How To Be Unashamed to Preach the Gospel (Romans 1:16-17)
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 from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Gospel preaching thrives under affliction. Persecution is the best fertilizer for the seed of the gospel. It is during times of ease that the church quickly becomes embarrassed by the gospel. The flame that burned so bright during affliction quickly dies to embers. Soon, the hearths of the churches are nothing more than soot-covered, cold and lifeless places.
Europe, where the fire of gospel preaching burned bright for a time, has seen hundreds of churches close in the last decade. And they are forecasting hundreds more to close in the next decade. Some of these church buildings, where the gospel used to be preached with bold and eager unashamedness, have been repurposed into bars and nightclubs. Others have been turned into libraries or hotels. Where are the Lloyd-Jones, Spurgeons, Whitefields, Wesleys, and Owens who blew on those British hearts with their gospel preaching and witnessed the Lord spark large fires?
In other news, Africa and Asia, both hotbeds of persecution are also hotbeds of rapid gospel growth. Last week, Conrad Mbewe posted to X a video of the church where he pastors in Lusaka, Zambia. He wrote, “The singing was heavenly. The auditorium was full again. We’ve planted 9 churches in Lusaka. The elders are now considering planting 2 more churches in the city in the 2nd half of this year. We’ll lose part of the congregation but the auditorium will fill up again!”
Why does he have that confidence? We, of course, can look at it from the perspective of God’s sovereignty and rejoice that God is calling many to Himself. And that is absolutely correct. The work that God is doing in Africa at this moment is stunning. But from a human perspective, we see that the people there are going out in the power of the Holy Spirit, living in a godly and reverential manner that makes people take notice, and they eagerly and unashamedly open their mouths to give all the honor and glory to God who sent His Son to take away their sins and give them eternal life in the Kingdom of God.
Brethren, I sense that we are at a crossroads. On one hand, we can go down the path that leads to greater and greater apathy, so that in forty or fifty years the churches in our town will all be bars, nightclubs, and hotels. Or on the other hand, we can go down the path of boldness and courage, eagerly and unashamedly preaching the gospel of God until this whole town burns with gospel fervor and the buildings are once again full to bursting and we have to consider planting churches just to keep up with the growth.
Are we going to die in our apathy? Or are we going to serve our King? Are we going to keep to our worldliness, or are we going to come out from the world and be separate? Are any of us so wonderfully godly that the unconverted just scratch their heads in wonder? Do we need China to send missionaries to us to strengthen our faith and make us hot like them? Do we need the Kenyans to come and bolster us to worship? Do we need the Russian churches to come take us by the hand and teach us to preach the gospel with confidence?
We don’t have any of them here today. But we do have the apostle Paul by way of this letter to the Romans. His missionary fervor matched and perhaps outdid anyone else’s.
As we come to Romans 1:16, he’s just told them how excited he is by the gospel message. It is, after all, the fulfillment of God’s ancient promises to the world about His Son, the Christ/King whom He raised from the dead and commands all the world to worship. The gospel/good news about this Christ, Jesus, was first circulated by apostles and eye-witnesses; and then by generations of believers after them down to our very day. This gospel/good news about salvation in Christ Jesus is the tool given to us by God to call God’s chosen ones scattered throughout the world to faith in Christ.
The gospel is amazing. Are you amazed by it?
Then, we saw last week, that faith is amazing. For this reason, Paul just wanted to meet them. He wanted to be there with them. He wanted to spend time with them. Their faith was amazing! He wanted to go to them so that he could strengthen their faith. He wanted to go to them so that he could go out with them and gather some more fruit in Rome. Their faith was so amazing, it needed to be duplicated and reproduced. Finally, he said in verse 15 that he was so eager to get there and strengthen their faith and gather in new believers.
15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
Does that describe you? Are you just so eager to strengthen the faith of the church and to gather in new believers that you just can’t stand waiting? Do you wake up in the morning and say, I’m so eager to preach the gospel today? Do you go to bed at night eager to get up the next day to preach the gospel?
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel.
If you stop and consider it, this seems like an odd statement. If the gospel message is all of those things, the message about the fulfillment of God’s promises concerning His Son which brings eternal life and salvation to those whom God calls, then how can the message of the gospel be shameful?
Paul answers that in 1 Corinthians 1:18. For the word of the cross is foolishness (μωρια) to those who are perishing. Not only that, but it’s offensive. 1 Corinthians 1:23 - we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness. In Galatians 5:11, Paul calls the cross an offense. The Greek word is σκανδαλον. You can hear our English Word ‘scandalous’ in there. The cross is scandalous! The idea of a crucified Messiah was (and still is) scandalous to the Jews. And it was (and still is) foolishness to the world. Paul was laughed at and mocked for preaching the gospel. He was stoned and whipped for it.
Archaeologists have found ancient graffiti that dates to the year 200 AD scratched in plaster on the Palatine Hill in Italy that depicts a young man named Alexomenos bowing down to a crucified donkey. It reads, “Alexomenos worships his god.” It’s laughable to the world. A crucified savior.
More than that, the message is hard. To the Jews, believe that this man whom your leaders had executed for blasphemy is actually the risen Messiah and Lord of all. To the Greeks, believe that God raised this man from the dead and has made Him both Lord and Savior. Repent of your sins and give up your evil, Pagan lifestyle. Become His slave and obey Him. Deny yourself and follow Him. And deny the gods of your fathers. Go against father and mother and brother and sister and friend. Be ready for intense persecution and hardship in the name of this Christ. Be ready to count all things as loss for the sake of Jesus.
That’s a hard message. But it is the message from God to the world of lost sinners. And we have all been commissioned to the gospel ministry as heralds of this gospel. Wherever we go, we are commissioned preachers. Our Lord told us, Go into all the world and make disciples. The tool that He has given us is the gospel. It has been well said that you always want to use the right tool for the job. Therefore, we need to be convinced of the gospel’s effectiveness as the tool that brings about salvation.
MAIN POINT: We can be eager, unashamed, and relentless preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ when we are convinced of the gospel’s…
I. POWER
for it is the power [δυναμις] of God.
Paul is not on fire for the gospel, because it contains the power of God. No. Notice what it says: the gospel IS God’s power. The Word of the gospel is the only sovereign power of God for salvation to all who believe. There is no other source. No other method. All others are, at best, devoid of power; and, at worst, the power of Satan for damnation.
This is why we must guard the gospel and contend for its truth.
To contend for the gospel’s truth, we must know the gospel’s truth. We must get this right! This is why we must rightly divide the Word. If we divide it wrongly, we risk diminishing its power. There’s real stakes involved in what we do in this room week by week.
The good news is that the power is not in us! The power is in the gospel. There’s more good news. The power doesn’t come from us. It comes from God as we speak the gospel.
We have no reason to be ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God.
Power for what?
II. PURPOSE
for [εις] salvation
Paul is so on fire to preach the gospel, because he knows God’s purpose for the preaching of the Gospel: salvation from sin and death. The gospel is the only source of salvation. Salvation does not come through the Law. Salvation does not come through good works. Salvation comes from hearing and believing the gospel. To everyone who believes. It’s not earned. It’s given as a gift by God to everyone who believes.
This salvation from sin and death is the theme of Scripture. It is what all of creation has been waiting for.
Now, it has come. God is saving people through the gospel. However, this salvation is also not yet fully realized. All creation is still groaning, waiting for the redemption of God’s elect.
The salvation of souls should be our main concern and vocation! A doctor is enabled by medicine to save the body, but we are enabled by the gospel to save souls.
We have no reason to be ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God unto salvation.
Salvation of whom?
III. PURVIEW (SCOPE)
to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
This is revolutionary: Jew and Gentile saved by faith in the gospel and made into one flock, the church. This one statement was enough to get Paul stoned by the Jews! When he was in Jerusalem, the crowd was happy enough to hear him up to this point. That Gentiles were full beneficiaries of the New Covenant was unthinkable to the Jews. It was so unthinkable that the Lord had to give Peter a special vision to confirm that it was indeed His will for Peter to go preach the gospel to the Gentile Cornelius in Acts 10.
We hold the gospel out to everyone. Full stop. No exception. Everyone needs the power of God for salvation, because all have sinned.
How do people of every tribe, nation, and language be saved? By believing the gospel. That’s it. It is by faith alone.
IV. PLAN
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,
What is it about the gospel that is so powerful? The revelation about the righteousness from God.
How is this righteousness of God revealed? From faith and unto faith. This is a tricky phrase. There are all kinds of thoughts about it. There is a parallel set of phrases in 2 Corinthians 2:16. We are an aroma from death unto death, and to others we are an aroma from life unto life. I actually happened upon an Old Testament phrase like this in Psalm 84:7 - They go from strength to strength. My guess is that it’s a Hebrew colloquialism that cannot be directly translated. We would understand the phrase better if it was, “They go from weakness to strength.” Or “We are an aroma from death unto life.” But to say “an aroma from death to death” means there is no change. Perhaps there’s even an amplification of the effects of death. So, in Romans 1:17, the righteousness of God is, in the gospel, revealed from faith to faith. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed unchangably by faith. Without variation, it is always revealed by faith. It is all by faith, beginning to end. Or, to pair “from faith to faith” with the noun, the righteousness of God is unchangably, from beginning to end, revealed by faith!
If we understand it that way, then Paul’s next statement makes a lot of sense:
V. PROOF
as it is written, [Hab 2:4] “The righteous shall live by faith.” Salvation has always been by faith. Adam and Eve plunged the whole human race into sin and corruption, because they did not believe God. Cain perished, because he did not believe God. Abel was commended for his faith. Noah. Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. And so on. The pattern has always been clear: salvation (eternal life) is given to those who believe God. Before the cross, the contents of faith looked different. They believed the covenants of God. They believed His promises. Now, the contents of faith are the gospel we preach: Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and Second Coming.
IN CONCLUSION, we can be eager, unashamed, relentless preachers of the gospel. Having seen that the gospel is the POWER of God, may we live in great excitement of seeing that power unleashed. Having been convinced that God’s PURPOSE in us preaching the gospel is the salvation of sinners, may we live in anticipation of Him following through on His promise. Having been convinced that the PURVIEW of the gospel is salvation for every single person who believes, let us be more diligent to pursue people unto belief. Having been convinced that the PLAN of the gospel is to reveal the righteousness of God received by faith, let us labor for everyone to know this. Finally, having been convinced that the PROOF of righteousness by faith is found all over the Scripture, let us go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel and see lives transformed through faith.
To us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18). To those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24).
D.L. Moody once said, “No one can sum up all God is able to accomplish through one solitary life, wholly yielded, adjusted, and obedient to Him.”
What can God do with a whole congregation, completely yielded, adjusted, obedient? What if we were all eager and unashamed to preach the gospel? What if, above all else, this was our life’s work? To make Him known?
If the Lord tarries: what would this place look like in a year? What would this place look like in ten years? What would this place look like in fifty years?
Beloved, here is your homework. Sit before God with this text. Let this text lead you in prayer for boldness and courage to live a life sold-out for the preaching of Christ. I urge you to attend the prayer meeting tonight at 5 to join us in pouring out our hearts in this matter. A church is only as healthy as its prayer life. May God be pleased to work among us and through us to make us power preachers of the gospel, convinced of His power, purpose, purview, plan, and proof of the gospel.
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