Romans 1:16-17, What Are You Ashamed of?, Dr. John Carpenter

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What Are You Ashamed of? Romans 1:16-17

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Romans chapter 1 be reading verses just verses 16 and 17 hear the word of the Lord For I'm not ashamed of the gospel
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For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the
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Greek For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written the righteous
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Shall live by faith The Lord had his blessings in the reading of his
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Holy Word Well, what are you ashamed of Well, I'm ashamed that I did very badly in algebra in high school.
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I'm really bad at that. I'm ashamed that I'm not a good speller Even misspelled algebra.
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I even misspelled misspelled There's two s's and two L's Now sure
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I can boast about some things and I'd love to talk about those So you only see strengths
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I have and I hope you never catch on that There are other things about me that I'd rather hide I'm ashamed that I couldn't play baseball because I'm my coordination is so bad.
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I can barely hit a softball I'm ashamed that my language learning skills are so bad that I spent a lot of time
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Trying to learn German, but hardly make any headway My new
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Deutsche is ser select That's probably all wrong Trying to say my
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German is very bad If you're like me you have a lot to be ashamed of it's embarrassing weaknesses
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Failures holes in your education just lack of skills. Of course. Those are Relatively trivial things.
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I'm a little ashamed of them, but not so much that I mind telling you in public there are other things that we're so ashamed of a shame because We're guilty
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We don't want to talk about those now. There's a difference between guilt and shame Guilt has to do with an objective breaking of a law either a law of the government or a law of God If you break the law you steal you drive recklessly you commit sexual immorality, which is violating
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God's law that brings you guilt If the human law and they catch you the court finds you guilty if God's law and he always catches you
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He declares you guilty downslams the gavel We should be ashamed of things that we are guilty of but some people aren't ashamed of their guilt
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Maybe they stole and got away with it. The police didn't catch them They have what they stole and no one knows any better.
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They're guilty but shameless They might be ashamed if they got caught
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But they're proud of themselves for not getting caught on the other hand. There are things we are sometimes ashamed of But aren't guilty of there's no guilt
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To not being good at algebra Although there is guilt if you're a student and didn't study algebra and that's the reason you're not good at it
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A lot of times teenagers feel ashamed of things that don't bring them guilt Their pants are too short because they're just growing so fast.
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Haha. You're wearing highwaters. They still use that term you're wearing They think it looks ridiculous.
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They're ashamed of themselves. They're embarrassed may be ashamed of their acne I'm not having the coolest clothes
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I'm not having a girl or a boyfriend, especially on Valentine's Day Ashamed of the way their parents act especially around their peers.
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Oh, it's so embarrassing They're ashamed of them. Whatever their peers their friends might disapprove of Often they're much more concerned with shame than with guilt
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What should you be ashamed of? now if you're a kid who's outgrown his pants or you tuck in your shirt or Worked hard get good grades or doesn't have a love life
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That's really nothing to be ashamed of Well, what should you be ashamed of then? I mean either they tell us we should be ashamed of anything just throw off all shame, but that's wrong
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Shame can't be very useful You're ashamed of shameful things. That's that's useful.
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You're ashamed of guilt. That's right On the other hand some in the world try to pour shame on us
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They try to make us ashamed for being Christians It's common now for skeptics and scoffers to cite maybe some study that they think they read somewhere that Professors of the highest rate of wife and child abuse the highest rates of divorce.
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You ever heard that that kind of stuff You should be ashamed of yourself You should be ashamed of what you believe they tell us
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I've seen people say that the gospel actually makes good people bad It's something to be ashamed of they tell us and some
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Christians are left They believe this and they're left Feeling ashamed and they're trying to kind of apologize for what they believe and maybe to explain that sure there are hypocrites
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But we're not all like that this kind of thing They're they're ashamed of what they think is an ugly reality.
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They've accepted what they've been told that you know So you look at the statistics. It's so bad I'm ashamed of what we are all but sociology professor
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Bradford Wilcox at the University of Virginia did a study in which he dug deeper Than others had before him instead of just asking people what religion they believe in You know, are you
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Catholic? Are you Protestant or you know, whatever? He asked deeper questions as to whether they actually take part in the churches that they say they belong to now before other studies, you know, the ones that supposedly showed you you
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Christians are have the highest rates of divorce and immorality and Wife and child abuse on that kind of thing before they had just asked people.
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Are you a Protestant? Are you a Baptist or whatever? Are you a Catholic? Instead this professor at University of Virginia asked questions to see if the people were if they were really following their faith
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They really a part of it I think just say they're believers in it and then Other questions to see what their family life was like and so he found in America at least five major groups the unaffiliated
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That is those who profess nothing Then there's the Catholics there's the liberal
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Protestants there's the professed and this is where it gets the key the professed conservative evangelicals
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That is people who said that they were part of some evangelical historic evangelical church like like a
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Baptist one, but who really rarely attended it and Then finally the last group were churchgoing conservative
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Evangelicals that is people who actually were regularly part of their churches who about every week attended the church they said they were a member of what he found was that that group that had the highest rates of abusive husbands and fathers and the highest
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Divorces and were that group was the professed conservative evangelicals
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That is those who like said said they're Baptist or whatever or Pentecostals and who didn't actually attend maybe only at Christmas or at Easter, you know that kind and then he found the group that had the lowest instances of Abusive husbands and fathers the lowest divorce rates and reported the highest happiness in marriage
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Can you guess which group that was? Which group do you think it was? It was the churchgoing
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Evangelicals those who actually practiced what they professed and that's nothing to be ashamed of so Churchgoer Welcome.
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I'm glad you're here. It's not Christmas or Easter. You're still here. Some are ashamed of the gospel Well, what are you ashamed of?
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Are you ashamed of the gospel? Well, why is it some are ashamed because they're they're misinformed
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Kind of like kids in school They're trying to please the wrong ones But here
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Paul tells us not to be ashamed of The gospel none of that of all the things to be ashamed of Don't be ashamed of the gospel.
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I Usually take a larger passage of this and I'm not ashamed of that because normally we need to see passages in their context
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But today we isolate these two verses because this is the thesis statement For the entire letter to the
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Romans right last week was the introduction and then he states concisely What he's going to argue for the rest of the letter in these two
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Verses remember the guy that came along and made them into verses came that hundreds of years later So when
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Paul was writing this he wasn't thinking versus this is this is though the statement of what he's going to prove and the rest
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Of the letter, so let's take it apart phrase by phrase There are three major parts
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In these two verses in this thesis statement and each is clearly demarcated by the word for Otherwise you see the word for Thinking this is another part except for one for it's a little complicated, but see not but the word for meaning because Giving a reason for what comes before it other way it takes
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You give a statement right and then you say that's true because of this There are three of those fours for each introducing three unfolding
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Reasons one after another that is three unfolding Explanations for why the statement just before it is true
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First Paul tells us why he is eager to preach the gospel Second why he is not ashamed of the gospel and then finally he tells us why it is the power of God for salvation and through each of these three unfolding wise
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He shows us that the gospel is nothing to be ashamed of Well, the first explanation shows why he is eager to preach the gospel in Rome verse 16 begins with with for or because that tells us that this sentence flows from and Explains what came just before it.
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So even though I've isolated these three verses. It's still connected to verse 15 So we got to go back to verse 15 and in verse 15
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He wrote that he's eager to preach the gospel in Rome now why? because He is not ashamed of the gospel
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That declaration. I'm not ashamed tells us right away that there is a great temptation to be ashamed of it
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Right, that's kind of implied there and we need to be perfectly honest about that If the gospel were just immediately popular with nearly everyone if it were good news that the world perceives to be good news
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It just accepts it happily whenever it hears it Well, there would be no temptation to be ashamed of it.
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No, you wouldn't even think of say I'm not ashamed of that I'm not ashamed of my gold medal in the Olympics. No one says that right?
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Yeah, there no one's ashamed of gold medals in the Olympics So so when Paul says I'm not ashamed of it.
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He's saying, you know, there's something about this that tempts us to be ashamed Why what is it?
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Well people are ashamed of their weaknesses They're ashamed of their lack of their failure and they desperately don't want to be ashamed
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They want to feel good about themselves There's no there's no temptation to be ashamed of something that's popular with everyone.
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It's a great achievement People aren't ashamed of the clothes that fit perfectly of a clear complex collection
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Being popular being successful or like I said, there's gold medal in the Olympics No one's ashamed of that what they are ashamed of are things that people say is weak or it is stupid people say is a failure and So they'll say your gospel makes no sense, it's just myths
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Concocted by Bronze Age illiterate fishermen, which is a ridiculous phrase The Bible wasn't written in the
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Bronze Age, but never mind that it's weak It makes men beat their wives and children. Haven't you seen all the studies it makes you intolerant
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It's shameful They say that now and they said that then And first Corinthians Paul said that the gospel was foolishness to the
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Greeks that is great She means that the Gentile world Paul says here. I'm not ashamed today
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We're tempted to be ashamed the suggestion that God is angry with us for our sins That just brought up to prepare for the
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Lord's Supper So this shows Christ's death of the cross shows how angry God was with us for our sins
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Well, it's kind of shameful, isn't it? And there's such a thing as the wrath of God.
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It needs to be satisfied You don't like that today one major denomination wouldn't accept the song in Christ alone with that phrase
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They wanted to rewrite it because that's shameful the wrath of God needed to be satisfied or The Jesus is the only way that's so Exclusionary you get these other religions.
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They're good people of those religions. You're saying they don't have the way to life. That's shameful You're a tolerant. You're a bigot if you believe that Or what the world is is good.
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It's an alternate lifestyles to be celebrated You're too. You should accept people who live like that and you're saying it's you're saying it's sinful
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You're a bigot. You're a hater You're trying to make us ashamed and you could get banned by social media, but you can accuse of hate speech
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For all that stuff. You they're trying to make you feel ashamed And so the temptation today just as in Paul's day as it really changed is to be ashamed of the gospel and in that Embarrassment we are tempted to hide the truth
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But here in Paul's first unfolding reason he says I'm not embarrassed by any of it And then he explains why he is not ashamed of the gospel.
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That's the second unfolding reason This is for in the middle of verse 16. Why isn't he embarrassed?
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because It is the power of God for salvation Now unbelievers will scoff but Paul says he's not embarrassed because as ridiculous as it sounds to them in this good news is the power of God Now we're tempted to be ashamed when we think it's of anything when we think it's weak
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It's embarrassing. It's just fairy stories that we tell the kids like Santa Claus You'd be embarrassed to be an adult who believes in Santa Claus Of course, if you believe in Santa Claus, you probably not know you should be embarrassed by that whatever after all
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There's there's no real power in Santa Claus But the world tries to to shame us telling us the gospel is weak. It actually makes good people bad
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They say more of you Christians of you of your abuse your wives and children that do non -christians
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They're trying to pour on the shame. Oh, but it's not true and think why is it it true?
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In fact, why is the opposite actually true? Why is the rate of abusiveness lowest among men who believe the gospel?
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Because the gospel contains power It's the power of God for salvation it transforms those men so they aren't abusers anymore
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And that's nothing to be ashamed of Notice three things about this this phrase. It's the power of God for salvation first the source then the significance and finally the salvation first That the power is of God's the power of God means that God is the source the power is in God and His gospel
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It's the power of God's not the power of our free will of our self -discipline or something like that It means that he controls that power and we can't control it
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We can't control it with the right prayer with the right formula The right magic words the right invitation the right revival meeting
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If you just get the atmosphere just right get the right music just right You can make sure people get saved
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You could control that power no you can't this is the power of God it's not our power Advertising salesmanship manipulation even morality all of that is that that's the power of people.
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That's our power But our power is weak And something to be ashamed of we don't have the power within us.
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The source is not in us It's not in our free will
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Now that may shame that may sound shameful But we better not forget it if we forget the source we forget it comes from God we forget the gospel and We lose this power
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We end up replacing it with Something from ourselves. It's weak and it is embarrassing
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Just our disciplines our religion or our practices the 19th century evangelist
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Charles Finney I began preaching a gospel that had within that we had within us the power to change ourselves and Make ourselves love
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God we can make we can just will ourselves to believe and love God He would rebuke people by name from the pulpit for a loving luxury should look through here.
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Who's the best dress? Rebuke you for being so materialistic. No, he would do that kind of thing
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I wouldn't wearing too expensive clothes and the like And he would put them to shame Right, he would he thought that all that people needed to do was to exercise their free will that if they were not living as they should then you could shame them and to Change their will and change how they live
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If there's no revival Then it's because it's only because we weren't using the power
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To change to have a revival that is in us. It's in our decisions It's in our practices the the source he thought was our free will but but here in Romans Paul says that the power is of God Right the power of God for in it is the power of God the power comes through him through the gospel second
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Is the significance? It is power after all Don't overlook that word
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That is it's life -changing It's significant it's not just opinions It's power
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Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17 that if anyone is in Christ, he is a New creature.
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Otherwise, he's someone who has been made created new. The gospel is not just a few facts about Jesus Like like historical facts that if you agree with them
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Then you have accepted the gospel Even if it doesn't change you the problem with those who profess to be
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Christians and then rarely go to church in their first group Remember, well, they weren't the first group Whatever the group that the professed conservative evangelicals who say they're a
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Baptist or whatever They are but rarely go to church and then often beat their wives or children and get into more affairs more divorce their problem
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Is that their religion is just something they say they believe They haven't experienced the power of God for salvation
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They should be ashamed of themselves for daring to call themselves Christians and bring disgrace on the name of Christ That the power is of God Means that when it comes into your life
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It makes a significant change It's power It's not just Facts not just data
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It doesn't just change opinions It changes otherwise Selfish maybe abusive men and to men who love their wives and families and who sacrifice to stay faithful.
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It comes with power That we don't have to be ashamed of Well third is salvation and that's what the power is for Or in it is the power of God for salvation and the gospel is power for Literally into in Greek notice that second unfolding in that second unfolding reason the second word for That's in the middle of verse 16 the power of God for this is a different word for four in English We have to translate it the same word, but in Greek, it's a different word
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For salvation it literally means in two are toward Salvation it means just as it would in this context in English to as in the result the power leads to is
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Salvation's it's to that goal. It's it's for toward Salvation and that salvation is the product of the power
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Salvation is the result that the power produces. That's what is to It's for salvation that makes sense now now think then what salvation is salvation is a rescue
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If you were drowning you'd want to be Rescued you'll be saved by the lifeguard
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You want a lifeguard to dive in and save you if you were held hostage by some crazed gunman
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You'd want the police to save you if you were dying of a disease You'd want a doctor who had the power of the ability the knowledge and the skills to save you
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The gospel is the good news that God will do that for his people The God has done that for his people
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Why is he not ashamed of the gospel? Because it is the power of God for salvation then he says to everyone who believes
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It's not for everyone or at least salvation is it for everyone it is for those who believe it's not for those who do not believe those who do not believe do not get the power of God for salvation and Deep down they are ashamed of that That's why often they're angry at the gospel because they're ashamed of what it shows about them
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Who are those who get that power Now in the days of the New Testament, that was the big debate
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Who gets the power of God for selling who gets saved who is salvation for? Is it those who are moral and religious and who keep
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God's law? Is it the Jews who inherited because they're of that they are the chosen people
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They kind of just of their birth. They just get it Well here Paul says no
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It's those who believe Their faith marks them out like circumcision did in the in the in the old covenant their faith marks him out as God's true
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Chosen people in other words. We know who God's true people are Not by the fact that they don't eat pork or they keep the
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Sabbath or that they're circumcised But by the fact that they are believers The power of God has made them believers
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And that's nothing to be ashamed of But we like to think that we've done something For ourselves, you know, we've contributed we contribute something to this have a week
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We're ashamed to admit that we don't have the power And so we think there's some power some little bit that we have to add to it to make it effective to make it powerful something we do to assist
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God Then we're not in the shameful position of being absolutely Powerless, are we?
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And you know we can believe we'll say Of our own free will that's what we add to it
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We add the decision of our will to believe and that kind of activates everything else. They'll say grace is the offer of salvation
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But our faith is the acceptance of it Right. Some people say it's like it you get it you get a big check
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But you still have to endorse it and deposit it you have to do your part kind of analogy Okay, I won't take that apart.
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I'll take about another one Another analogy they like to use is it you're drowning You're weighed down by sin.
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You're going down into hell, but then Jesus comes along. He throws out the life preserver The life preserver is the gospel the proclamation of the gospel.
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They say in this analogy is The good news to drowning people. Hey, there's a life preserver reach out and grab it
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Now we have to do our part they say in This analogy by taking hold of it
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That's faith. They say faith is our act of taking hold of the life preserver
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That's their analogy Now there are some good things about that analogy. We we do have to believe and Faith is not just a feeling
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Faith takes hold of something. That's a kind of a good picture of faith. I like that picture of faith Thankfully it grabs on to the gospel.
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It doesn't let go Now at least that analogy gets something important about faith, right the faith is like a grasp of a life preserver
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If they can't just be in anything Some people talk about faith like you no matter what you believe in as long as you believe in something
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Believe in Buddha if you believe in your positive self -image, that's okay. Yeah faith. No, that's not faith has to be in the right thing
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If you're drowning at sea and you grab on to a shark instead of a life preserver Well drowning will be the least of your worries we can't just believe in what we whatever we want to believe in and That will say that faith has to be in the right thing
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Just like grabbing onto a life preserver has to be in the right thing and faith has to be in the true Jesus of the gospel, but the problem with the life preserver analogy is the
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Bible doesn't just say in fact Paul Will soon start making the argument that people are not just in danger of drowning
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As though sin is only just weighing us down, but we're still alive. They're fighting for life We have the power within us to reach out and help save ourselves
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That's not What the Bible teaches well what the gospel teaches it says we are dead in our sins and our trespasses our heart is not just You know weak and going out.
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Our heart is stone -cold Dead it's sinking us down We're not a drowning man kind of waving his arms desperately screaming for help
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We're a cold corpse floating bobbing up and down face down in the water
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Jesus doesn't just throw us a life preserver and leave it up to us save ourselves by taking hold of us. He jumps in and Takes hold of us and he drags us to shore and he breathes life into us
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Jesus saves The source is God it's not ourselves
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Who are just for free from shame we saved ourselves. We made the right decision No, we are weak and we are shameful, but the gospel is powerful
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And so nothing to be ashamed of Well, who is the gospel for? Well, he tells us to the
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Jew first And also to the Greek Jesus brought it to the Jews now we bring it to The Greeks and by Greeks he means all non -jewish people here.
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I think all of all of us even if we're not ethnically Greek The good news is not for one race or culture or nation and then not for another he's saying is for all kinds of people right the gospel by its nature
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Allows for no discrimination no isolating our proclamation to one group of people ignore all the rest allows for no racism or Segregation it's offered to all people without distinction, but it is effectively for that is it saves
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Everyone who believes and Those people come from the Jews or the
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Greeks from all ethnic groups That's the second unfolding reason why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel
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It's the power of God for salvation. The third unfolding reason is why is it the power of God for salvation?
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Why is it that power? What is it about the good news that transforms us from God hating wolves to God loving sheep from unbelievers to believers?
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We're almost after one over 17 begins with four This is the third demarcation the third because because in it, it's the power of God's for salvation because in the gospel
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The righteousness of God is revealed That is made known
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You know about God's righteousness the righteousness of God by the gospel.
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Well first, what is the righteousness for God? Martin Luther, hopefully you've been doing our
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Sunday school lessons But Martin Luther wrote that he at first thought that this righteousness from God referred to a new moral standard
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Like the law had one moral standard and that was already hard enough but then along comes the gospel is what he first believed and God brought them a
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New moral said he raised the bar even higher with the gospel We probably think that's funny because we think it's a lot of modern
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Christians think it's the other way around The law had one moral standard and the gospel comes around we have no moral standards at all
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Well, that's not the gospel either but Paul Luther's first way of thinking Well, the law had one moral standard and the gospel made it higher made it more strict as like in the
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Sermon on the Mount You've heard that you're not to commit murder. But now I say you shouldn't even hate You've heard that you're not committed adultery now.
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You can't even lost The Luther originally had more ground to stand on than people today who think the gospel has no standards
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But that's beside the point and so he wrote Luther wrote that he had first hated the term the righteousness of God He didn't hate it.
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What does it mean? It's too much for me I cannot meet that standard of righteousness, but then when he was studying these two verses
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Romans chapter 1 verses 16 and 17 It dawned on him to hear the righteousness from God This righteousness here is not a new higher standard
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They now he had to try even harder to meet even as a monk. He's so strict with himself But he still couldn't do it.
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No, that's not what it was. Instead. It was a a right relationship with God It was being right with God It's God putting him
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Luther with all his sins that he knew of and God's putting them putting them, right? That what our sins did to anger
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God To bring God's condemnation on us rightly What our sins did to alienate
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God from us? God has wiped away made us right with him for Everyone who believes as God Attributed Christ's perfect life his righteousness.
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He had the righteousness and God credits it to us While attributing our sins
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To Christ on the cross That's the righteousness that the rightness with God that is now made known in the gospel and when
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Luther realized this He said the light of the gospel Came into my soul the gates of paradise opened and I walked through Now he knew why not to be ashamed of the gospel why is the gospel the power of God for salvation
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For in it verse 17 a Right relationship with God is revealed as made known is disclosed
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It's declared to people that right relationship is revealed. He says from faith
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To faith that is it starts with faith and it leads to faith It begins with faith it builds up faith
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It doesn't begin with faith and now that you believe now you better get to work Keeping God on your side
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You have to add your works to it. You add your religion to it The faith is the foundation but now it's up to you to build on it with your religion and your morality
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No, that right relationship with God is thoroughly and always living on faith
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Faith isn't just an opinion, but some things might be true We say that song great. I like that song
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We believe we believe these things are true and that's that's all that it makes no impact on your life
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No, no, that's not what it is Luther defined faith as a living daring confidence and God's grace
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I love this definition from his commentary on Romans Faith is a living daring confidence in God's grace
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So sure and certain that a man would stake his life on it a thousand times
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Faith is a living daring confidence in God's grace So sure and certain that a man would stake his life on it a thousand times
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Faith is a radical force in our heart that changes everything about us
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It changes what we want What we love what we seek what we desire changes our goals and our ambitions our pleasures not only where we spend our sunny mornings
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Changes how honest we are changes our words changes whether we keep our word What we eat or what we drink or what we drink too much of?
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How we treat people who we associate with how we handle our money Who we sleep with how we raise our children how we treat our wives or husbands.
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It changes what makes us happy What we're ashamed of and now it changes what we're no longer ashamed of To undergird this to prove it
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Paul quotes from Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 4 Those who are right with God shall live
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That is they'll be raised up from death. They'll be resurrected. They'll be made new by faith
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The one who has come into a right relationship with the Lord because he trusts in the Lord not in his own abilities or in his morality not because he
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Just assumes he's he's okay Positive self -image is nothing to be ashamed of No, the one who trusts
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God rather than himself that person Will live if you're right with God through faith
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You will live And God has put in the gospel that is the power to rescue people from their sins from death
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For the purpose a right relationship with God for life Believing in what
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God has done. That's the gospel will give you life
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That's where your life comes from. So what are you ashamed of?
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Well, maybe you're ashamed that You're not okay That you're weak or ashamed.
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Maybe you some are enraged By the idea that you don't have the capacity in yourself to save yourself
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You want to do your part? To take hold of the life preserver to have something from yourself
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You know by yourself You can't contribute Something not to be ashamed of But it's too late for that We're already drowned
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We're dead in our sins. It's it's hopeless to get any life or power from ourselves and We should be ashamed of that That's why to a world that desperately it is naturally
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Doesn't want to be ashamed The gospel is offensive They hate it
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And they will try to make you ashamed of it The world tells us that we should be ashamed of a gospel because the gospel reminds them of their weakness and their guilt
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But don't be ashamed out of the gospel It's the good news that has within it
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God's power to make you right with him to give us life to make you new
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Understand that that yes, we have sins and we have a sinful nature We not only should be ashamed.
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We should be aware that by ourselves. We're far worse than shameful We're guilty
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But there is good news God has provided power To save power from Jesus on the cross and Risen from the dead to make us right with him
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To give us life a gift of a right relationship that we get through faith faith a living daring confidence in God's grace
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So sure and certain that you would risk your life for it a thousand times believe that and When you do
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The light will come into your soul the gates of paradise will open and You will walk through and then you will know