Unashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Romans 1:16-17

Paul has never been to Rome, but he is anxious to visit. He is looking forward to encouraging the church and to proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. He hopes, more specifically, that there will be a harvest among his brothers and sisters in Christ and among the Gentiles. Paul knows the gospel is powerful when it is shared among believers, and powerful when it is shared with people who don’t yet know and love Jesus Christ. In fact, under no circumstances is Paul ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When Paul writes this letter he has already been around most of the Mediterranean world preaching and receiving mixed results. In some places he is heartily received by an excited set of new believers. In some places he is barely noticed, and in some places he is run out of town on a rail or stoned. But in all places Paul is unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The gospel of Christ is true, powerful, beautiful, transformative, holy and glorious – all on its own. It is all these things without my help or contribution. The gospel is untarnished by human error or cultural corruption. Though it steps into our lives and histories and has the power to change us, we cannot change it. The gospel does not need my help to be attractive, my strength to stand in our world, my intelligence and cleverness to be true or triumphant. It is not within my abilities to make it what it is and always will be – the power of God for salvation.

There is no good reason to be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But there are a lot of bad reasons.

It might be peer pressure of some sort. The crowd I find myself in may be put-off by Jesus’ story, or they may find it a quaint belief for some small set of people who don’t have the wherewithal to stand on their own two feet. We may even recognize that the crowd we want to fit into looks down on what they think is the childishness or lack of sophistication of the gospel. They are all wrong on all counts, and these are bad reasons to be ashamed.

I may simply be a spiritual sloth – a lazy bum when it comes to my relationship with God. How is this being ashamed? Will a lazy believer stand for the truth of their belief when the pressure is on? What about when there is a better offer from another point of view? Will they know how to address the skeptic who confronts them or the pains of life when they assail them? They won’t, and while the spiritual sloth may carry their faith lightly on good days, they will drop it quickly on the hard ones. Laziness is a bad reason to be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul writes these words maybe 15 years before he is able to actually visit Rome. We know Paul backs up these words with his deeds when he writes them. But when he actually gets to Rome – when his wish of visiting them is fulfilled – he arrives in chains. By then he is a prisoner for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When he raises his hand to hug his friends they are in shackles. Paul lives unashamed of the gospel and arrives in Rome unashamed of the gospel.

There is no good reason to be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the very power of God himself.

My Introduction

Romans 1:1-7

There is a lot we can learn about the Christian life from the way the apostle Paul introduces himself in his letters. Though these sections often feel like simple boiler-plate, they contain far more than inconsequential pieces of information about Paul. They become doors of insight into some of the goals of the Christian life. They challenge us to be able to introduce ourselves in the same way with the same level of authenticity.

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” Paul likes describing himself as a servant, the word means a willing slave, to Jesus Christ. We cannot confuse his sense of servanthood with our notion of slavery, however. When we encounter the concept, we tend to think of people carried across the world against their will, and the best thing we could do for them is set them free. The best thing for Paul, as far as Paul is concerned, is his willing slavery to his Savior. Paul has subjected himself to Jesus Christ as a servant on purpose. Have I?

“Paul…called to be an apostle.” Paul is called. This means God has done something with Paul. For most of us it could be said that we are doing something with ourselves, but that leaves us in the position of being subject to our own shortcomings and failings. A calling by God means there can be a divine purpose for our being and our doing instead of just my purposes for being and doing. As Paul will make clear over and over, being called by God means we are called to salvation for occupation. God does the work of making us His own, and then we are to live for and work for Him.

Paul is an apostle. In its simplest form, the term means he is a messenger. Paul travelled the Mediterranean world taking the Gospel to people who had never heard. And though Paul is one of the original, and probably unique, apostles, we are not exempt from the task. Before his introduction is over he tells his readers that “we have received grace and apostleship” (vs. 5).

Paul also addresses all of his readers, as he does in so many of his letters, as saints. He says the Romans were “called to be saints” (vs. 7). If we conjure up images of “saints,” our heads might be filled with half-remembered paintings of people with halos, and stories of special devotion to God under harsh and trying circumstances. And though those people may legitimately be saints, such images have the unfortunate effect of separating the rest of us from the calling of saint.

Paul says you are called to be saints – every one of you. If we strip away the caricatures, we see that people called to be saints have a new life running through their veins that is not tarnished or overcome by this world. We see that people who are called to be saints are anchored and secure in Christ. Saints are not people whose lives are free from storms, but people whose lives are safe and secure in every storm. And people who are called to be saints are not sedentary – they change things for the Kingdom of God.

You are called to be a saint. Anything less is beneath your dignity. Anything less is beneath who God created you to be.