Word of Salvation – Vol.11 No.24 – June 1965

 

Not Ashamed Of The Gospel

 

Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf on Romans 1:16a

Scripture Reading: Romans 5:1-17

Psalter Hymnal: 205 (tune 468); 100:1,2 (after Law); 424; 450; 451:3,4

 

Brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus our Lord,

There are many things in the world that people are ashamed of.  Bad things they did put shame on people, of course they do not like them mentioned.  I can still be ashamed of things I did when I was a boy or which I did later in my life.

There are reasons enough for every one of us to be ashamed.  Sometimes we become ashamed for things that are not worth shame.  When a girl is walking on the street and is glad because of the fine weather and the love of her boy-friend and, unconscious of where she is, starts singing a song aloud while going on, she suddenly sees the faces of all those strange people on the street looking at her ..  …and she stops short… and is ashamed.  But that’s no real reason for shame, is it?  A silly shame that is!

And you all remember the feeling you had when saying: “Hello Mr. Jones, how are you”, to a chap looking much like Mr. Jones but after all he wasn’t Mr. Jones at all.  You feel you’d like to be swallowed up by the earth alive!  Ashamed…!

But really, you’ve been kind to someone, and, though it was a stranger, there is no real reason for shame, is there?  There are many things we people are ashamed of which really we shouldn’t be ashamed of at all.  We are asking ourselves too much the question: “What will THEY say?”  And really, sometimes we don’t ask that question enough!

Paul, in our text, says: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ”.  And, to be honest, he mentions there a thing that nearly all of us occasionally are ashamed of indeed!

You see – and that is one of the reasons – we usually feel shy about anything in which we differ from someone else.  The world tries to make all people the same, and scorns and laughs at anyone who doesn’t fit in that jacket.  And indeed: a Christian, one believing and receiving the Gospel of Christ, will really become different.  What difference do you think it would make to you if you would see a big Rolls Royce stop before your door and a letter handed to you telling you that some oil-King in America left you a million a year?  Your biggest difficulty might well be how to live with the people who knew you before.  For you will become different and what will they say?

Paul knows about that experience!  He had become a Christian suddenly.  While he was one of the enemies before!  Oh, now to appear before his former friends.  Who will laugh and say: “What’s gone into you, mate!”  Or who will do more than laugh, who might imprison him (as they actually did) and who might kill him (as they actually tried to do).

There’s not a big difference between shame and fear.  Fear for what others will say or do, that’s what shame is.  And yet Paul has shown in his life and preaches it to us today that if there is anything not to be ashamed of, it is the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, unto everyone who believes.

Let’s have a closer look at these words.  The Gospel of Christ, that is the GOOD NEWS of Christ.

Gospel is “GOOD NEWS, good tidings”.  That is what we deal with here.

Religion may be fear.  It has been fear all through the ages.  Heathen animists, like in Indonesia, believed in spirits but only to fear.  The old Germans lay shaking in their beds when thunder rolled through the skies.  That is our God Wodan and Thor, they said, and they just feared.

There are Christians, too, who do certain things or don’t do them only because they fear that otherwise they go to hell.  They go to church because they fear.

Now there is reason for such fear, for indeed, if we look at ourselves and at the Law of God, we know too well that we are not up to standard.

That there is such a lot of fear in all religions of the world is another proof that the Bible is right when it says: “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

But no one really likes to be afraid.  And no one likes others to know how afraid he was.  And that might well be one of the biggest reasons why many people are ashamed of their religion: they don’t want others to think they are afraid.  Didn’t we as boys sing out already: “We are not afraid…!”, though we trembled inside?

And now here comes Paul.  And says: “Fear?”  My, the service of God is not in the first place a thing to be afraid of – it is first and foremost something to be mighty glad about.  It is Gospel, it is Good News!  Gospel, Good News of Christ it is!  For – he goes on – it is the power of God unto salvation.  Oh yes, he thereby says: we were in bad shape before God.  All sinned and came short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and sin was such a violation of the holiness of God that God had to punish this sin with death: “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

God in the Bible is not the Good Old Man with the beard, helping all those that help themselves, for we can’t help ourselves at all in this, we were – as Paul says it in Ephesians 2 – “Dead in trespasses and sins.”  Did not our Lord Jesus say it Himself?  “He who does not believe in me is judged already, for he hates the light and he does not come to the light because his works are evil” (John 3:17-21).

There is your reason for shame alright!  Like Paul in his.  later life – after the Light of God in Jesus had started to shine through his life like a sun revealing all what was crooked in that life – always was to be ashamed of his sinful life before conversion: “My, he will say: how is it possible that God saved me?  I who even persecuted his Church..!”

But what now is this good news?  That God sent His Son, Christ Jesus, to take away that sin.  That God showed mercy.  Full, free, rich mercy.  That God gave eternal life to these sinners, says Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death, indeed”.  “But the gift of God is life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Do you see it?  The gift of God?  You need not earn it, you need not conquer it.  That is what Jesus did when He died for you.  You only need grab it, accept it, believe it.

God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, John 3:16 says.  It doesn’t say that He sold His son for our good works, for then we would not be able to pay the price.  For, if by my good works I want to earn heaven, for whom am I then doing it, for God, or… for myself?

But if only for myself I am fighting and toiling, can I then still call that good works?

O hear the Saviour in John 6:37: “All whom the Father hath given Me shall come to Me, and I give unto them eternal life, and all that come to Me I shall in no wise cast out!”

You just believe: God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Do you hear it?  It does not say: “Whosoever believes on Him and also earns heaven with good works, or: Whosoever believes on Him and goes to church twice a Sunday, or: Whosoever believes on Him does not die in state of deadly sin, or: Whosoever believes on Him and serves a term in purgatory after death, no, nothing more!  Just this one thing: Whosoever believes on Jesus shall not perish but have – have, mind you! – eternal life.”

That is the Gospel.

The Gospel that the Church has to proclaim.  You believe and then you are saved.  You believe and heaven is for you, and then, when having heard this from God, your life gets changed, then you will ask Him: Lord, you have been so amazingly good to me, what can I do?  What do you want me to do?

And then we hear God’s Law.  Then there are the Good Works alright.  But we shall do them, not driven along by fear, but raised up by thankfulness!

The Holy Spirit has been promised to every such believer as help and guide, as Paul says in Romans 8: We have not received the Spirit of slavery, again to fear, but we have received the Spirit of adoption, who makes us cry: “Abba, Father.  This spirit testifies with our spirit, that we are children of God!”

Children of the King.  Do you know that you are that?  Do you believe this glorious Gospel of God, of Christ?  Oh, it is a wonder, you never can understand.  Such love for sinners, such a Sacrifice!

Yes, that is what the Cross has done.  And what Easter morning tells us, that Jesus rose from the dead, and that the believer may rise with Him.

There are the mysteries and treasures of the Word of God.  The power of God unto salvation unto everyone who believes!

You people have known this right from when you were young.  Like our little children who shall have the privilege of hearing this Gospel right from the time they can understand words.

But do you still believe these words of God?  Do they still live in you, do they burn in you like a flame, do they fill you with wonder: “O God how wonderful Thou art”?

There are many things of God we do not understand.  The question “why” is on our lips many, many times.  Especially these days.

But did you ever sit down and wonder why?  Why, why did God stoop down to sinners, to His enemies, to give them His Son…?  The bitter agonies of Jesus… to win these rascals back…?  You’ll never find the answer!  For this love of God is deeper than the ocean.  It has no bottom to it at all.

Paul had seen a bit of this.  He, the enemy, the persecutor of the Church, the Pharisee who thought to reach heaven by the way of his good works for God, suddenly converted, suddenly grasped by the love of this Christ, he says in one verse (Romans 11:33): “O depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His ways, and his Thoughts past finding out!  And this Paul, when asked, rises up and says: I ashamed of such a Lord…?  I ashamed of such a Gospel…?  I ashamed of this very power that saved m me and that can save others…?  How can we ever win souls for this Jesus Christ if we move stealthily along in shame?  How can we ever shake the full joy of this profession if we do not herald it, trumpet it into this poor world?  The power of God unto salvation, Jesus loved sinners, He still can save to the uttermost those that come to Him.

Do you hear that?  He does not save a bit… and you do the rest: Hebrews 7:25: “He can save to the uttermost those that come to Him!”

Under that glorious banner you may stand.  Under that glorious banner your children may be born.  Oh, if anything, let your faith be triumphant!  Ask God for it.  That you be not ashamed of such a Gospel… of such a Lord.  Paul in 2Cor.5 says: We are ambassadors for Christ as if God were begging through us, we beg you in Christ’s stead: Be ye reconciled with God!  For he who had no sin, He was made to be sin on your behalf, that you might be the righteousness of God in Him.  Ambassadors of the King of Kings.

Shall they be ashamed of such a Lord?  Ashamed of such a Saviour?

If we are not ashamed of our Lord we will be going as a proclamation to the world, a proclamation to Whom we belong, Whom also we serve!  And we shall ask God for strength to preach it, we shall grasp every opportunity to be Heralds.

The Church – that is you… You who are saved.  You are not ashamed of your Lord, are you?

Pray to Him if you are.  Look at His Cross, and then look at these people you are scared of.  They might have much money or they might have a lot of scorn for you, they might laugh about this silly Bible and think they can manage.

But you know who Jesus is, and what happens if we do not have Him as our Saviour, our joy, our Refuge.

And you are ashamed?

Am I a soldier of the Cross,
a follower of the Lamb?
And shall I fear to own His cause,
or blush to speak His Name?

Must I be carried to the skies
on flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize,
and sailed through bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face,
Must I not stem the flood?
Is this vile world a friend of grace,
to help me on to God?

Since I must fight if I would reign,
increase my courage, Lord!
I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain,
supported by Thy Word.

Yes, I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for that is the very power of God unto salvation, unto everyone… everyone who believes!

Do you believe, too…?

Amen.