Rom 1:16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.  Rom 1:17  For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 

This morning I’m writing a sermon I may never preach but am doing so to prepare my heart and mind for worship. I’ll be doing a full exposition of these two verses, going through them word by word, expounding God’s Word as He gave it to us. 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ- As they say, “When you see for or therefore in the text you need to see what it’s there for.”
So Paul say’s “for” I am not ashamed…So what we should always do when we see “for” or “therefore” we need to look backwards in the text and see what it’s there for.

So in verse 15 Paul say’s He’s ready to preach the gospel to those who are at Rome also. Why is this significant to us? Well I can think of two reasons.

1. Those who were at Rome were already Christians, yet Paul was ready to preach the gospel to them also. See. Verse 7.  

Paul wasn’t ashamed to preach the Gospel to unbelievers or even to believers. Why? Because we both need it!

2. Those who were at Rome were Gentiles, Paul was a Jew. This is proving his ministry to the Gentiles. He wasn’t just taking the Gospel to Jews then being ashamed of the gospel to the gentiles. He was ready to preach it to anybody, whether you were Jew or Gentile, Believer or unbeliever. Paul was not ashamed to preach the Gospel.

So now that we know why “for” is there let’s move on.

I am not ashamed- How many of us can honestly say this? I know that even though I’m a gospel preacher I can’t say this all the time. I know there are times that I completely fail in this and am ashamed of the gospel.

There are times I know I should be preaching but I’m too scared to. I know I may lose something in this world if I preach the gospel.

The ultimate reality is as a Christian and especially as a preacher, we should be ready to lose everything for the gospel’s sake. We should never be ashamed of the gospel like Paul is saying here and he demonstrated in his life. He died for the gospel’s sake!

The word for ashamed here isn’t a word that you must be a Greek scholar to understand, you may need to be a Greek scholar to read it but not understand it.

It’s a long Greek word that is compounded by two words but it simply means, “to feel shame for something” or to “be ashamed.”

So we can easily understand that and that is something we should never feel in respect to the gospel!

Remember Jesus’ words in Mark 8:38 Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of 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.

Brethren this isn’t something light. This is what our lives should be completely about! I pray it often and when I preach I speak it often, that we lay down our lives for the gospel’s sake!

We want to be gospel focused, gospel saturated, and seeing everything through the gospel! The only way we can do that is if we know the gospel and know it well. We shouldn’t even have to think if someone asks us what the gospel is we should readily blurt it out, we should know it like our address, because we should be living it in.

We are not to be ashamed of the gospel OF Christ!

It’s not just simply the gospel, but it’s the Gospel of Christ!

This gospel (good news) is of Christ!

There are many preachers today that say they preach the gospel yet you hear nothing of the person and work of Christ! These men are called heretics and God has reserved them for everlasting destruction. (Jude 1:4)

There is only one gospel and it’s of Christ, it’s not what we preach but WHOM we preach. (Col. 1:28)

If anyone preaches another gospel let them be accursed. (Gal. 1:8-9)

I will conclude this post here with part two coming at a later date, stay tuned and don’t be ashamed brethren!

For His Glory!