Essentials #6: GOSPEL (Romans 1-10 (excerpts)) | 10/17/2021
Romans 1-10 (excerpts) | 10/17/21 | Will DuVal
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” Romans 1:16 is one of the most important verses in all the Bible. According to the apostle Paul - according to God’s inspired WORD - the GOSPEL is the “power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” That means 3 things: 1) that people NEED saving from something, 2) that God has provided the POWER for our salvation in the form of an announcement (the word ‘gospel’ literally means “good NEWS”, “good message”...), and #3) that all anyone… and EVERYONE!... has to do, is simply BELIEVE in the gospel, and they will be saved.
If that’s true, then it undoubtedly makes the gospel not just the “GOOD” news, but the BEST news, the most essential, URGENT news imaginable. People have got to HEAR it, and not just hear it, but BELIEVE it, in order to be SAVED!
But I’m convinced that a majority of non-Christians - not just some, but MOST - of those outside the Christian faith, have little to NO idea what the gospel even IS. But I wanted to know for sure, so I decided to ASK some folks this past week, in preparation for this sermon. I called or texted most of the friends and family I know who are either unbelievers or at least unchurched, and simply asked, “What is your understanding of the GOSPEL (the “good news”) according to Christianity?” About half didn’t even respond. But of the ones who DID, only about 25% even got close to the gospel I’m going to be announcing to you this morning. ¾ weren’t even in the ballpark. They said things like, QUOTE:
“The gospel is the words of the Bible.”
“...the teachings that are in the Bible…”
“I think of the gospel as what the Bible tells us about how to live.”
“The gospel is “Love”. It’s a way of life, and everyone needs a way of life. It’s the way of LOVE, “The Golden Rule”...”
“The gospel... is the ‘moral compass’ that one should follow to be a ‘good’ Christian, detailing how to live one’s best life: summed up best by the phrase ‘do unto others as you would like them to do to you’”
“The gospel is the teachings of Jesus… that lead to a better understanding of life. You can find this understanding throughout history in every religion.”
“The gospel to me is the stories of Jesus and his messages…. It is literally the story of Christ, his works, and his messages.”
“The gospel is the cosmic obligation of spreading the teachings and values of Christianity which provide for salvation of the soul…”
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And keep in mind: that’s the PASTOR’S friends and family; I’d probably already PREACHED at half those folks before! If I hadn’t before, I certainly got lots of opportunities to do so in my follow-up texts with them last week, praise God. But just imagine how YOUR friends and family would reply. Better yet: DON’T imagine; just ASK them yourself, this coming week! Ask those around you, “What is the GOSPEL?”, and just listen to the answers that YOU get. In the American church, we send missionaries to places like Senegal and Japan and Sweden because we like to tell ourselves that everyone around US obviously already KNOWS the gospel - the central message of Christianity - so if they’re not already a Christian, then they must just not be INTERESTED. But friends, I’m here to tell you: that’s simply NOT TRUE - 75% of them DO NOT KNOW. Ask your unbelieving, unchurched friends this week - most of them will tell you that the gospel has something to do with how YOU are supposed to LIVE.
75%. Friends: that is BAD news. But the news gets even worse than that (You’re thinking, “Man, I thought this was a sermon about the GOOD news, the GOSPEL”; bear with me here…) - but I seriously wonder whether a majority of self-professing CHRISTIANS don’t know the gospel either. Or at the very least, they couldn’t ARTICULATE the gospel. Couldn’t put it into WORDS. Now remember: the gospel is NEWS. It’s a MESSAGE. An Announcement. So we can go ahead and throw St. Francis of Assisi’s famous advice - that we ought to “preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words” - throw that right where it belongs, in the GARBAGE. You CANNOT preach the gospel with just your actions. Anymore than you can eat without food, shower without water, or golf without clubs. News REQUIRES words. Our lives can and should confirm and conform to the truth of the gospel; our actions either BACK UP or DENY whether we truly believe the gospel. But the good news itself is just that: it’s news. Words.
But what news? What words? How many of you - if I had called or texted YOU this week… if I asked you to stand up this MORNING!... and share the gospel, in 50 words or less - how many of you are confident you could do it?
I’m gonna give you the gospel in just TWELVE words this morning. When Christians are polled and asked “Why don’t you share your faith more often?”, the #1 reason is FEAR. That could be fear of offending someone, but it could ALSO be, just as often, the fear of not knowing what to SAY. Not having the right WORDS. The #4 excuse given is “I’m Unequipped”; I don’t know HOW to share the gospel.
May that not be said of any West Hillian, after this morning; I want to equip you over the next 30 minutes, to share the gospel. If you can remember 12 words, you can share the gospel. And FOUR of the words are the same little word: “IS”. So really it’s just EIGHT words!
But first, let’s go to the Lord together in prayer…
There are LOTS of helpful resources out there for sharing the gospel; I’m gonna borrow and adapt and COMBINE TWO of them this morning: The “4 Spiritual Laws” and the “Romans Road”. You may or may not wanna check those out in more depth on your own later; I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. But if you boil the gospel down to its most basic, irreducible parts, there are essentially 4 component truths, 4 ingredients, if you will, that have to be there, in order to have a complete gospel. If you wanna bake a cake, you gotta have flour, sugar, eggs, and milk… right? Or something like that; I don’t bake. :)
But I do PREACH! And I KNOW that you can’t cook up the gospel, without these 4 ingredients:
#1 - GOD is SUPREME. GOD is SUPREME.
God must be the STARTING point of the good news according to the Bible. NO God, NO gospel. There IS no good news, without the SUPREMACY of God Almighty. Now, that might seem pretty OBVIOUS, but you would be SHOCKED at how many people begin their gospel presentations with the BAD news about how big of SINNERS we are. Or they even jump right past THAT straight to Jesus on the cross, with no context for how he GOT there, and WHY. Before we get to ANY of that, we simply can’t take for granted that folks these days even BELIEVE in God, much less the SUPREMACY of God - the all-surpassing GREATNESS of God, God as He actually IS, in His WORD - we shouldn’t just assume that people BUY that anymore. We’ve got to TELL them, the good news: that there really IS a God, and He’s even BETTER than they could ever even imagine Him to be; He is SUPREME in every way; “of the highest quality, degree, character, importance… GREATEST, UTMOST, PARAMOUNT”.
So we need to begin our journey down the so-called “Romans Road” in ch1. The apostle Paul essentially wrote the book of Romans like a catechesis of sorts, he’s explaining to the church in Rome the X’s and O’s of SALVATION. That’s why he hits them right off the bat with verse 16 I already read for you: “the gospel… is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes”; and Paul’s gonna spend the next 10 chapters or so outlining and DETAILING the “good news” of Christianity for us. For the sake of time, we’ll just pull out a few brief excerpts.
Romans 1, vv16-20. Starts by emphasizing that the gospel IS the power of God for salvation to all who believe; we need to STRESS the importance of their understanding and BELIEVING this good news - that first of all, v18:
“the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 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…”
It may seem odd to begin the GOOD news with “the wrath of God”, against sin, but it’s a really GOOD thing that God hates SIN so much. If He DIDN’T, then he certainly wouldn’t love you and ME that much. How loving of a father would I be, if I sat there and watched MY kids cuss and beat each other, and it didn’t really phase me at all? No, it’s GOOD that God loves us, and God’s loving us means that he HATES anything that threatens us.
But Romans 1 isn’t so much ABOUT us, as it is about GOD. Specifically, we see 3 key things about God in this passage:
1) God’s presence is prominent. It’s OBVIOUS that God EXISTS. Paul says, it’s “plain to us, because God has shown it to us… EVERYONE is without an excuse,” for at least believing in that there IS a God. We all KNOW it, deep down.
2) God’s power is preeminent. All-surpassing. In other words, God is GREAT. “His power is ETERNAL. His nature is DIVINE (of surpassing excellence).”
And 3) Because He alone is God, His prerogatives are primary. In other words, what GOD says GOES. He’s in charge. He alone gets to define - He is the standard for “ungodliness” and “unrighteousness”, because He alone is GOD, He alone is Righteous.
Exodus 15:11 captures this well. You should have found in your bulletins this morning a little business card entitled “The Gospel”. Again, let it not be said that anyone at THIS church is unequipped for sharing the gospel. I want you to put that in your wallet, your purse, your pocket, tape it to your laptop… somewhere you will see it regularly, and at the very least, it will remind you to PRAY for opportunities to witness to others. Because if you ask God, He WILL open doors for you to share. He’ll make you more AWARE of the opportunities we have every single DAY to witness, but fail to realize or take advantage of. So we need to pray. But we also need to be READY. 1 Peter 3:15 instructs us to “be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you”; that’s what this card is. It’s a very simple reminder of the GOSPEL; the reason for the HOPE that is in you. You’ll notice I changed some of the wording of the 4 gospel ingredients to try and make it more accessible for an unbeliever; the hope is that this card could not only help remind YOU of the gospel, as you are sharing it with someone else, but that you could actually GIVE the card to them. Don’t worry, we made plenty of EXTRAS, so you can use these and then give them AWAY to folks, and we would be DELIGHTED to print more, to keep replenishing you.
But Exodus 15:11 is a great summary of God’s SUPREMACY. Or as I worded it on the card there, God’s HOLINESS; It declares: ““Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?”
God is HOLY. He’s “set apart”. We talked a lot about that word in sermon #2 in this series on “God”. By the way, you’re gonna notice that there’s quite a bit of repetition this morning in these 4 spiritual laws, and the Essentials we’ve already covered in this series. Weeks 2, 3, 4, and 5 - “God”, “Humanity”, “God’s Plan” and “Jesus” - were all sort of building blocks that we’re putting together this morning to tell the story of the GOSPEL.
But the last thing I want to offer you before we move on, and I’ll do this with EACH of the 4 gospel ingredients, is to briefly explain WHY each part of the message is such “good news” for you and me, and the unbeliever I’m equipping you to share this gospel with. I don’t know if you noticed, but Christianity has gotten a LOT of bad press for quite some time now. When most people outside the church hear “Christianity”, they don’t think “GOOD news”; today, they’re more likely to think “BAD news”. Judgment. Hypocrisy. Condemnation. 1 Peter 3 didn’t say “be prepared to defend the HOSTILITY in you”, but rather, the “HOPE” that is in you. And on a practical level, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, don’t you? We Christians, of all people, oughta be the most HOPE-filled people around. So let’s consider with EACH of these gospel ingredients why it’s such GOOD news.
It is good to know that God is supreme, because for starters, #1 - it means there is a God who purposefully created you, and who willingly LOVES you. If the alternative narrative is that I’m the product of the cold, unguided, brutal process of evolution and thus I’m really just a slightly more well-adapted version of the chimp sitting in the zoo, with no more intrinsic dignity or worth than an animal, and that there’s nothing and no one GREATER out there in the universe who cares about me and my sad little life, then YES, you better believe that I WANT there to be a God, who purposely created me and who WILLINGLY chooses to LOVE me, to SUPREMELY care for me. I WANT it to be true, because that is GOOD news!
And related, #2, it’s good that God is supreme because it offers us - GOD offers us - something - Someone, Himself! - who is supremely worthy of our devotion and worship. You and I were MADE to worship. If we don’t worship God, if you’re unbelieving friend, neighbor, co-worker doesn’t worship GOD, you can rest assure they DO worship something ELSE; don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you they’re “not religious”; Oh yes they are - we’re ALL religious! They just worship something OTHER than, LESSER than God. But coming to recognize that God is supreme means that you get to worship the highest, greatest, most worship-worthy Being, the one you were created by and created TO worship! That’s good news.
And finally, #3 - it’s good that God is supreme, because it means you don’t HAVE to be. The most common replacement for God is YOURSELF. If you’re not exalting HIM, you’re probably unconsciously magnifying YOURSELF. But that’s just a weight - being the center of the universe - that no human was ever designed to BEAR. It’s GOOD that God is supreme, cuz it means I don’t have to be.
Gospel Ingredient #2 - HUMANITY is SINFUL. Humanity is Sinful.
We flip ahead to Romans ch3 now, and read:
(3:10-12, 23) “as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one…
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God””
We said that if GOD is supreme, then HE gets to call the shots. His prerogatives are primary. But most of the time, you and I live like WE’RE the ones calling the shots, like WE’RE the center of existence, like WE are god. And thus, we become gods unto ourselves. We reject God AS God, over us. And we follow our OWN ways, instead of His. The Bible calls this “SIN”.
And according to Isaiah 59:2, the verse I chose for your evangelism cards, “your iniquities [your SINS] have made a separation
between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
so that he does not hear.”
So let me give you yet ANOTHER equipping tool - a VISUAL tool - not on your cards, but you might consider DRAWING it there, or in your bulletin, if there’s more space… [explain diagram…] a lot of people are visual learners; may connect more with a diagram than a bunch of abstract truth propositions.
Again, we covered humanity’s SINFULNESS at length in sermon #3 in this series. So I won’t belabor it here. And in my experience, you won’t have to when you share the gospel with most folks either. Most of us KNOW, inherently, that there really is such a thing as right and wrong, objective right and wrong; not just subjective preferences of what “FEELS” best to me, but good and evil; that’s Romans 2, by the way: God has written his law on EVERY human heart - our conscience - so that we are just FURTHER without excuse, for our failure to turn from sin, to Him. But not only do we all universally recognize the existence of good vs. evil (even if we differ on how they are defined), but we ALSO universally admit - the Christian and the non-Christian alike, this is the one thing we ALL seem to agree on - that we are all at times guilty of doing the WRONG instead of doing the RIGHT. I asked you last Sunday, to raise your hand if you were PERFECT. I got exactly 0 hands. I could of asked a room full of unbelievers, and gotten the same response. The problem is that most unbelievers don’t realize that perfection really is God’s standard. Matthew 5:48. Which only makes sense; because if you ask them what they want and expect HEAVEN to be like, if there is a heaven at all, most folks will agree that Heaven is PERFECT. They WANT it to be perfect. And yet they think that somehow they’re gonna get IN, by simply being a little better person than their neighbor across the street. By behaving a little better than the “average person”, or “most people”.
But this is where you can tell them about the GOOD news concerning sin; you say, “Wait a minute, how can our SINFULNESS in ANY way be “good news”?”
Well, if there’s really a God, and if our sin really does separate us FROM Him, then admitting that sin is of course a really good, important step. You can’t fix a problem you don’t know you have. So acknowledging our sin is good.
But can our sin ITSELF in any way be thought of as “good”. “I thought sin was by definition, NOT good…?” That is of course true. But to the extent our sin makes us equally aware of our need for a SAVIOR, to the extent it forces us to recognize there’s something WRONG with us, and we want it - NEED it! - fixed, but we are wholly unable to fix it on our own, and if we’re going to be rescued and restored and reconciled to a holy, perfect God, HE’S got to be the one to do the saving, to the extent that our sin drives us into the arms of our Savior, it can be a really GOOD thing.
Elsewhere, in 2 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul describes his wrestling with a “thorn in the flesh”, probably a sin struggle of some kind. He writes, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ” (vv8-9) To the extent our sin, our “weaknesses” force us to admit that we are NOT strong enough, not GOOD enough to make it to Heaven on our OWN merit, and force us to humbly rely on the undeserved grace and mercy of a Savior, God uses even our SIN for our own good.
But it’s ONLY good, if #3 - JESUS is SAVIOR. Jesus is Savior.
Back to the Romans Road again, chapters 5, 6, and 8 now:
(5:8-10; 6:23; 8:1, 39) “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified (declared righteous) by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life…
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord…
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus… [Nothing] in all creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Wow - Why is it such good news that Jesus SAVES us? I count at least NINE reasons in just those 6 verses.
1) It proves God loves us. “God SHOWS his love for us in this…” Jesus didn’t HAVE to die for us; he did it for LOVE… for YOU.
2) Jesus saving us means that we don’t have to clean up our act before we can come to God. You ever heard that one, “One day I’ll straighten my life out, then maybe I’ll get back to church, start praying again...” That’s like saying, “One day I’ll get around to washing my car, then I’ll take it to the car wash. That’s kinda the whole POINT. You go to the car wash… FOR the cleaning! You come to Jesus… FOR the cleaning! It’s like that great lyric from “Come Ye Sinners” reminds us: “If you wait until you’re better, you will NEVER come at all” - cuz you ain’t GETTIN’ better without JESUS! No, “while we were YET… STILL… sinners, Christ died for us.”
3) And that’s the third great part about Jesus’ salvation: He died the death that you deserved. He died FOR us, in our place. Jesus is our substitutionary sacrifice. The wages of our sin, was God rightfully OWED us, because of our disobedience, was DEATH. Eternal death and separation from Him. But Jesus saved us by dying FOR us on the cross. And by DOING so...
#4) He declared us righteous. “We have now been justified,” Paul says; considered righteous. Our salvation isn’t based on our BEING righteous. Otherwise, NONE of us would be saved - “None is righteous; no not one”! Rather, God CREDITS Jesus’ righteousness to our account.
5) ch5, vv9-10: Because Jesus saves us, we are no longer under God’s wrath; we have now been reconciled to God. (Remember, here’s what the visual LOOKED like before… but here’s what it looks like NOW, because of Jesus)
But the good news just keeps getting better, because #6) Jesus didn’t STAY dead!; Paul says, “if we’ve been RECONCILED by his death, how much MORE shall we be saved by his LIFE…” - Jesus DIED to free us from the PENALTY of sin - Death, Hell, separation from God; but then He ROSE to free us from the POWER of sin as well - God offers us new life in Christ this morning. It starts with progressive victory over sin in THIS life, and it culminates with our being freed from even the PRESENCE of sin in the life to come, eternal life, with Christ, in Heaven.
And #7) the best part of ALL, is that God’s offer of salvation in Christ is totally FREE to you. It cost him EVERYTHING, so that it could cost you NOTHING. Salvation is the “free GIFT” of God. You can’t BUY a gift that someone gives you. If you BUY it, then it ceases to become a GIFT. A gift simply has to be RECEIVED. And that’s exactly what FAITH is; we’ll conclude there in just a moment. But faith is simply RECEIVING the gift that God purchased FOR you, with the blood of His son JESUS.
And #8) You need this gift… you WANT this gift… because it is the greatest gift imaginable: It is “the free gift of eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eternal means FOREVER. It means God doesn’t weigh out your good deeds against your bad deeds, and then make you split time between Heaven and Hell, or give you time to figure things out in Purgatory, or have different neighborhoods in Heaven depending on how GOOD you were. No - because your right standing before God the Father was established not by you but by JESUS, you have not just SOME life, not just A LOT of life; you now have ETERNAL life, in Christ!
Lastly, that means # 9) No more condemnation, no more separation. NOTHING can now separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Is that enough good news for you? You need any more reasons to trust that it is GOOD news that Jesus saves you? I didn’t even mention John 3:16, the verse I put on your gospel cards. But it’s a good transition to our final gospel ingredient...
#4 - FAITH is SUFFICIENT. Faith is sufficient. (Ephesians 2:8)
“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever tries his hardest to be a good person…
Whosoever is a member in good standing with her local church…
Whosoever… WHAT?
BELIEVES IN HIM. Believes in JESUS, will not perish, but have everlasting life.
Ephesians 2:8, the “faith is sufficient” verse on your cards there: “by grace you have been saved through… BAPTISM… through TITHING… through what? Through Faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God”; there’s that GIFT again. It’s almost like God KNEW that 75% of folks were gonna convince themselves that THEY must have to play some part in their own salvation. God says: “It’s NOT your own doing, lest anyone should boast.”
As our last stop on the Romans Road, ch.10, declares:
(10:9-17) “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. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” ...For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
So friends, in closing: have YOU called on the name of the Lord, for YOUR salvation this morning? Have YOU trusted in Jesus, as your Lord and Savior, for the forgiveness of your sins, and the salvation of your soul? Remember the diagram… God, Us, Jesus as the bridge between us? None of it MATTERS if you don’t WALK ACROSS THE BRIDGE. Faith means stepping out on the bridge. Trusting Jesus. Do that this morning, and you will be saved.
If you HAVE, then let me ask you a different question in closing: are you CALLING OTHERS, to call on the name of the Lord, for THEIR salvation? That Romans 10 passage concludes this way:
“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?[c] And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ...So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”” (10:14-17)
Brothers & sisters: they need to HEAR; are we TELLING them?
God is supreme. We are sinful. Jesus is Savior. And faith is sufficient.
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes”
Amen.