Romans 1:8–16
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you - 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Paul tells his readers that he is “eager to preach the Gospel also to you who are in Rome.” In the very next verse he says that he is not ashamed of the Gospel. That statement presupposes that there were in his day, and are in our day, people who are ashamed of the Gospel. Why would anyone be ashamed of a message as powerful, as profound, and needed as the Gospel?
Firstly, we need to have a look at the context of Paul’s letter and see the culture that he was living in and ministering to. It will help us to understand why some were ashamed the preach the Gospel.
In Paul’s day, Nero was the Emperor of Rome. He was a wicked and despicable character. Rome itself was nothing more than a cesspool of sin and wicked living. The Gospel Paul preached, with its demands for repentance, holiness and godly living, stood directly opposed to everything that Rome stood for and represented.
Paul was also a Jew. The Jews were despised, mistreated, and enslaved. The Gospel was a message that originated in and rose out of a Jewish background. So quite naturally, many Jews would have been reluctant to share such a message with non-Jews. Many non-Jews would not have listened to a Jewish preacher preaching about a Jewish Saviour.
Not only that, but the message itself that Paul preached was incredible and nearly beyond belief. The Saviour Paul proclaimed was a member of the despised Jewish race, He was said to be the Saviour of man, and He claimed to be the Son of God. He even claimed to be God and man at the same time. His death was surrounded in shame because He died on a Roman cross, the very symbol of shame. Yet, in dying that shameful death, Jesus claimed to have died for lost sinners. If that wasn’t enough, Paul preached that this same crucified Jesus rose from the dead the third day after His death.
To many people, the claims of the Gospel were just too bizarre to believe. Everywhere Paul went preaching the cross, he was ridiculed, cast out, imprisoned, or treated cruelly. Yet, despite all the risks and dangers he faced, Paul remained eager to preach the Gospel in Rome, of all places - the seat of political power and pagan religion. Many would not have been able to endure that kind of shame.
This is why Paul wanted to be clear about his commitment to the Gospel message. He wanted these people to know that they were hearing from a man who believed his message and was willing to pay the price to share it.
What was it about Paul though, that gave him this boldness? What did he know that made him keep on preaching the hated Gospel for the glory of God? What was it about the Gospel that invigorated him and kept driving him around the known world preaching the same hated message?
More importantly, why should we be bold to share the same message?
The answer to those questions is found in the truths Paul reveals about the Gospel.
We have a Gospel to be proud of. The message of Jesus Christ and the gift of salvation He brings is a message we should share with everyone, everywhere, without shame or fear.
Paul tells us that the Gospel is the “power of God”. God could have revealed His power against sin in any way that He chose. He could have wiped the human race from the face of the earth. He’d done it once before in the days of Noah, but by His grace He saved just eight people, which gives us an early insight into the gracious nature of God. He could have done anything that He wanted, because He is the all-powerful God. So what did God do about sin? He exercised His power by sending Jesus to die for sinners. He sent the Gospel of grace.
Nowhere is the power of God as visible as it is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When God takes a lost sinner and saves him by His grace and makes him a new creature, that is a powerful thing. God could have sent us all to hell, but He instead chose to save us by the blood of His own Son.
Paul’s message is the “Gospel of Christ.” We need to be aware that there are many different and false gospels being preached in our world today.
There is the gospel of religion that says, “Turn over a new leaf.”
There is the gospel of materialism that says, “Your worth is determined by what you have.”
There is the gospel of liberalism that says “I’m okay and you’re okay. Just be sincere and God will accept us as we are.”
There is the gospel of society that says, “Life is short, so have as much fun as you can while you can.”
Paul’s message – the true Gospel though, says, “You are a sinner, and if you die in your sins, you will go to hell. However, God loves you and sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world. Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead. If you will place your faith in Him, then you can and will be eternally saved.”
It’s a simple message, clearly stated in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, He was buried, and was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” Romans 4:25 says it in even fewer words: “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”
Paul knew first-hand about the power of this Gospel. His was a life that was changed by that Gospel of Christ. Every life that is redeemed by the Gospel of grace is a life that is forever changed, as it transforms into a new life that becomes a thing of praise and glory to Almighty God. It is a life that has a new identity and a whole new purpose for living.
God’s desire in saving sinners is to deliver them forever from spiritual death, spiritual defilement, spiritual deception and spiritual destruction. We must never forget that without the sacrifice of Jesus, the destiny of all sinners is the fire of hell. God’s purpose in giving the Gospel is to change our destination in eternity and our lives here on earth as well.
The primary purpose of the Gospel message is the salvation of the lost. If you are in Christ, you are secure in Him. He said in John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”
Romans 1:16 tells us in no uncertain terms exactly how this Gospel message of salvation is applied to us. Paul writes about “the salvation of everyone who believes.”
This talks about the simplicity of the Gospel. True Biblical salvation does not involve complicated religious rituals or ornate and elaborate religious exercises. Salvation is the product of faith and faith alone.
This is the point where many people stumble in grasping the Gospel message.
We like to do things for ourselves. Make something or fix something, and how do you feel? You feel a sense of accomplishment.
In life you get out what you put in. That’s the way the world works, but those principles count for nothing in the Kingdom of God. When it comes to the matter of salvation, we contribute nothing towards it, except for the sin that makes our salvation necessary, as Jonathan Edwards put it so well. Salvation comes to the person who is willing to simply receive the message of Christ by faith, and by faith alone.
You’ll often hear people say that the Christian faith is too complicated for people to understand, but if you think about it, they do have a point, because they are trying to understand it from a worldly point of view, which makes the whole thing sound like foolishness. All the other false religions have rules and rituals in order to appease the false gods they have made up.
This is where I want to get to, so what must I do in order to get there? That’s a concept I can easily grasp because I’ve been taught it since I was little. There are no free lunches. If you want something in life, you’ve got to work for it.
Not so with the Christian faith. Do you want to be saved? That’s the question Paul and Silas were asked by the Philippian jailer in Acts 16. “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Their simple answer in verse 31 was, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” That is the beautiful and profound simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The promise of the Gospel is that anyone who hears the message, sees their need of salvation and comes to Jesus by faith will be saved by God’s grace.
There is nothing which can prevent anyone who wants to be saved from being saved. Nothing, that is, except for the sin of unbelief. This is another point which makes the Gospel so simple. There is only one thing which will keep you from being saved: not believing in Jesus Christ.
The human race has one great problem caused by sin. Before coming to faith in Christ, we think we are righteous and therefore acceptable to God. But we’re not. We’re not righteous, and we cannot produce righteousness by trying to be better or by working for it.
We will never be acceptable to God based on our own righteousness, because we have none to bring. Our hearts are sinful, so any human goodness or righteousness is built on the foundation of our sin. That is our greatest problem, and God’s grace-filled answer to our greatest problem is the Gospel.
When faith is placed in the Gospel message, and Jesus is believed in, God accepts us and declares us to be righteous. What we can never achieve by our own efforts, God does by His power.
Everything that man looks for in religion: peace with God, acceptance by God, a right relationship with God – all of those things and so much more, are given to the Christian when we receive the Gospel message and accept it by faith.
And that is a message worth sharing. The same power that worked in Paul’s day is at work in our day. All we need to do to see the Gospel work in power is to believe it and to share it. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not need modification. It does not need alteration. All it needs is for those who know it and believe it to share it with those who do not know it. When we do, the Holy Spirit will take that Gospel and He will draw sinners to faith in Jesus Christ.
It’s astounding if you think about it - that God would take the most important message the world has ever heard and needed and placed it in the hands of redeemed sinners. God has given us His Gospel and has commanded us to take it to the world, knowing that no one is ever saved apart from the preaching of that Gospel.
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you - 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Paul tells his readers that he is “eager to preach the Gospel also to you who are in Rome.” In the very next verse he says that he is not ashamed of the Gospel. That statement presupposes that there were in his day, and are in our day, people who are ashamed of the Gospel. Why would anyone be ashamed of a message as powerful, as profound, and needed as the Gospel?
Firstly, we need to have a look at the context of Paul’s letter and see the culture that he was living in and ministering to. It will help us to understand why some were ashamed the preach the Gospel.
In Paul’s day, Nero was the Emperor of Rome. He was a wicked and despicable character. Rome itself was nothing more than a cesspool of sin and wicked living. The Gospel Paul preached, with its demands for repentance, holiness and godly living, stood directly opposed to everything that Rome stood for and represented.
Paul was also a Jew. The Jews were despised, mistreated, and enslaved. The Gospel was a message that originated in and rose out of a Jewish background. So quite naturally, many Jews would have been reluctant to share such a message with non-Jews. Many non-Jews would not have listened to a Jewish preacher preaching about a Jewish Saviour.
Not only that, but the message itself that Paul preached was incredible and nearly beyond belief. The Saviour Paul proclaimed was a member of the despised Jewish race, He was said to be the Saviour of man, and He claimed to be the Son of God. He even claimed to be God and man at the same time. His death was surrounded in shame because He died on a Roman cross, the very symbol of shame. Yet, in dying that shameful death, Jesus claimed to have died for lost sinners. If that wasn’t enough, Paul preached that this same crucified Jesus rose from the dead the third day after His death.
To many people, the claims of the Gospel were just too bizarre to believe. Everywhere Paul went preaching the cross, he was ridiculed, cast out, imprisoned, or treated cruelly. Yet, despite all the risks and dangers he faced, Paul remained eager to preach the Gospel in Rome, of all places - the seat of political power and pagan religion. Many would not have been able to endure that kind of shame.
This is why Paul wanted to be clear about his commitment to the Gospel message. He wanted these people to know that they were hearing from a man who believed his message and was willing to pay the price to share it.
What was it about Paul though, that gave him this boldness? What did he know that made him keep on preaching the hated Gospel for the glory of God? What was it about the Gospel that invigorated him and kept driving him around the known world preaching the same hated message?
More importantly, why should we be bold to share the same message?
The answer to those questions is found in the truths Paul reveals about the Gospel.
We have a Gospel to be proud of. The message of Jesus Christ and the gift of salvation He brings is a message we should share with everyone, everywhere, without shame or fear.
Paul tells us that the Gospel is the “power of God”. God could have revealed His power against sin in any way that He chose. He could have wiped the human race from the face of the earth. He’d done it once before in the days of Noah, but by His grace He saved just eight people, which gives us an early insight into the gracious nature of God. He could have done anything that He wanted, because He is the all-powerful God. So what did God do about sin? He exercised His power by sending Jesus to die for sinners. He sent the Gospel of grace.
Nowhere is the power of God as visible as it is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When God takes a lost sinner and saves him by His grace and makes him a new creature, that is a powerful thing. God could have sent us all to hell, but He instead chose to save us by the blood of His own Son.
Paul’s message is the “Gospel of Christ.” We need to be aware that there are many different and false gospels being preached in our world today.
There is the gospel of religion that says, “Turn over a new leaf.”
There is the gospel of materialism that says, “Your worth is determined by what you have.”
There is the gospel of liberalism that says “I’m okay and you’re okay. Just be sincere and God will accept us as we are.”
There is the gospel of society that says, “Life is short, so have as much fun as you can while you can.”
Paul’s message – the true Gospel though, says, “You are a sinner, and if you die in your sins, you will go to hell. However, God loves you and sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world. Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead. If you will place your faith in Him, then you can and will be eternally saved.”
It’s a simple message, clearly stated in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, He was buried, and was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” Romans 4:25 says it in even fewer words: “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”
Paul knew first-hand about the power of this Gospel. His was a life that was changed by that Gospel of Christ. Every life that is redeemed by the Gospel of grace is a life that is forever changed, as it transforms into a new life that becomes a thing of praise and glory to Almighty God. It is a life that has a new identity and a whole new purpose for living.
God’s desire in saving sinners is to deliver them forever from spiritual death, spiritual defilement, spiritual deception and spiritual destruction. We must never forget that without the sacrifice of Jesus, the destiny of all sinners is the fire of hell. God’s purpose in giving the Gospel is to change our destination in eternity and our lives here on earth as well.
The primary purpose of the Gospel message is the salvation of the lost. If you are in Christ, you are secure in Him. He said in John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”
Romans 1:16 tells us in no uncertain terms exactly how this Gospel message of salvation is applied to us. Paul writes about “the salvation of everyone who believes.”
This talks about the simplicity of the Gospel. True Biblical salvation does not involve complicated religious rituals or ornate and elaborate religious exercises. Salvation is the product of faith and faith alone.
This is the point where many people stumble in grasping the Gospel message.
We like to do things for ourselves. Make something or fix something, and how do you feel? You feel a sense of accomplishment.
In life you get out what you put in. That’s the way the world works, but those principles count for nothing in the Kingdom of God. When it comes to the matter of salvation, we contribute nothing towards it, except for the sin that makes our salvation necessary, as Jonathan Edwards put it so well. Salvation comes to the person who is willing to simply receive the message of Christ by faith, and by faith alone.
You’ll often hear people say that the Christian faith is too complicated for people to understand, but if you think about it, they do have a point, because they are trying to understand it from a worldly point of view, which makes the whole thing sound like foolishness. All the other false religions have rules and rituals in order to appease the false gods they have made up.
This is where I want to get to, so what must I do in order to get there? That’s a concept I can easily grasp because I’ve been taught it since I was little. There are no free lunches. If you want something in life, you’ve got to work for it.
Not so with the Christian faith. Do you want to be saved? That’s the question Paul and Silas were asked by the Philippian jailer in Acts 16. “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Their simple answer in verse 31 was, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” That is the beautiful and profound simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The promise of the Gospel is that anyone who hears the message, sees their need of salvation and comes to Jesus by faith will be saved by God’s grace.
There is nothing which can prevent anyone who wants to be saved from being saved. Nothing, that is, except for the sin of unbelief. This is another point which makes the Gospel so simple. There is only one thing which will keep you from being saved: not believing in Jesus Christ.
The human race has one great problem caused by sin. Before coming to faith in Christ, we think we are righteous and therefore acceptable to God. But we’re not. We’re not righteous, and we cannot produce righteousness by trying to be better or by working for it.
We will never be acceptable to God based on our own righteousness, because we have none to bring. Our hearts are sinful, so any human goodness or righteousness is built on the foundation of our sin. That is our greatest problem, and God’s grace-filled answer to our greatest problem is the Gospel.
When faith is placed in the Gospel message, and Jesus is believed in, God accepts us and declares us to be righteous. What we can never achieve by our own efforts, God does by His power.
Everything that man looks for in religion: peace with God, acceptance by God, a right relationship with God – all of those things and so much more, are given to the Christian when we receive the Gospel message and accept it by faith.
And that is a message worth sharing. The same power that worked in Paul’s day is at work in our day. All we need to do to see the Gospel work in power is to believe it and to share it. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not need modification. It does not need alteration. All it needs is for those who know it and believe it to share it with those who do not know it. When we do, the Holy Spirit will take that Gospel and He will draw sinners to faith in Jesus Christ.
It’s astounding if you think about it - that God would take the most important message the world has ever heard and needed and placed it in the hands of redeemed sinners. God has given us His Gospel and has commanded us to take it to the world, knowing that no one is ever saved apart from the preaching of that Gospel.