Goodness

Paul's devotion to the gospel in the face of all kinds of calamity is astonishing.  Let's look at some of his words and maybe we can learn something.

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel..."
Romans 1:16a

How many times have you been ashamed of the gospel?  I know I have more than I'd like to admit.  Whether it's that conversation we should have had or that stand we should have made or those words we didn't speak, there are many moments in the Christian life where we don't share the gospel as we ought because we're ashamed of it.  What's worse, shortly after these moments, we're more ashamed that we missed a moment to make Jesus known.

We can look at the lives of Paul, the other apostles, or countless other missionaries who died for this gospel.  They were were so unashamed of the gospel that they laid down their lives for it!  That begs the question to us, "What's different?  Why am I ashamed of Jesus in the face of potential awkwardness or verbal persecution when these people would do anything to advance His name around the world?" 

Before we get too down, what's encouraging to know is that nothing in the Bible was written in vain.  God would not have written these words through Paul unless He knew that His people would sometimes be ashamed of the gospel.  He gave us these words to encourage us when we're ashamed of Him.  So, let's examine why Paul isn't ashamed of the gospel and hopefully we'll get somewhere:

"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.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith..."
Romans 1:16-17

It's easy in our culture to miss the magnitude of this statement.  When Paul said that the gospel provides salvation to everyone who believes, he's stating something absolutely revolutionary.  Whether rich or poor or white or black or Greek or Jew or king or slave, God will save you if you simply believe in the person and work of Jesus!  When he said anybody can have the righteousness of God by faith instead of works, he turned the world upside down.  These truths are astounding if we think about them seriously.  And that is why Paul is not ashamed: the message is too good.

The deepest longings of anyone's soul, whether it's manifested in longings for significance or love or purpose, are all screaming, "I need God".  Unfortunately, because of man's sin, the root problem in all the world is that the gap between "I need God" and God Himself is insurmountable without God working on our behalf.  That is why the gospel message is so great!  God has bridged that gap as a free gift of grace!  So why the heck are we ashamed of the greatest news in all the universe?

We forget that it's so great.  The gospel literally means "good message" or "good news".  Sometimes we (or maybe just I) get so caught up in the news that we minimize its goodness.  We'll get so used to repeating a set of propositional truths about Christ (although propositional truths are important) that we'll forget that these truths speak of the real thing behind them: a restored relationship with our Creator.  If we genuinely wrapped our heads around the miraculous idea that God became a man to die on our behalf and rose from the dead to bring us everlasting life, we'd never be ashamed of it.  Instead, we'd want to tell the whole world! 

So, let's remember how wonderful the good news really is.  Then, by God's grace, we won't be ashamed!