Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
We're going to be in Romans chapter one.
If you have your Bibles turned there with us.
We are going to continue our sermon series entitled Theology Matters.
And the title of the sermon this morning is Not Ashamed.
Not Ashamed.
We're in Romans, chapter one.
We're going to start in verse number 16 here.
Paul is specifically speaking in the context of the gospel.
If you follow along on the back of your bulletins this morning,
you'll see an outline and that might help you kind of see where
we're going and where we have been.
But last week we looked at Paul stating in verse 15 that he
is ready to preach the gospel.
That was his testimony.
His testimony was this.
I am ready to preach the gospel, specifically in this case
to those that were there in Rome.
But we know that in Paul's life, he was ready in all cases to
preach the gospel wherever he was.
And I challenged all of us that morning that are we ready to
preach the gospel?
Are we ready to.
To proclaim the gospel to those around us, whether it be in
our workplaces, in our homes, in any area, in any avenue?
And so the Bible says very clearly that Paul was ready to preach
the gospel.
And the challenge for all of us is, are we ready to preach the
gospel?
And again, we have to know what the gospel is before we can
preach it.
There in your notes, it clearly defines the gospel as the
good news of Jesus.
The gospel is the good news of who Jesus is and what he has done
for us.
Jesus is God.
Jesus comes to this earth perfect in every way.
No sin lived that perfect life, died on the cross for our sins,
paid the price for our sins, was buried in a tomb three days later,
rose on that third day and conquered death through the resurrection.
That is the message of the gospel.
The gospel message is this, that if we place our faith and trust
in Jesus and what he has done for us, that we can have salvation,
that we can have everlasting life, that we can be forgiven of
our sins.
And so I want to proclaim that as a pastor and I hope that as a
church, we proclaim that as a church, and you as an individual,
proclaim that in your life.
And so Paul Says here that to preach the gospel, we must be confident.
If we have trusted in the gospel message, we are to proclaim
that message to those around us.
But we are not going to be able to proclaim that message to
to those around us.
If we are lacking in some areas.
Maybe it's the lacking of faith, maybe it's the lacking of
confidence.
Maybe it's a place in our life where we have fear to share what
we believe.
And so Paul explains the main point of the whole letter, the whole
letter to the Romans.
He explains it all here in verses 16 and 17.
And so here this morning, we're gonna just be taking two verses.
We're gonna be looking at that here, verses 16 and 17.
Look at that there with me in verse 16 he says, for I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth.
To the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith.
As it is written, the just shall live by faith.
Here this morning we're going to look at these two verses.
We're going to understand what it means to not be ashamed of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We're going to understand why we don't have to be ashamed because
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how we can proclaim it in our
lives.
And so let's go ahead and open up with a word of prayer and we're
going to look right into our points here this morning.
Lord, I thank you for this time that you've given us.
I thank you for the opportunity to look into your word.
Lord, I pray that you can challenge our hearts this morning
to live confidently, to live boldly for the cause of the gospel.
Lord, if we've trusted in the gospel and it's changed our lives,
may we be the ones who proclaim that message to those around
us so that we can see their lives changed.
And hopefully, Lord, that even if there's someone here today that
does not know you as Savior, that today can be the day of salvation,
that today can be the day of trusting in the gospel.
So, Lord, I pray that you help us to not be ashamed of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Lord, I pray that you remove any distractions from our minds and
from our hearts.
Lord, get me out of the way so that your word is clearly seen here
this morning.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Paul speaks here about having boldness in his faith, having boldness
in the gospel proclamation and the boldness in the truth.
I think that sometimes as Christians, we lack in this area.
Sometimes we're fearful of proclaiming the gospel because maybe
what people will say or maybe what people will do, and we live
in a world today that is boldly proclaiming its message.
We live in a world today that's boldly lifting up sin.
And we as Christians sometimes are cowering in fear because we're
afraid of what the outcome might be if we proclaim in a loud
way the truth of Jesus Christ.
And what Paul says here is to be ready to preach the gospel means
that we are not ashamed of what Jesus Christ has done for us.
We are not ashamed of our Savior.
We're not ashamed of the truth.
We're not ashamed of our need for a Savior.
We're not ashamed to preach the message to a lost and dying world.
And so he says here, verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the Gospel
of Christ.
I hope that's our testimony here this morning.
And sometimes we'll say that we're not ashamed, but the way that
we live our life says a different message.
Sometimes we'll say, you know, I'm not ashamed to tell people about
Jesus.
But if we look at our lives, our lives indicate that we are ashamed.
Why?
Because sometimes what we say doesn't always match up with what
we do.
And to be ashamed means that we're going to be quiet.
To be ashamed means that we're gonna be fearful of sharing that
message to those that we come across in our life.
Maybe it's just this.
Maybe someone has come up and said, why are you different?
The Bible says in First Peter, Chapter 3 that people will notice
the hope that's within us.
And so maybe someone says, why are you different?
Why don't you join in with the things that we do at work?
Or why don't you talk the way that we talk?
And a lot of times as Christians, we get fearful.
We say, well, I want to stay away from that stuff.
That's not a good thing to do.
What we should be saying is, you know what?
I'm a believer in Jesus Christ.
He has made me different.
He has changed me.
And that same change that I've seen in my life can be seen in your
life if you trust in him as your Savior.
And sometimes we're like, well, that's kind of pushy, right?
Isn't that called proselytizing?
Isn't that a little bit too strong, folks?
Telling people about what Jesus Christ did for you is not too
strong.
It's actually the call of the Christian's life is to tell people
about what Jesus has done for you.
The Bible says in First Peter, Chapter 3, Verse 15, to be ready
to give an answer for the hope that's within you.
And so the whole idea for a believer is to live differently and
proclaim what Jesus Christ has done.
But if we're ashamed, we'll have another reason to be different.
We sometimes will hold back what God is speaking to us to tell
other people.
So, for example, maybe there's an opportunity, a door opens and
someone says, you know what?
I'm looking for a church.
Some of us would take that opportunity to invite them to church.
Or some of us would be like, well, I don't know if I want that
person to come to my church.
You know what the truth is, is that we have to look for opportunities.
Paul says in the New Testament to walk circumspectly, looking for
open doors.
He prayed for what's called a door of utterance, praying for opportunities
to proclaim the gospel to everyone around us.
And so we see point number one here.
Paul has boldness in the proclamation of the gospel.
We're called to have boldness as well.
Confidence.
The believer shouldn't be ashamed of the gospel.
Why?
Well, even Jesus teaches in Mark, chapter 8, verse 38, that what
we believe about God should dictate how we live publicly.
Publicly.
A lot of times people will say, well, the Christian faith is
a private thing.
This is my thing that I have that no one else needs to know about.
It's the complete opposite in Scripture.
The Bible says that we are to publicly display our testimony to
those around us.
We're publicly to display our Savior to those around us.
And so Mark 8, 38, this is Jesus speaking.
If you have a red letter Bible, there's gonna be red letters
there.
Jesus is teaching here.
And he says, whosoever therefore, shall be ashamed of me
and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation.
By the way, we live in an adulterous and sinful generation,
okay?
If you look at it from the perspective of scripture, we live
in a world that is dark.
We live in a world that is in rebellion.
And so what Jesus says is this.
If you're going to be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous
and sinful generation of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed
when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
And so what is Jesus saying here?
He says, don't be ashamed of who I am.
Don't be ashamed of my words.
Don't be ashamed of the word of God.
And so sometimes in our life we might have an opportunity to proclaim
what the Bible actually says.
But we're fearful that people are going to say, well, that's a
little bit narrow minded, that's not open minded to love.
And the Bible does say that we are to love, but the Bible says that
we are to love with truth.
And so to proclaim love to a world that we should be proclaiming
love to should also mean proclaiming the truth.
And Paul says, have boldness in that.
And so the confidence, the boldness doesn't come from our own
skills.
It doesn't come from understanding everything in the Bible
completely.
The confidence comes from trusting in the person and work of
Jesus Christ.
Let's go back to verse number 16 here he says, for I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ.
Why?
For it is the power of God unto salvation.
It's the power of God.
We're trusting in the power of God.
That's why we, we can be confident.
That's why we can go and do these things boldly and confidently
because of who Jesus Christ is, the power of God working through
us.
And so that's where the boldness comes from.
There's times in my life where I've had the opportunity to benefit
from being around other people that are maybe really experienced
in an area.
For example, you know, like if I'm going.
The very first time I went out witnessing okay.
To door to door visitation back in Florida, I went with another
pastor and I was super confident.
I'm like, I'm with a guy who knows what he's doing.
You know, he's got all the answers.
And so I would walk around all confident.
My only job was to pray for him.
Okay.
He's like, just pray for me, just pray for me.
So I was praying and I felt really confident.
I'm like, hey, I'll even knock at the door, you know.
And then he says, okay, it's your turn now, you do the talking.
And that was a totally different thing.
I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You were the one that was supposed to do the talking, right?
Right.
So my boldness, my confidence came through.
So somebody else's power, someone else's wisdom, and so I benefited
from that.
But the moment that I started trying to rely on my own strength
in that, I got a little bit nervous.
I lost my confidence.
And so when we're Christians, sometimes the reason why we lose
our confidence, the reason why we walk in fear, the reason why we
are Sometimes ashamed of the gospel is because we're walking in
our own strength.
We're walking in our flesh.
We're walking in our own wisdom.
And we know that all of that eventually is going to fall and fail.
But what we see here in this case is that the power of God is
working through us.
So therefore, we're not speaking in our own wisdom.
We're speaking in the wisdom of God.
We're not speaking in our own power, but we're speaking in the
power of God.
And so the boldness comes through trusting in Jesus, in the
person and work of Jesus Christ.
And so we have boldness in our message.
But there's power in the message.
There's power in the message of the gospel.
We see it there in verse 16.
He says, For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is
the power of God unto salvation.
And so the power of the gospel is why we can live in confidence.
The message in and of itself is powerful.
Why?
Because it's the message of Jesus Christ.
And I wrote this down in our notes here.
It says, in a world obsessed with power, by the way, we live in
a world that's obsessed with power, but a different type of power.
It's the power of man.
It's the power of control.
And so we live in a society that is all about power.
The best thing a person can do in this society is to trust in the
one who is all powerful.
And that's our Lord and Savior.
And we know that he is all powerful.
And so instead of trying to trust in the power of some other
man, trying to trust in the power of myself, maybe trying to
trust in the power of a country or the power of the almighty
US dollar.
What do we do?
We proclaim the power of the one who is all powerful.
And that is the power of God in our life.
And so the gospel has the power to overcome anything.
You know what?
All of us at some point in our life have walked in a path of unrighteousness.
We've walked in a path of sin.
And when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, that power of the gospel,
that power of God is power enough to change us from a life of
sin to a life of righteousness.
And so think of anything in your life that you struggle with.
Think of anything in your life that you seem that seems to you as
a hindrance or destructive.
The Bible says that the power of God can overcome any of that.
The power of God can overcome your fear.
The power of God can overcome your doubt.
The power of God can overcome your weakness.
The power of God can overcome anything.
And so what we do here as Christians is that we can tell people
a lot of things.
Hey, you know what?
We have a good church.
You know what?
We have good ministries.
We have a friendly church.
We have a lot of good food.
We have a lot of good activities.
These are all good things, but they're not the ultimate thing.
What we need to be proclaiming is not the gospel of Middletown Baptist
Church.
We need to be proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And we are just messengers of that.
Middletown Baptist Church is just a beacon for light so that people
can come in and hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so it's the gospel that can change our lives.
I can't change your life.
Counseling cannot change your life.
A devotional book cannot change your life.
All these things that people try to fill in the gaps and say,
well, maybe just me removing myself from these type of people
will help me change my life.
That's not going to change your life.
Ultimately, what ultimately changes our life is the gospel of
Jesus Christ, the truth of who Jesus is and what he has done for
us.
All those other things come along with that.
Should I separate myself from my sinful friends?
Yes.
Should I read devotional books and study the Word?
Yes.
Should I get involved in church ministries?
Yes.
But all of that is empty outside of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's the start.
That's the heart.
That's everything.
Everything that we do wraps around the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So Paul says, don't be ashamed of the gospel.
Don't hold back.
Well, you know, I don't want to scare someone away, folks.
If the gospel is scaring somebody away, that's their problem.
That's not our problem.
Right?
Because the idea would be this.
If we have someone come into our church and we have one opportunity
to talk to them, one opportunity to talk to them, what
do I want to say?
Well, come on out to the potluck.
We got some really good casseroles.
Okay, well, that's.
I mean, again, some of you might say, is Pastor Josh against
potlucks?
No, I love them.
Okay.
I love food.
But what if we had one opportunity to talk to someone?
What would we tell them?
Well, I would tell them John 3:16.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
Right?
Tell them the gospel message.
Because it's the gospel that can change someone's heart.
Well, you know, I come into the church and, hey, what does it
mean to be a member of Middletown Baptist Church?
Well, it means that you got to start doing this and, and doing this
and doing this, and then you can be a good member of Middletown
Baptist Church.
No, the starting place to be a member of Middletown Baptist Church
is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
You must know who he is and what he has done.
And so the Bible says, don't be ashamed.
So as a church, what does that mean?
That means every ministry, every aspect of what we're doing,
we are not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have this GO initiative, right?
We want to go into the world.
We want to go into Middletown.
We want to go into New Jersey, we want to go into Maryland.
It's not to go.
To say that, hey, we're here to help you and build these buildings.
It's not about going there and passing out flyers.
It's all about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Those are all just elements of bringing people to the truth of who
Jesus is.
And so Paul says here, hey, look, the gospel has the power to
overcome sin.
Ultimately, the powerful nature of God is best witnessed through
salvation.
What do I mean by that?
Everyone's looking for signs and wonders and miracles.
The greatest miracle of the power of God is the salvation message.
And that is the fact that someone can be taken from a life
of sin and bondage and torture and taken to a place of freedom and
forgiveness and eternal life.
That is the miracle of God.
Sometimes we think of a miracle would be someone who can't
walk and walk again.
And that is a wonderful miracle.
Sometimes people say, you know what?
We want to see it.
We want to see the transformation happen before us,
folks, you want to see a transformation happen before you
see someone who came from a life of sin and bondage and moved
to a life of salvation.
That is the transformation that we should be celebrating within
the church.
And so what I would say here this morning is this.
You want to see the power of God?
You want to see miracles?
Proclaim the gospel message, because that is the miracle worker
right there, the gospel message of Jesus Christ.
That is where we see the power of God fully on display, is when
someone comes and we see a life change in the gospel in repentance
and faith.
And so ultimately, the powerful nature of God is best witnessed
through salvation.
And so what we can see at the end of verse 16 is this.
He says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.
Why?
Because it's the power of God unto salvation.
So he says, I'm not ashamed of this awesome thing.
Why?
Because it's about salvation.
And then he goes on to say something very interesting here,
which would have been contradictory to many people back
then and in some degrees contradictory to the way that we
do things in our world today.
It says to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
You might not get the context of what he's explaining here, but
what is he saying?
He's saying the gospel is for everyone.
It doesn't matter what culture you're from, it doesn't matter what
background you're in.
He says, yes, it does go to the Jew first.
Right.
That was just the reason being is because the church started in
Jerusalem, there was mostly Jews there.
But then he says it went to the Greek.
Now, that doesn't just mean people that lived in Greece.
That's specifically talking about people who live the Greek lifestyle.
The.
The person who we would consider to be a worldly person to
adopt the Greek culture, as you well know, maybe you don't.
But in history, there was a guy named Alexander the Great, and
when he went on his conquering spree and basically conquered the
known world, he passed along that Greek way of thinking to a bunch
of different people.
So that was considered worldly culture.
And so what is he saying here?
He says the gospel is for those who are religious in the Jewish
sector there and in tradition, but also the gospel is for those
people who are living in the world.
Right.
We have to proclaim the gospel to everyone.
And so the gospel message is not just for people who we're comfortable
with.
We're supposed to live boldly to those around us that might be
different than us.
And that's what we see here in this context.
He says it's to the Jew first.
Yes.
And so it's the people that we know, but also to the Greek, to those
on the farther ends of culture.
And so there's power, and the power is there to change people,
and the power is there to change people that we would say they're
unchangeable, they're beyond the gospel.
You know what?
I can never see them come to Christ.
Maybe there are some people in this room that people said that about
you.
Maybe someone in this room was that type of person that was running
their own path, going the wrong way.
And then someone said, you know what?
There's no hope for that person.
Truth is that there still is hope for those people.
There's hope for your family members, there's hope for your co
workers.
There's hope for anyone who comes to Jesus Christ in faith.
And so the gospel message is There for the Jew first, and also
to the Greek.
And so we have boldness, we have power.
But then we see, in verse number 17, we see the righteousness.
The righteousness?
Whose righteousness?
Well, ultimately God's righteousness.
But we get to be the beneficiaries of that.
We get to be those who are walking in righteousness.
He says, for therein.
Therein.
What is he talking about therein?
Salvation is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.
As it is written, the just shall live by faith.
And so the gospel points the believer to the righteousness of
God.
Everybody has to come to a place in their life where they come
and understand the righteousness of God, the perfect
nature of who God is.
And then we also have to realize how limited we are, that
we are in need of a Savior.
And therefore, when we see the righteousness of God, we're able
to experience what it means to.
To know him in a personal way.
So in faith, when we trust in him, we are trusting in the righteousness
of God, we are trusting in the forgiveness of God, we are trusting
in the sacrifice of God.
And it says here, in faith, the righteousness of God is extended
to the believer, meaning this.
We as Christians are able to be beneficiaries of the righteousness
of God.
So then we can be called righteous so that we can be declared
not guilty, as Suzette's saying here this morning.
And there's a term for that.
There's a theological term that we use, and you don't have to
remember the term, but it is nice to know.
And that is the term justification.
Justification.
Justification is not me trying to justify my own life.
That's how we use it in our culture today.
Well, I had justification to do that to that person because they
wronged me.
That's not what we're talking about here.
In the biblical sense, justification is God declaring us
righteous.
It's God's declaration of righteousness to those who believe
in him.
That's God declaring us righteous.
Think about how crazy that is.
That the perfect God, the creator of the universe, the only
righteous God, he then looks upon us who are sinners, but in faith
sees his son and sees the sacrifice and understands that we
are forgiven in him.
And therefore we can be called righteous as well.
We can be declared not guilty.
Folks, what I deserve is in my sin.
And if you are like me in my sin, I deserve punishment.
But the Bible says that the gift of grace is the fact that God
can extend to us that righteousness and forgiveness.
And therefore we can know Him.
And that's what we're proclaiming to people.
We're not proclaiming to people, clean your life up.
The cleaning comes up after salvation, right?
We're not proclaiming to them that, hey, you know what, you gotta
work your way.
The works come after salvation.
So what do we proclaim to them?
We proclaim the righteousness of God.
We proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ.
Justification.
Justification is this fact that God declares us righteous even
though we deserve punishment.
And so I think that's so important to understand when we're
sharing our faith with people.
It's being clear and simple about what we're doing.
A lot of times we try to add things to the Gospel message, and
we should.
The Bible does speak later on in the sanctification process, in
the spiritual growth process.
We are to add things to our faith, right?
We are to add spiritual maturity.
But in the process of understanding who God is and what
he has done for us, we need to preach Jesus and Jesus alone.
John 14:6.
You'll hear me quote this almost every week, and that is that
Jesus is the way, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
And so what we can see here in this case in verse number 17 is he's
proclaiming the righteousness of God revealed to us through faith.
And so a believer is saved by faith.
And as we see here, lives by faith.
Look at the end of verse 17 with me here.
Paul is quoting Habakkuk 2, 4.
Now, some of you that come to our Wednesday night Bible studies
here know that that's the exact passage of scripture that we
were in this past week.
It's an amazing thing to see how God ordains all this coming together.
But in the book of Habakkuk, we see God speaking through help.
Habakkuk.
And he says, the just shall live by faith.
The justified should live by faith.
Meaning this.
You cannot justify yourselves.
The only way that you can come to an understanding of who God is
and salvation in him is through faith.
And so those that are justified not only are saved by faith,
but live by faith.
What does that mean?
That means this.
My salvation is based in my faith in Jesus Christ for salvation,
but supposed to live daily in that faith.
I'm supposed to live daily in trusting God in the little things
and the big things and the hard things and the confusing things.
Folks, we are called as Christians to live in every aspect
of our life through faith, through faith.
And so the Bible clearly teaches, in this case that the Christian
is called not just to get a ticket to heaven and say, well, I'm
going to heaven now.
I'm just going to live my life the way I want to live it?
No.
The Bible says here that a believer is saved by faith and will
live by faith.
Every aspect of our life should be based in trusting in God.
Specifically speaking in this case and in this context, proclaiming
the gospel message to those around us.
Do we believe that the power of the gospel is still here today
for us?
Do we believe that it is worth it to share our faith with those
around us?
Do we believe that God will protect us?
Do we believe that God will go before us?
Do we believe that God will preserve us?
Do we believe that God will give us the wisdom and the power
to.
To proclaim the truth to the people that we love, to the people
that we don't even know, to the people that might be different
than us?
That's the question that we need to answer this morning is do
we truly believe that there is power in the gospel?
Do we truly believe that there's power in the truth of who
Jesus Christ and who he is and what he has done for us?
And so I think that that's something that we need to think about
this morning.
Are we living in boldness?
Are we living in power?
Are we living in the righteousness of God?
Because I think that so many times we think about it as.
And I'll speak for myself, I'll think about it from this case
that if someone brings someone my way, then I'll definitely tell
them the truth of Jesus.
Like, if someone stops me in the supermarket and says, hey, how
do you go to heaven?
Okay, that could happen.
It really could pray for those opportunities.
But a lot of times I think, well, if someone comes my way, I'll
present that gospel to them.
But that's not what this is talking about.
This is talking about boldly living a different way, boldly proclaiming
a different way around us so that people will notice the truth
of God.
Paul says, I'm not ashamed.
I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
There's some things that we should be ashamed of.
We should be ashamed of our sin.
We should be ashamed of our rebellion against God.
But there's people in our culture today who are not ashamed
of that.
It's actually something that they are proud of, Right?
There's the proclamation of pride all over, okay?
We know that people celebrate their sin and they're not ashamed
of that.
And do you see the irony there?
The world lives in boldness in their sin.
And we as Christians Live in fear.
And being ashamed of our righteousness should be the other
way around, right?
The other way around should be that we boldly proclaim the truth
of God, the righteousness of God.
And those that are in sin should be ashamed of their sin and
brought to the truth of Jesus Christ.
There's power in the word of God, and that's what we see here.
Remember back in Mark, chapter eight, Jesus says, those who are
ashamed of me and my word, a lot of times we'll say, well, I love
Jesus and I'll proclaim Jesus.
But there's some things in scripture that I just don't.
I don't want to really proclaim.
I might somewhat believe it, but I'm not really all about that,
folks.
The Bible says that all scripture is given by inspiration
of God.
So what does that mean?
That means if I love God like we talked about last week, if I love
God, and if I am not ashamed of who he is, I am not ashamed of
what this word says.
I'm not ashamed of what the Bible says about certain topics that
our world is struggling with today.
Let me tell you, there are things that children and adults are
struggling with today that the Bible very clearly defines.
Okay?
Marriage.
Let's look at it.
Scripture.
We're gonna.
Folks, if you're getting a little uncomfortable with me talking
about this, just wait for the next few verses in the book of Romans,
because we're gonna talk about some things that are taboo in our
society to talk about, okay?
But the Bible defines what marriage is.
Marriage is between a man and a woman.
The Bible clearly defines that from the book of Genesis.
There are people that shudder with that.
Oh, can pastor really say that?
Why?
Because we live in a culture that proclaims evil and is ashamed
of good.
Proclaim what the Bible says if you're struggling with your identity.
Okay?
Don't go with what the world tells you to do.
We'll just pick whatever identity you want, okay?
Whatever orientation you want.
Just create one.
If you can't find one.
Okay, folks, the Bible very clearly tells us that there is an
identity in Christ that is the Christian's identity.
No longer do I identify with something else.
I identify with Christ in the Bible very.
And here it is, folks.
This is really the truth.
Okay?
This is the biblical truth.
We talked about this last week.
You're either a child of God or the Bible says the child of the
prince of this world.
Prince of the power of the air.
So essentially, what we see is we're either serving God or we're
serving the enemy.
And there's a lot of people that say, well, my identity is this
or my identity is that.
Folks, if your identity is not in Christ, your identity is in evil.
Your identity is in rebellion.
And this isn't a feel good message.
You're not going to leave today going, well, you know what,
Pastor Josh is just such a, such an open minded person.
But that's okay.
I love that.
Because the gospel is narrow minded because it's through Jesus
Christ.
Now going back, are we hateful to those people that are different
than us?
No.
What do we, what do we see?
He says for the, for the gospel messages for the Jew first
and also to the Greek.
Paul says, hey, that unsaved person doesn't need us to condemn
them.
They need us to preach the gospel to them so we can look around
the Middletown community and we can go, well, you know what, there's
a lot of people that look different than we do.
There's a lot of people that are living in sin.
So we just need to separate ourselves from them.
Or we can say, hey, let's preach them the gospel.
Let's show them the love of Christ.
Now I picked on the definition of marriage, but there's a lot of
things in this world that sometimes are what we would call
more palatable sins that we can even see within the church.
Right?
So we get hard and fast on certain sins within the church.
Right.
Bless God.
If anyone comes through those doors looking like that, we're going
to throw them out.
But there's other sins within the church that we get more comfortable
with because there's something that we're used to.
Okay.
And the truth is, is that we need to be.
So if we're against those sins of what we would call those abominable
sins of the world, we need to treat that sin within the church
the same way.
We don't need to accept it, we don't need to condone it, we don't
need to wink at it.
The Bible clearly says that we need to be bold in proclamation of
the truth that's in the world and that's in the church.
And so, so many times we as the church can kind of come together
and commiserate about how evil the world is.
But I think sometimes as a church we need to come together and
say, hey, how corrupt has the church become within America, within
the world?
The church is not just a place where we come together and just gossip
about the world or talk bad about the people around us.
This is a place where we come together, we get strengthened in
the truth of God.
We leave, not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we proclaim
that to the world.
So we live by faith.
He says, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
From faith to faith.
There's a lot of commentators who kind of will have their own opinions
on what that means.
From faith to faith.
I just think that means having a life characterized by faith.
From the start of my salvation to that justification process, all
the way through every element of my life to the very end.
Faith to faith.
My life is characterized by faith.
Your life is characterized by faith.
That's what he's saying here.
He says that's how God's righteousness is revealed, is through
living a life of faith.
Living a life characterized by faith.
You know what, we want people to talk about us in a good way, right?
And we want to have a.
Hopefully as a Christian, you want to have a godly testimony.
I think one of the greatest testimonies that someone can have
is they say, you know, that's a person of faith.
And a lot of people will claim that.
You'll even see that in culture today.
You'll see that in culture when it comes to people that say,
well, you know what, I'm a man of faith.
Well, what does that mean?
Means that I'm trusting in something.
If I'm a man in faith in Jesus Christ, it means that I'm trusting
in Jesus in every element of my life.
And so the Bible says here is very clearly that we are to be Christians
that are living lives characterized by faith.
And so we come here to the conclusion, we come here to the final
thoughts that we have.
And he says, those that are just, those that are justified, those
that are declared righteous by God, are those who are living by
faith.
And so what we could basically come to in the thesis of Paul's thought
here is this.
If we are living by faith, we will not be ashamed of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
If we live by faith, we're relying on the power of God in the
gospel message to reach people, to change people, to change
our own lives.
And so what we see here in conclusion is this.
Because of God's love, because of God's grace, because of God's
forgiveness, and ultimately because of God's power, we can live
boldly for the cause of the gospel.
You know what we live.
And I'm joining myself in with you on this, okay?
We live in a society today that is low stakes Christianity.
Low stakes, okay?
So like the worst that can happen to us usually within our society
today is that someone might mock us, someone might reject us,
someone might slam a door in your face, okay?
I've had a handful of doors slammed in my face over the years.
I've had multiple people call me names.
Folks, that's a low level persecution.
Because the truth is that you're going to have people call
you names whether you're a Christian or not.
So it's like, I'd rather be called names for the cause of the
gospel than for my bad mistakes, okay?
In my own life.
Just drive out on the main roads and people will call you names,
okay?
So the truth is this.
You have to understand, I have to understand that what is worth
living for, what is worth sacrificing, what is worth being
bold about?
Like, for some of you, let's say, for example, today as you were
heading out, I said, okay, I want you to tell me your favorite
sports team, okay?
So some of you I know will come up to me and say, the Philadelphia
Eagles.
And I'm a proud fan of those, and rightly so.
Look, they're a good team, okay?
But you would not have a problem if someone in your community
or even you proclaiming, hey, I'm an Eagles fan, you saw someone
maybe wearing a Cowboys shirt too, you might say, hey, what are
you doing here?
This is Eagles country, right?
You have no problem in doing that, right?
Why?
I don't know.
Maybe because it's something that we see is worth being proud
of.
Hey, you know what?
I'm proud to be.
And again, I'm not saying it's wrong to be a sports fan, but I'm
trying to liken it to something that you're familiar with,
that you're comfortable with doing.
None of us have a problem with proclaiming a hobby that we like
or a team that we follow or a food that we enjoy.
It's the same thing with our Christian faith.
We.
There's nothing to be fearful of to tell people that Jesus has
changed your life, that he is different, that it's a better way,
it's the best way, it's the only way to understand true grace
and forgiveness and have everlasting life.
And so we proclaim that boldly to those around us.
And so I think there's this false dichotomy which basically says
you either have to know everything about the Bible and be
an evangelist or just don't say anything at all because you're
not qualified.
I'm going to tell you here this morning, if you are a believer
in Jesus Christ and you have trusted in the forgiveness of Jesus
Christ, in the grace of Jesus Christ, and you know without a shadow
of a doubt that you are saved.
You are qualified to tell people about Jesus Christ.
So what if someone says, ask a question that I don't know the answer
for?
Welcome to the club.
Okay, we don't have all the answers.
Right?
And you don't have to have all the answers.
The only answer you have to have is Jesus Christ and what he
has done in the word of God.
The answers are all here and we should dig in and we should know
more.
Right?
If you're saved for 40, 50, 60 years, you should have more answers
at the end of those 60 years than you did at the beginning.
But at the end of the day, we're not going to have all the answers.
You don't have to have all the answers to proclaim the truth of
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I remember a couple years ago we were passing out tracks at the
park up here in Middletown and Brother Dan and I were there and
our kids were out passing flyers out and, and I just thought
like, you know what, at that time our kids were really young.
It's like, you know, four or five year old kids can go pass out
a flyer to someone and invite them to church.
Anyone can.
Right now some of you are like, well, they're cute and they
walk up.
You know what the truth is, is that all of us have the capability
to proclaim the gospel message of Jesus Christ.
It's overcoming that fear, it's overcoming the apprehension,
it's overcoming the that concept of being ashamed.
Even though you might not be ashamed of who Jesus is.
I know that word sometimes holds us up and we say, well, I'm
not ashamed of who Jesus is, but we're ashamed of maybe what might
happen if I proclaim the truth of God to those around me.
And so the challenge would be, is like we would be so confident
that we would be so much in love with God that we would tell
people around us what Jesus has done for us.
Think about how different this world would be if we were bold enough
to go to people and say, you know what?
Jesus is the one that can change your life.
Jesus is the one who is reigning supreme.
He is the one who is all powerful.
Now you would say, how does that look?
That looks different for different people.
Just practically speaking, you might not ever get a chance to come
up behind a podium and preach a message to multiple people.
That might not ever be in your realm of life.
But what I will say is that all of us have opportunities for
some people, let's say, for example, some people like sports.
Okay?
Are sports evil or godly?
Neither one.
They're indifferent.
It's just like anything.
They can be bad, they can be used for evil, or they could be used
for good.
So what do we say?
We say, hey, if you like that, use that as your outlet.
So I'm not a sports person, but I like, you know, I don't know,
I like crocheting.
Okay, Use that as an outlet, right?
There's all these things that God has given us in this world as
beautiful things.
And we can use them for our own good, we can use them for our
own pleasure, we can use them.
And.
And the Bible speaks of the gift of the talents, right?
And we have opportunities as a church to receive things in this
world so that we can redeem them for the kingdom of God.
There are certain things that we can use.
And so what I would say to you this morning is this.
Not all of you are gonna get up and preach a three part sermon,
but all of you are gonna preach a sermon by what you do in
your life and use those things that you have in your life that you're
already doing as a cause to point people to Jesus Christ.
It's a beautiful thing that we have.
We have the freedom, the Bible speaks of Christian liberty, Christian
freedom to use what God has given us in our life.
So some of you, you might say, well, you know what?
I have a workplace that have a lot of people around me and we get
to sit around and we can talk all day.
There you go.
Use that as your opportunity.
You can have a neighborhood, you can have a hobby, you can have
whatever it is and use that for the cause of the kingdom.
In Second Corinthians, we saw that there's a ministry of reconciliation,
a ministry of the gospel.
All of us are called, and we have a ministry of the gospel.
We have the message, that's the gospel.
And we all should have a ministry of the gospel within our
lives.
I don't care who you are, I don't care if you're a church member
or not.
I don't care if you're a ministry leader or not.
I don't care if you're 8 years old or 88 years old.
We are all called to have a gospel ministry in our lives.
And so I would encourage you to think about that.
How can we live boldly in the power of God?
Through the righteousness of God, to not be ashamed of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Folks, I really Want you to think about this today.
In a few moments, we're going to have an opportunity to go through
the different ministries of our church.
And it's a long list.
And there's things that we probably overlook because these are
like corporate ministries of the church.
I know that many of you, many of you have individual ministries
that you're doing that aren't even listed.
Maybe no one even knows.
Truth is, is that it doesn't really matter if it's on a list or
not on a list.
All of us are called to some area of service to the Lord for the
cause of the gospel.
Every ministry should be pointing people to the gospel.
Now, you might say this.
Well, Pastor, what about someone who's coming off the street?
Do we beat him over the head with every single theological term?
Sometimes I want to do that.
Sometimes I want to sit down with someone who has no understanding
of the gospel and say, well, let me talk to you about soteriology
and the theory behind this.
And the theory.
And.
And the problem comes sometimes is that we can give too
much information, right?
And we overwhelm them with something that they can't obtain.
So, for example, let's say all of you, some of you are starting
to get hungry, Okay?
I can hear your stomach's growling from here.
I'm just.
I can't.
But we're going to go out to eat.
Some of us are going to go out to eat.
Some of us are going to go home and eat.
And maybe they pull out this wonderful meal, right?
Whatever you might like, think about in your mind what you like
the most.
And they lay it out on the table and you start eating.
They go, oh, it's all you can eat, by the way.
Let's bring out another plate.
And you're like, oh, yeah, another plate and another plate and
another plate.
And it keeps coming out.
Eventually, you might love that food, but that food might just.
You just can't take any more in, right?
Think about it from even a smaller perspective.
Think about.
Some of you have seen our son, our youngest son, running around.
He runs around everywhere.
You know, Silas, he's just starting to walk.
And, you know, he likes food, by the way.
He loves food.
Okay?
But there's a certain thing that we're not gonna, you know, even
now with, after his surgery, he has some eating restrictions,
and we have to be careful with that.
And so even when he was younger, if he came in and we said,
okay, all of you like steak?
We're gonna give him steak today.
He doesn't even have Teeth, how's he gonna eat the steak?
We have to grind.
So you understand that we have to give the proper nutrition to people
at the stage that they are in.
So someone coming in off the street that knows nothing about God,
who knows nothing about the gospel, I'm not gonna sit down there
and talk to them about end times philosophy, okay?
Even though that is important in the cause of the gospel, eventually
to get to.
But what we do is we put it down to the most basic level of,
hey, Jesus loves you.
John 3:16.
Jesus loves you and he did something for you.
And if you trust in him, you can have that salvation.
And so that's reduced down to the most simple, simple message is
that's the message that we proclaim.
And that's not a scary message.
It's not beat him over the head with something.
It's just, hey, it's a message of love.
You could take it a step further.
We're going to go through the book of Romans and we're going to
talk about the Romans Road.
Romans 6:23.
For the wages of sin is death.
So now we're going to start talking about some difficult things.
People are going to realize that, hey, life, life's going to
end eventually for the wages of sin.
What sin?
Sin is missing the mark.
Sin is not following God's law.
Wages of sin is death.
That means separation from God.
That means eternal punishment.
Whoa, that's some tough stuff.
But then you have the second part of that verse.
But the gift of God.
And everyone wants a gift.
Everyone understands a gift.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Look, that's two verses that you could point someone to and explain
to them the love of Christ, ultimately the problem of sin, and
ultimately the promise of heaven through salvation in Jesus
Christ.
Okay, that's basic.
You don't have to know every element of everything now.
Grow in it, understand it, be around it more.
But I would encourage you to think about how you as an individual
can live that gospel ministry to those around you.
There are going to be people that I can reach that you can't reach,
and there's going to be people that you reach that I cannot reach.
And when we do this together as a team, as a family, we're able
to see more people come into the gospel message of Jesus Christ.
More people come into the family of God.
And we want to do that.
We have a limited amount of time.
We want to go, we want to proclaim.
And so as we think about these ministries, think about how you as
an individual can be a part of something for the cause of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
And so we can all say, hopefully today, hopefully all of
us can lead today saying, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
I'm not ashamed of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And what I would say here this morning is if you are ashamed, if
you look and really evaluate your life, don't just go, pastor
doesn't know me.
I'm not ashamed.
Evaluate your life and say, am I ashamed?
Have I been living like I'm ashamed?
If so, what do I need to do to get that right?
Do I need to just go back and understand God's love for me?
What if someone came up and gave you this?
Maybe they saved your life, maybe they saved your life.
Maybe you were gonna die and someone grabbed you and pulled you
out of the road or whatever.
And then they showed up to an event and you go, well, I don't really
want to introduce them because I'm kind of ashamed of them.
It doesn't make a lot of sense.
They saved you.
You wouldn't be around if it wasn't for them.
So you want to proclaim who they are.
That's exactly what Jesus Christ did for you.
And so sometimes what we have to do is we have to go back to what
he really did for us to understand why we don't need to be
ashamed of Jesus within the church.
And they go, okay, maybe I should start backing that up.
Maybe I should start not being so excited.
Folks, never lose your excitement for the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Please don't.
Because the moment we lose our excitement for Jesus Christ is the
moment we start becoming ineffective in our witness for Jesus
Christ and therefore not doing what God has called us to do.
That's why Paul says at the very beginning of this letter, I'm
ready to preach the gospel.
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Why?
As it says here, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth, everyone that believeth.
So may we have a desire, like Paul's desire to proclaim the gospel
to those around us.
Next week we're going to talk about the opposite of righteousness,
right?
We have righteousness in Christ, but those without Christ
are living, as the Bible's going to say here, against God, and
against God comes the wrath of God.
And we're going to talk about that dynamic of someone who is outside
of the faith and what they are facing in their sin.
And this is.
This is tough topic to Talk about our world doesn't want to talk
a lot about sin and judgment, but the Bible very clearly talks
about the need to talk about both sides of God's love and his
and his justice.
And we need to talk about that.
So anyway, we're going to go ahead and conclude there.
If you're able to stand with me, we're going to have a time of
invitation, a time of response.
And so if you're able to stand with me, every head bowed, every
head closed, as the music plays here in a few moments, what
I'd like you to do is introspect and look into your life.
Look into your life in the concept of your response to the gospel.
Is my response to the gospel one sided?
Have I received the gospel, trust in the gospel and been changed
by the gospel?
If I have received the gospel, believe the gospel, Am I proclaiming
the gospel?
Am I living the gospel?
Am I living in faith?
Did I come to him in faith?
Am I living through him in faith?
I encourage you this morning to respond to the preaching of the
Word of God.
If you're struggling with the aspect of boldness, confidence, being
ashamed of the truth of Jesus Christ, being ashamed of the Word
of God, by the way, it's the whole word of God, not just parts
of it that we like, but it's the whole word of God.
Are we willing to live boldly for the word of God in our communities?
You know, our lives would be different, our families would be
different, our communities would be different.
If we truly live boldly for the cause of the Gospel, we might
face more pushback.
But I'm going to tell you, there's going to be a lot more fruit
if we continue to live boldly for him.
So if that's something that you want wisdom in, that's something
that you want strength in.
Ask God this morning, ask God to give you the courage, the confidence,
the compassion to proclaim the gospel and not be ashamed of the
truth of who Jesus is.
Lord, I pray that you'd be in this time of invitation, work in
hearts and lives, challenge our hearts to the place to understand
you.
We thank you for your love and your grace and for someone here today
that does not know you as personal Savior.
Lord, I pray that today can be the day in which they can come and
know what it means for the Word of God, what it means to have
salvation and forgiveness.
And so, Lord, I pray that you'd be in this time of invitation,
working hearts and lives in Jesus name.
Amen.
As the music plays, follow as the Lord leads this morning.
Sam It Sam.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
Podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at joshmissaroiddletownbaptistchurch
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Thank you so much.
God Bless.
Have a wonderful day.