Embarrassed Christians

I have a word that I want to share with you from the Epistle or the letter to the Romans, Chapter 1, verses 16 and 17. Romans 1:16 and 17.

You will remember that a few weeks ago Back we were reading in Chapter 8 of Romans, as my sermons sometimes begin, it started only as a meditation on a passage and it expanded and we ended up studying all of Chapter 8 which took us about 4 sermons and we could see there how wonderful it is the word of the Lord.

They were sermons that were more of a doctrinal nature, as is the entire letter to the Romans, and afterwards I kept thinking how good it would be if we could continue from time to time on these next Sundays, meditating on different passages of the Epistle to the Romans. And that's what I'm going to be doing when I get the chance, going through select passages from the Letter to the Romans to continue our spiritual education. Many of you are taking discipleship classes. In fact, raise your hand, how many are going to go to your discipleship class after here? We'll see. Ok, we have a nice group, and others that will come in the 12 o'clock service.

You are just continuing your theological education, so to speak, your spiritual education, we encourage you to continue this. And I want to join that process this morning and develop with you some principles taken from this precious letter, which is, like, one of the culminating letters of all Christian theology, of all the writings of the Apostle Paul, one of the most deepest, most complex and most complete that we have available.

Chapter 1, Letter to the Romans, verses 16 and 17. Listen to what the word of the Lord says. He says: ".... because I am not ashamed of the Gospel - these are the words of the Apostle Paul - because I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes..."

“....I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek because in the Gospel the justice of God is rebelled by faith and for faith as it is written. But the just shall live by faith." Glory to the Lord. Amen.

This is one of the most foundational passages in all of Scripture indeed. Here is condensed the message of the Gospel. The Apostle Paul has just spoken in his introduction to the letter, in the previous verses, about his wanting to go to Rome.

Remember that this letter is a letter like a treatise that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians who were in the city of Rome. At that time it was like saying New York, or saying Paris, or even saying Boston to a certain extent.

Rome was the key city of the entire Western world. Rome was inclusive of power because it was a nation state, it was the seat of Roman power, it was the governmental seat of Roman power. The greatest power perhaps comparable only to the power that the US has had in this time. Rome was an extremely powerful nation and ruled large, large tracts of land and many other governments and nations that had been conquered by Rome. And there in Rome, in that flourishing city, a group of Christians had developed. At that time the Gospel was spreading to all parts of the earth and was spreading like a seed through different nations and countries.

The Apostle Paul had not visited Rome at that time yet, but he did know that there was a very important group of believers there and in the heart of the Apostle Paul there was a deep desire to go and visit the city of Rome. , because he knew that Rome was tremendously strategic. If Rome received the Gospel and the Gospel became an influential force in the city of Rome, it was inevitable that the Gospel would then spread to all the other cities and all the other towns it ruled.

And in fact that's what happened in the fourth century, the Roman Emperor Constantine finally converted to Jesus Christ, some 300 years after Paul wrote this letter and because he was the emperor he used his influence to bring the whole nation at the feet of the Gospel. Of course, it was initially superficial, but it was a very important moment because a resistance that existed was broken and there was a symbolic conversion of the greatest political and military power of the time, and that had a great influence on the rest of the spread of the Gospel. .

And Paul, knowing the importance of Rome, wrote this letter to those Christians and his desire was to indoctrinate and instruct them in the basic principles of the Gospel, because these people did not know. He was preaching to completely virgin ground. This idea of Jesus as the son of God, as coming into the world to take on our sins, our guilt, and that through that then the rest of humanity would be saved, and reconciled with God, and that this was for all human beings, rich and poor, these concepts were totally foreign to that culture. They did not understand, they were at zero.

Today, one knows many of these things because either one comes from a Catholic background, or a religious one in general terms, and there are in our minds and in the culture a number of principles that have been repeated and that already People more or less understand them and when one enters fully into the Gospel, well, there is a wealth of previous information that one can use. These people did not have that, they needed to be given the milk of the Gospel, to be given the most basic foundations of the Gospel.

And the Apostle Paul, who was a teacher and a pastor as well as an evangelist, wrote this letter to instruct the Christians who were in the city of Rome. So, he speaks, if you look in the previous verses, in verse 15, which is the verse before the one we just read, he says in his introduction to the letter, he says:

“.. So as for me, I am ready – that is, I am ready – to announce the Gospel also to you who are in Rome.”

He had a great desire to go to Rome and preach the Gospel to them there and share with them the doctrine of Christianity. And he was very eager to do it. He says, I am ready, I am prepared to go and announce the Gospel to you also who are in Rome. And that's where the expression comes from, he says, because I'm not ashamed. In other words, why am I willing, why am I so eager to go to Rome? This city so resistant, so carnal, so sensual, so powerful and so reluctant to the principles of the Gospel, why am I, he says, because I am not ashamed of the Gospel.

Guess what? The Apostle Paul was proud in the most positive sense of the word to be a bearer of the Gospel, to be a believer in the Gospel.

Brother, are you proud to be a Christian in the positive sense of the word? No, that you walk around with your nose up; no, I am a Christian, better than anyone. It is not about that. No, the pride of the Christian comes from knowing that wow, that you have entered into something that has no comparison, that there is no greater privilege that a man or a woman has than to be a follower of Christ Jesus.

Our pride does not come from ourselves, but comes from the Gospel that has adopted us. Of that we are proud. You understand? There is a difference and we are going to see in fact that the Apostle Paul makes sure of one thing, and that is that no one believes that they deserve to be saved, that no one believes that by their good works or their justice, they have gained entry to the God's Kingdom. He says, all are under condemnation, all are totally disqualified from being children of God.

He also says it, because all have sinned they fall short of the glory of God. But the pride of the believer comes from knowing that wow, God has adopted me. God in his mercy has told me, come and enter my family.

Imagine a miserable and poor child, completely begging on the street, and one day a big luxurious car stops, a Mercedes Benz or one of those big cars, and that child who is an orphan and who is eating From the garbage on the street, a great and powerful man gets out of that car and says, would you like to be part of the family and eat from my table, and dress as if you were my son, and be adopted and carry my last name? Isn't it true that when that child saw himself in his house with servants everywhere, eating from the table and people looking at him as the son of that great lord, wouldn't he feel proud? Of course. You would feel very blessed.

And that is what the Apostle Paul is conveying here. He says I want to announce the Gospel, I am ready to go where you are, actually I am ready to go anywhere because I am not ashamed of the Gospel, on the contrary I am proud.

Brothers, you know what? this generation needs happy people, happy to be believers. The world wants us to be timid about the Gospel.

They know that today in many places people do not want the name of Jesus Christ to be mentioned. When I sometimes go to meetings of social agencies and in the secular world, you say that you are a Christian or that you are a child of God and immediately there is silence. It's like....they suck the air in and there's a tense silence. And people don't want to.

There are many people who do not want that from faith or Christianity. Talk to him about anything else, but don't talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, don't mention Jesus. It is incredible how the name of Jesus has power in this society to lock people's doors and to create tension in the air. I have seen that time and time again brothers, why, because there is a spiritual bond on this culture. There are demonic powers that rule this culture and the name of Jesus is a name that causes disgust. He says that it is a cause for scandal in the sensitivity of those who do not know God and then the people are not them, it is the spirit that is in them, which is a harmful and demonic spirit.

Understand what I mean, I'm not saying they're demonized in the sense that they're spitting out their mouths or something like that. No, but the Bible says that when one is not in Christ it says that he is under the power of the power of the air. That's in Ephesians, look it up in Ephesians Chapter 2, if you want, and you're going to see that. And I want to clarify what I'm saying so you understand. I am not referring to anyone in particular, but generically every person who is not in Christ Jesus is under the power of the prince of the air.

Look at what Ephesians says, Chapter 2, verse 2, even verse 1. It says that “....Christ gave life to us when we were dead in trespasses and sins in which we walked in other times, - look at what it says here - following the current of this world according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now operates in the children of disobedience among whom we all also lived in another time."

The person who does not have Christ in his heart is condemned to be a slave to the demonic kingdom: the rules, the principles, the purposes, the influences of the kingdom of darkness. Every human being is under that power if he does not have Christ in his heart. The only one capable of freeing a man or a woman from the influence of Satan, be it a generic influence or a specific and personal influence, is Christ Jesus, the Gospel of God.

And, brethren, this is why the world needs men and women who will wear their Christianity skin deep, so to speak. Let the whole world know, I am a Christian, I am a child of God, you are a walking poster, you are a living announcement of the power of the Gospel, of the grace of Jesus Christ and if you take your light and hide it under a chair, then you are missing your calling, you are missing your destiny. Because you have been called to be an announcer of the word of the Gospel. say amen

Every child of God is an evangelist. Every child of God should feel content, happy, grateful to have been freed from the power of the devil and transmitted to the admirable light of Christ Jesus.

Brothers, this is very important for us to understand because there are many Christians who believe, well, announcing the Gospel is something only for pastors, evangelists and people who have some official position or who are paid for him to do that. But you know what? If you are a child of God you are called to do work of evangelism, you are called to share by grace what you received by grace.

I ask the Lord, Father, help me to be proud to be a member of the Kingdom of God. Help me to be content, happy, grateful to be a Christian redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and wherever I am to be a leaven, an influence for the Gospel.

God calls us to be happy to be Christians, proud to be Christians. Again I say, proud of the Christ that we have, proud of the Gospel that we have received, proud of the faith that has been entrusted to us, proud of the redemptive work that Christ has done in our lives.

That is why Paul says “because I am not ashamed of the Gospel”. And do you know what happens? That when you have that satisfaction of being a Christian then your mouth is going to continually announce it, in your work, you are going to speak it.

Listen to me, you know I am continually surprised by how many Christian people I discover in the city of Boston and yet I say, where is the influence of these people? What a thing, brothers.

Some time ago I went to the Immigration office accompanying some brothers who had some papers they had to do, and they needed an intervention there. And I went there and by the grace of the Lord there I discovered a sister that I have known for a long time, that I did not even know worked there and she received me there and was a great blessing for these brothers. In fact, I think it was a divine appointment, because that person received us with such courtesy and in fact it was a miracle from God, because that made a difference for that family.

And she came, she invited us, she honored us by inviting Gregory and me into her office, and there she introduced us to another young woman who is also a Christian, who attends another North American church. Wow! Undercover Christians everywhere.

Brothers, I find you everywhere. They're in politics, they're in corporations, they're in law enforcement and social agencies, teachers, everywhere. And I say, Father, when are your people going to make their presence felt in those places? When are we going to stop being ashamed and intimidated that we are Christians? And we are going to say, no, I am a Christian and I take it as an honor, and we are going to talk about our faith and the devil let him wag his tail however he wants. It doesn't matter, because that's what he wants.

The word says that not even our Gospel is hidden, it says among those who are lost it is hidden, it says among whom the God of this century blinded their understanding so that the light of the Gospel does not shine on them.

The devil doesn't want people to hear about the true Gospel. The devil doesn't want people to hear about the good news and he wants you to shut up. He wants you to walk around putting your Bible in one of those dark paper bags, like you put a book of pornography so that no one will know that you are a Christian. May you arrive at church with your Bible as small as possible, tucked in your pocket here, so that no one on the street knows that you are a Christian. Because? Because the devil knows that if he manages to gag and silence the mouths of Christians, the liberating influence of the Gospel will not be felt in society.

And you know what you have to do? Resist that in the name of the Lord. You have to walk with your Gospel there open to the surface. I am a Christian and what God did with me he can do with you too. I am a repentant sinner, washed by the blood of Christ, cleansed by the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross and I have my passport stamped to go to heaven. And you can also have the same privilege. That is what God wants, brothers. It is not that we go around believing ourselves to be better than anyone else, but that we say to them, 'what happened to me can happen to you too'. "The one who adopted me, can also adopt you and is willing and willing to adopt you too."

Brothers, that is what announcing the Gospel is all about. That's what it's all about to be proud and content to be a Christian. It must disappear the day that we Christians are general Christians, generic Christians, covert Christians.

Every believer, every child of God must be a militant man or woman with their Gospel always in front of them. And I know that it is difficult, I know that there are some risks that this involves. I know that sometimes we are going to fail the Lord and sometimes we say, no, I prefer not to say that I am a Christian because that way nobody expects anything from me.

How many have heard that? TRUE? And we must look at it in the opposite way, when we say, I am a Christian, that is an incentive, it is a stimulus so that we then get closer to the Lord. When we declare that we are children of God, that we are followers of Jesus Christ, that puts more pressure on us to please the Lord more and live more so that we can speak with authority about our faith.

So in the name of the Lord declare, yes I am a child of God. Be a positive influence wherever you go, wherever you are. Let people know, announce the Gospel. Don't put your light under a bushel, as the Bible says.

And I think I'm going to leave it there because I know that time has become short and I don't want to waste time from our brothers who have to go to their class. But let me just wrap it up, because we're going to continue this passage later.

The Lord Jesus Christ said the following, brothers, he said, no one puts his light under a bushel, he meant a bed, or under a table.

I'm going to ask the musicians to come by, please. We were short on time this morning, but that's okay. The praise was precious and we adore the Lord and the word of God is communicated in many ways.

But, the important thing is, brothers, I want to isolate that thought only. There is much more there in that passage but hopefully tonight we can leave with that call of the holy spirit in our hearts and in our minds that God wants you to feel proud, that you feel affirmed in being a child of God. That you do not deny the society in which you move, the privilege of getting to know Christ Jesus, because the Apostle Paul says, because the Gospel is the power of God, it is the power of God.

Brother, my sister, do you know that when you announce the Gospel it is not concepts that you are announcing to people, it is not doctrine, it is not theory, it is not a philosophy, it is not words ? The Apostle Paul once said that the Kingdom of God does not consist in words but in the power of God. What that is saying, brothers, is that look, when you share the Gospel of salvation to someone, when you share the Gospel message your words become energy, your words have a power at that moment that nothing else has that comes out of your mouth

The word of God is power. Then he says that the word of God is alive and effective. I like when I am sharing the Gospel to visualize my words as energy that is coming out of my mouth, and that is entering the spirit of the person with whom I am sharing the Gospel, that is entering their mind and freeing their mind. It is like water that is washing your mind. It is like a spiritual key that is opening the springs of your heart.

Do you know that many times you can share the word with someone and that person resists you? But, despite her resistance, something is happening deep inside her spirit that you don't realize, and neither does she. Because the word of the Lord is a life, it is life that penetrates and is like a scalpel that begins to penetrate the emotions, the subconscious, the hidden places of the soul, and even though the person mentally resists it, that word is there. says the Bible, reproving, it is revolutionizing the interior of the person. It is a duel to the death between the word of God and the work of the devil in that person.

Perhaps the person is mentally resisting, but in their spirit there are things that are happening. And you do not have, that is not your business, that is a matter of the word of God and the spirit of that person. If we understood this, we would not be so rational many times in wanting to embellish the Bible a lot and embellish the word and remove things that could be offensive from the Gospel, because if we understood that the only thing we have to do is throw away the seed, the word of God is the seed, and when the seed falls on the ground it does its work, whatever it is, brothers.

So, your calling is, announce the Gospel, share the Gospel with humility, with grace, with love, with patience, with wisdom and then let the Gospel do its work. You already did what you had to do, now let God do his part.

The Gospel is the power of God, dunamis, dunamis, where the word dynamite comes from. The Gospel is powerful to set man free. The Gospel is powerful to break the patterns of the intellect and emotions and free man to listen to God's truth.

How can we be ashamed of something so sublime? I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God.

Say with me, I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. Hallelujah!

Stand up. Give the Lord a big round of applause this morning. Glory to God. Thank my Lord. We adore you, we bless you.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Praise the Lord. Ask the Lord to put in us this morning a special anointing of faith and worship of God.

Glory to the Lord. Brothers, I want you to ask the Lord now for a special touch of his spirit to make you an effective evangelist wherever you go. Tomorrow at work, at school, as a teacher, as a business man or woman, wherever you go, may you be an agent of the Kingdom of God, a person who announces to your friends, your family, Christ lives. , Christ is real. And lift up Christ for others to see wherever you go.

Father, we bless your children this morning and we declare a special anointing over their lives and we ask you to fill their hearts with anointing, with joy, with healthy pride to announce the virtues of the one who called us from darkness to his marvelous light. We send your evangelistic anointing on your people, Father. Make us an effective church for the proclamation of the Gospel and to you we will give all glory and honor.

Give the Lord a big round of applause.