You would use this to draw men and women and children unto Yourself, that no one would leave this place today, that no one would walk away from here and not know Jesus Christ. For there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved than the matchless name of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray and for His sake.
Amen.