A HEART FOR THE GOSPEL
I know that the majority of you sitting here today profess to believe in Jesus Christ. It may sound odd then to ask if you have a passion for the gospel. One would assume that your very presence implies that you do have a passion for the gospel. I choose not to assume.
When you reflect on the gospel of Jesus Christ, his saving work on the cross on our behalf, how would you define your feelings for this gospel? Which statement best fits your opinion of the gospel:
a) The gospel was important for my salvation.
b) The gospel was important for my salvation and I have grown beyond that stage of my life.
c) The gospel is the elementary level of faith and important for new believers.
d) The gospel seldom enters my mind.
e) The gospel does not seem to have a daily relevance for me.
f) The gospel is my salvation and I daily feed on its power for my life, now and in the life to come.
If you picked the last option because it sounds like the right answer, my question to you is this: Really? The reality for many of us is that we more truthfully live out the other answers. Does the gospel consume you? Does the gospel rule your life? Or are you content to be saved without giving any thought to the ongoing work of the gospel in your life? These are tough questions but you didn’t come here today to be coddled – you came here to be challenged.
I want to share with you the heart of a man who was consumed with the gospel. The apostle Paul was that man. We are going to look briefly at his plans to visit Rome. We are going to examine his heart. And then we are going to go deeper yet into the gospel itself and observe its power. And the reason I share the power of the gospel with you is so that you will have an overwhelming desire to feed on this gospel every day. Let’s study Romans 1:8-17 together.
1. Paul’s gospel-centered heart
In this letter to the Romans, Paul follows a pattern typical of letters of the ancient world. First he greets them with the introduction we studied last week. This is followed by a note of thanks to the gods and the works of their hands. Of course, Paul gives thanks to the true God. Then he explains what seems to be his travel itinerary.
At first observance this personal list seems to be irrelevant to the 21st century reader. But as a person passionate for the gospel, Paul’s plans are not frivolous but gospel-motivated and gospel-centered. Consider the four parts of his personal address:
a) Thanks God for their reputable faith – First, Paul thanks God through Jesus Christ for this church in Rome and the reputation for faith that has reached Corinth, where Paul was staying when he wrote this letter. He praised God for the existence of the church, even though he had never met the people of this church. Paul was excited that believers were gathering in the capital of the empire.
When we hear of believers in other cities do we get excited? When we hear of the growing church in Asia do we praise God? I confess I don’t think I have praised God for other churches before, be they here in the Steinbach area or abroad. Are we praising God for the spread of his gospel?
b) Praying constantly for God’s people – Having heard of their faith, Paul prayed regularly for them. He said, “God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times” (1:9a). This is pretty weighty stuff. Paul calls God as a witness to verify that he prays for them consistently.
Is there a church that God has put on your heart to pray for? Can you imagine if we would each adopt an individual church and pray regularly for the gospel to be preached there and to thrive in the Spirit?
c) Longing to share with God’s people – Paul’s desire was to be there with these people. Not only did this love for the gospel compel him to praise God and pray for these folks, he wanted to visit them and see how they were doing. Note that he wanted to give them a gift of some spiritual nature – maybe a word of blessing. But he does not come with a superior attitude because he said he wanted to be mutually encouraged. They would share with each other encouragement from the faith they both had.
d) Planning to be with God’s people – He said he had “planned many times to come to you” but was prevented, perhaps by the work he was doing in Greece. What Paul realized was that there was nothing like being there. The gospel is a relational truth. It is not enough to know the gospel; the gospel is experienced in relationship. So Paul desired to share in their experience of the gospel and preach a word of the gospel to them.
These are the desires of a gospel-centered heart. They are an example to us of the all-consuming passion of a person who loves Jesus Christ. The gospel’s acceptance among people excites him; it inspires him to pray; it makes him want to share and be with the people who love the gospel.
2. Owning the Gospel Debt
What drives a person to go all-in for the gospel and want to live it, breathe it and spread it?
Paul describes it in a most unusual way. He wrote, “I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome” (1:14-15).
Behind the word “obligated” is the sense of financial debt. It might puzzle us how one could be in debt, or obligated to preach the gospel. What does this mean?
There are two ways of getting into debt. The first is to borrow money from the bank or from someone with the money to lend. The other way is to be given money for someone by a third party.
For example, if I borrowed $ 1000 from any of you, I would be in your debt until I paid it back. In the same way, if a friend of yours were to give me $ 1000 to give to you, I would be in your debt until I handed it over. In the first sense of debt, I put myself in debt by borrowing; in the second sense, it is your friend who has put me in your debt by entrusting me with money for you.
It is in this second sense that Paul is in debt. He did not borrow from the Roman believers anything he must repay. But Jesus Christ has entrusted him with the gospel for them.[i]
The nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ is such that when you have received it you cannot keep it to yourself. It was never meant to be hoarded. Christ entrusted it to us to share with the world. In the terminology that Paul used, we owe it to the people we come in contact with to share the gospel.
Unless we own the debt we really have not understood nor received the full value of the gospel. Considering the global debt today and the looming recession, even depression of a world economy, I can understand how debt is a bad word. With the gospel, it is joy to own the gospel debt. It is what drives us to share the good news.
Charles Spurgeon speaks to our reluctance, be it political correctness or unreasonable tolerance, in sharing the gospel, he wrote: “Etiquette nowadays often demands of a Christian that he should not ’intrude’ his religion on company. Out with such etiquette! It is the etiquette of hell! True courtesy to my fellow’s soul makes me speak to him, if I believe that his soul is in danger. How many, my dear friend, were you ever the means of bringing to Jesus? You believe that they must eternally perish unless they have faith in Christ. How many have you prayed for? How many did you ever break your heart about? You believe that they must love Christ or be damned. How many have you ever talked to concerning him who is the only Savior? Are you satisfied to remain silent? Are you content to let those around you sink to hell? What! Never tell of Christ’s love? What! Never tell of salvation? Can this be right? In God’s name wake up!”[ii]
3. The Gospel is God’s power for Salvation
Why wouldn’t we tell others about salvation? Are we ashamed of it? Is the gospel an embarrassment to you?
Paul declared, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” (1:16). Some writers have suggested this is some sort of reverse word-play, that Paul was saying he was proud of the gospel. I agree with others who say that Paul wrote about not being ashamed because there was a temptation to be ashamed of the gospel. We know that shame. We’ve been there when faced with sharing our convictions.
Consider that Jesus warned his disciples if they were ashamed of him, Jesus would be ashamed of them on the last day (Mark 8:38). And the cross was a humiliating way to die in those days – it was an object of scorn. “Your savior died on a cross? How disgusting,” people would say. But Jesus bore the brunt of this, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame…” (Heb 12:2).
Paul was not ashamed of this gospel. Nor should we be. Not if we believe that it is the power of God for salvation. But what do we mean by salvation in this verse?
I believe it is not just the power to convert the sinner to sainthood in Jesus; it is also the power to transform the believer and carry him or her to eternal safety in the glorious presence of the Lord Jesus Christ on the final day. There are four reasons to accept this meaning:
a) The power of the gospel is what frees us from being ashamed of the gospel. Jesus took the sting out of the shameful cross by making it a vehicle of his glory. As a result the gospel does not just make converts (any religion can have converts) it actually saves you. And it doesn’t just save you; it saves you completely and utterly for the day when Jesus comes.
b) “Salvation” is not only present in tense but future also. Paul wrote in that tense saying the gospel is “the power of God that brings salvation.” That future tense of salvation is found throughout the NT. Salvation is a future work as “God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth” (2 Thess 2:13). And again Scripture says, “Christ…will appear a second time…to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Heb 9:28).
So here in Romans we see that salvation is not just conversion. It has the power to bring you to God and his glorious conclusion to all history.
c) Continuing faith is the requirement for salvation. This point comes from the phrase “that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” The word “believes” is a continuing action, so it should read “believing.” This means that the gospel does not create faith, but for those who have faith it brings about salvation. So the point is not that the gospel is the power for conversion to faith; the point is that the gospel is the power to bring about future salvation through a life of faith. It is the only truth that can help you triumph over every obstacle and bring you to God.
d) This gospel is for believers, not just unbelievers. We have to remember that Paul was writing and preaching to believers. If that is so, he preached the gospel to a group that either did not need it, or was still in need of it even though converted already. Obviously Paul saw that they needed the gospel and was not ashamed to preach it to them.
It is the only truth in the world that will not let you down when you give your life to it in faith. It helps you through temptation and suffering and death and judgment, bringing you to eternal safety in Christ. All else will fail you in the end. Only this gospel saves you from the wrath of God. Therefore we need not be ashamed of this gospel; it is the gospel of God’s power for salvation.[iii]
4. The Gospel reveals God’s righteousness
You may remember from last week that Martin Luther had a real problem with the word “righteousness.” In fact, he hated Romans 1:17 because of the word “righteousness.” He understood it to mean God’s righteousness whereby he punished sinners. So he was afraid of God’s righteousness.
However, the gospel which is God’s power for salvation reveals the righteousness of God as it was meant to be understood. “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (1:17).
Now what is righteousness? Is it the demonstration of God’s rightness in forgiving sin because he punishes that sin in our substitute, Jesus? Does it mean our right standing before God as forgiven sinners? Or does it mean that moral change in us that makes us obedient children of God?
As we study Romans we will find that all three are true definitions of righteousness. On our own we cannot stand before the Great Judge, our God, on the basis of our works – they are filthy rags. But God has provided us with righteousness to stand before him in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. As Paul later wrote, “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ…” (Rom 13:14), and in Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20a). Jesus covers us with himself and through him we are righteous.
Martin Luther was not entirely wrong to fear the righteousness of God. God demands righteousness and we don’t have it. The good news is that God himself gave us the righteousness he demands. This is good news. This is the gospel. What is revealed in the gospel is the righteousness of God for us that he demands from us. This is how God saves us: by revealing a righteousness for us that he demands from us. We could not manufacture or invent or supply this righteousness but God gave it freely out of his own righteousness in Jesus Christ.[iv]
One pastor declared that this can easily be understood even by children. He said, “We all do bad things and we all are bad in the sense that the bad we do comes from a deeply rooted badness. Our bad deeds come from a bad heart. But God says that we should be good or he cannot accept us, because his own goodness would be ruined by our badness. So what we need is for God to take our badness and punish it in the death of Jesus, and then take the goodness of Jesus – his own goodness – and make it ours.”[v]
This is the gospel. We can even say that Romans 1:16-17 is the heart of the gospel. It certainly introduces the theme of the book of Romans as a whole. This is the gospel that saves you.
How precious is this gospel to you? Do you meditate on it every day and consider how much the Lord has done for you? Is it so important that you want to share it with everyone you know?
People are dying without knowing Jesus and the righteousness that could present them before the throne of God without spot or blemish. People we live with day in and day out are walking around with no hope or knowledge of the One who died for them. Many are living in despair because they lost their jobs or are going through divorce or because they live with an addict. Without the Lord Jesus and the gospel of God they have no hope and are on the brink of destruction. Do we care?
The righteous will live by faith. Are we living by faith? Do we believe that the gospel has the power not only to convert us but to save us in our present troubles and conflicts?
Perhaps at this point, you are sitting there ashamed. I have no wish to shame you or hammer you on the heads. But if I have shamed you for any reason, I want you to be unashamed of the gospel of God which is the power of salvation for those who believe. For I am not ashamed of this gospel, so God help me speak of it in ordinary times as well as from the pulpit. For your glory Lord….
AMEN
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