I Am Not Ashamed of the Gospel, Because It Is the Power of God

Let us turn to the word of the Lord, Romans chapter 1, and we are going to begin with verse 16. And I think I am going to spend some time meditating on this book of Romans, the letter to the Romans; I do not know for how long. Romans is an infinite letter, we could almost say, like the word of the Lord; it has an immense number of themes and possible texts that we can explore, but this morning I felt confirmation in my spirit that I should discuss at least a few chapters of this book. We have done so here and there over the years, and I do not necessarily remember—judging from the notes I have here in my Bible, surely at some point I expounded this passage. But I do not remember when; I had no notes about it. But I believe it is important because what actually interests me most is going further later on, but this is the prelude, the foundation for the other things that come later.

But God provided it to me in a very providential way so I could eventually get where I want to go. And I realize that here, beginning at the beginning, is the foundation for what you will later be able to understand better when I preach it, perhaps next Sunday, in fact, since the English ministry will also be with us. I am being a little mysterious, right? But I am speaking in code; we will see whether perhaps I give you a little preview later on in the meditation on the text.

But how good it is to be able to focus for a moment on these verses from chapter 1, verse 16. Brothers and sisters, if any passage in Scripture is important and fundamental to your Christian faith, these verses are. They are the condensation of the Gospel into a few words, as only Paul could compress the doctrine of Scripture.

Verse 16 says:

“…For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, because in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, but the righteous shall live by faith…”

Amen. Very possibly I will get into the rest later on, what follows as a prelude to next Sunday’s sermon. But allow me to review briefly some things that many of us already know, and I am going to give this meditation like mountain climbers, those who climb mountains, who often do not have the benefit of a rope and another person holding them, and different kinds of harnesses to catch them in case they slip and fall. I have no notes this morning. Time got away from me, and I only had time to meditate on the passage, study it quite a bit, and pray over it. But I did not have time to make many notes, and I should have them because this is one of those sublime passages from which the essence must be extracted very carefully, very systematically, but my notes will be the word of the Lord. I am going to be guided by it, by the words that are here.

It will be, I hope, a more expository sermon. But, as I was saying, this is the very essence of the Gospel. And when Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel,” that “for” already indicates to us that something comes before it. I say, “because I do this,” “because I do that”; that means there was something else in my mind, and I have either already said it or have it there in my mind and have not told you. But there is a reason why Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel.”

If you go to verse 15, just before 16, you will find there what was on Paul’s mind. All of the first 15 or 16 verses of Romans, of the first chapter, are like a prelude. They are the greetings and preliminary words of a preacher, as when one begins and gives an introduction; at the beginning of his letter, Paul is giving personal words of greeting and clarification to the brothers and sisters in Rome. He is writing this letter to the church, the Christians who are in Rome—Romans, Gentiles converted to the Gospel—and he is writing them a doctrinal letter to encourage them, teach them, instruct them, and all these kinds of things.

I believe that when Paul wrote these letters, he intended—and it seems to me that it was clear in his mind—to write something very substantial. He had set out to write a letter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that would be strong, clear, well developed, and systematic. I do not think that was something that emerged as he wrote. Something suggesting this to me is that the introduction is so long, and it is as though he is warming up, getting the engines running, preparing himself like a runner who does this before taking off running. He is building momentum.

And then he begins to get more fully into it in verse 15; he says:

“…So, as far as I am concerned, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you who are in Rome also…”

Paul was speaking about how he longed to see them, how he wanted to go and visit them someday. In verse 11 he says:

“…For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established…”

So he is telling them, brothers and sisters, I definitely want to go visit you; I want to go there, and I want to proclaim to you and share with you some teachings, some principles of the Gospel, of the faith, of Christian doctrine. Then he says:

“…I am ready to preach the Gospel to you who are in Rome also…”

I am preparing, but that word “ready” struck me for a moment, and I looked in the original Greek—that is why I asked Omar—because while I was sitting there, I thought, wait a minute, the word “ready” is the word protimos, which means ready, willing: I am prepared to proclaim the Gospel to you who are in Rome also.

And it occurred to me that I should not pass over it as a mere introduction, because it is as though Paul already gets into the subject there. I am ready… I am ready, I am prepared, I am willing to proclaim the Gospel to you. And it occurred to me that this should be our disposition: every one of us, as Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ, must be ready to proclaim the Gospel. Amen.

We must be prepared. Paul says in season and out of season. When it is out of season, we must be ready to proclaim the Gospel. How many times have we shared the Gospel with someone in fear and trembling, thinking that they will reject us, but instead they open their heart to us and sometimes even begin to cry in front of us. Let us never allow ourselves to be intimidated by someone who seems too great, too strong, too self-assured, or too financially prosperous, as though they need nothing.

Hey, everyone needs to hear about Jesus Christ. The Christian must always have the trigger cocked, ready to fire the word of the Gospel. That is a good Pentecostal attitude: in season and out of season, the Gospel must be proclaimed.

Now, always do it prudently, tastefully, and with discernment; ask the Lord for discernment. Do not be… The Bible also says that we should not cast our pearls before swine. We must also know the right time and what God wants. The time God wants may be an inopportune moment physically and humanly, but if it is God’s time, it will be the perfect time. And we must also ask the Lord: give us discernment to know when to present it, when to fire at exactly the right moment. But we must always be ready: Lord, I am willing, whatever You want from me. And there must always be a fresh word in us, seasoned with salt, ready to share the Gospel.

I love those people who have such an effervescence in their hearts concerning the Gospel that they are always willing to hand out a little tract, those elderly ladies who carry their little bundle of tracts in their purses, always ready on the train or wherever they may be. That tradition has been lost in the Gospel because we have now become sophisticated, very elegant people, but how good it is when we are willing to make fools of ourselves a little for the Gospel. Do not be ashamed; be willing, be ready, be profimos to preach the Gospel always.

Ask the Lord to cultivate that attitude in us, because you are the best proclaimers of the Gospel—not I, frankly, nor the pastors. Many times we are even hindered by our own profession and ministry; you have more contact with the world out there, especially those new people who came to the Gospel recently—many of you have come to know the Lord. You have plenty of relationships with people who do not yet know Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, the more time we spend in the Gospel, the more we seem to lose contact with unbelievers. It should not be that way, but it is. So cultivate contact with unbelievers, be diligent, always be willing, do the work of an evangelist, the apostle Paul says to Timothy. Do the work of an evangelist; ask the Lord to place opportunities and the desire to share the Gospel in your heart, to place effervescence and joy within you.

Paul was a man who was always ready, prepared, poised, and willing to share the Gospel. That idea made an impression on me. I will be ready to proclaim the Gospel.

Now Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel.” Here he is already warming up; here he has taken off his jacket and is now going to get down to business. Enough introductions and presentations and eating cookies; no, now let us get to what we came for. Let us get into the doctrine and the teaching.

He says, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel,” and now his voice begins to grow warm and intense, and his tone begins to rise. The preacher begins to emerge here. I am not ashamed of the Gospel. Why is Paul ready, willing, and prepared to share the Gospel? Because he is not ashamed, and so what if someone does not like it? Let them tell us. I am not ashamed of the Gospel; in other words, I am proud—it is the negative way of saying, I am proud of the Gospel. I am not ashamed of the Gospel.

Now, why does Paul use that expression, “I am not ashamed,” instead of saying, “Because I rejoice in the Gospel,” or “I am proud to be a Christian”? Ironically, Paul had suffered much shame for the Gospel; Paul had been persecuted for the Gospel. In Athens, at the Areopagus, when he spoke about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, all those sophisticated Greek philosophers laughed in his face and left him alone in the square. How ashamed he must have felt, such a dignified man. They began to laugh at him and boo him, and they walked away and left him alone: We will hear you another day. This notion that Christ rose again, that a man rises from the dead, is foolishness.

Paul was stoned once and left for dead; another time they had to lower him over a wall in a basket—a man as dignified as he was, putting him in a basket as though he were a little animal and lowering him over the city wall so that he could escape because they wanted to kill him.

In Philippi they imprisoned him and gave him a beating. There is a passage, I believe it is in Second Corinthians, where he lists all the different things inflicted on him: floggings several times, shipwreck, suffering; his own people left him alone on occasion. Paul had every reason in the world to be ashamed of the Gospel, but here he says, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel.”

You know that we live in a world that often isolates us; we are in a culture and at a time in history when being an evangelical, believing the word of God in its entirety, and saying, “No, I believe the Bible is the holy word of God and contains no error; I believe everything it says here, that yes, the whale swallowed Jonah—or that great fish—and kept him for three days and later vomited him onto the beach, smelly and battered, but… yes, I believe that. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; I believe that Jesus Christ rose again.”

For many people, those are fairy tales and we should no longer believe such things, and even more so when we get into moral and ethical beliefs. This culture has moved away not only from the idea of a personal God who sent a being named Jesus Christ to die on the cross and all these things, but that doctrinal unbelief has also spread to moral and ethical unbelief—to conduct and life—and today they look at us as though we had three heads when we say there are certain moral things that we still believe come from the word of God. And when we stand firm on those things, they see us as ridiculous, crazy, and primitive.

And we too would have reason to be ashamed of the Gospel. I want to tell you this morning, my brothers and sisters: do not be ashamed of the Gospel. Resolve in your heart always to maintain that awareness that you are a special person. I am special because we believe what the word of the Lord says. We have believed in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the Son of God; everything the Apostles’ Creed says and more, we believe. In this day and age, do not allow the feeling of being isolated, and seeing journalists and scholars and literary figures, people in the media, movie actors, prominent politicians, and even presidents openly rejecting the teachings of the word of God, to affect you. Be careful that your mind does not gradually fill with fear and shame, causing you to say, “Wow, if all those important people have stopped believing in the Gospel, who am I to go on believing?”

That is what is happening today if we are not careful. A slight, implicit, psychological shame is seeping into the pores and the heart of the church, and little by little we are yielding, yielding, yielding the truths of the Gospel. And if you do not take a pill of pride in the Gospel every day, you too will yield.

So resolve in your heart to remain faithful to the word of God, to maintain your joy in the Gospel, and to keep your faith even if anyone—even the greatest man on earth—rejects the word of the Lord; you stand firm. The Apostle Paul puts it this way: stand firm in the evil day, until the evil day has passed. If the church stands firm in its faith and in its pride and joy in the Lord, sooner or later the devil will have to retreat. The Bible says, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

At this time, the best posture for the church of Jesus Christ is to stand firm in the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all and does not have to be given again. If the church stands firm, the gales will come, because they have come throughout history; there have been periods of unbelief, and there have been periods when people said, no, the church has already disappeared. And the church always stands firm.

Christ said that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Winds of doctrine may come, cultural currents may come, utterly anti-Christian systems may come, as in Russia with the Marxist revolution, but you know what? Christians stand firm; they remain standing on the word of the Lord, strengthen themselves in their faith every day, and say, I will not yield what Christ has revealed. The devil roars and the windows of the house shake, but one day the storm ceases, the sun comes out, and the word of the Gospel remains forever. Let us not allow ourselves to be troubled by the currents out there at this time, and beware of that psychological dynamic whereby, when we see that everyone seems to be running away, we say, well, who am I not to think like this person who is greater than I am? No, no, stand firm in the word. Do not be ashamed of the Gospel.

You have to make an effort; you have to stand firm. I wrestle with this dynamic. I say, but if so-and-so has already gone over there, if this great preacher, this church that seems to be a model of virtue—so good, so solid—is already trading and bargaining with the Gospel, who am I, this little pastor here in Boston, to be... No, Lord, I am going to stand firm in your word. I will continue to be proud of the faith. I will ally myself with all those martyrs throughout history who stood firm even when the Romes of the world seemed to rise up irresistibly. But the martyrs of the Gospel stand firm and proclaim their pride, their satisfaction in the Gospel, the word of God once delivered to the saints.

And sooner or later the devil has to tuck his tail between his legs and flee in shame. Stand firm. All we have to do is stand firm, and sooner or later the devil grows weary. Just stand firm, and after having done everything, make sure that you are standing firm. Read Ephesians, chapter 6, and you will see what I mean.

Paul says, because I am not ashamed of the Gospel. Although I have suffered so many things, although it seems that... no, I stand firm and rejoice; I feel satisfied, I take pride—not in myself, but in that word which I have decided to believe.

Because I am not ashamed of the Gospel, and that is why I want to share it with you; that is why I am ready to go to Rome at any moment; that is why I long to fill the whole world with the word of God; that is why I am willing to suffer persecution, struggle against my own humanity, and press on even to death itself—because I am not ashamed of the Gospel. It is glorious to be part of the Gospel.

And another thing too: he says it is the power of God. It is power—the word dunamis—dynamite, power, strength. The essential reason—Paul was a man of action, Paul was a warrior, Paul was an entrepreneur of the kingdom, he was a scholar, he was a man of rational reflection, a highly learned man, but above all he was a man of action. And I believe that is why God chose him, because he needed a man like him: a man of physical courage, a man of energy, an enterprising man who was always thinking about what he had to do next to advance the Gospel.

So a man of action like Paul appreciated power. Men of action appreciate strength; they appreciate things that produce effects, that change, that transform. They may appreciate other things—art and other things—but they appreciate the roar of the wind, the force of the rain, a machine that drags and breaks things. So the attribute that kept Paul admiring the Gospel and clinging to the Gospel was that it was the power of God.

Remember that. Paul says on several occasions that the Gospel does not consist of words, but is the power of God. There was a kind of dichotomy that Paul always maintained in his mind. The Gospel is word; the Gospel is doctrine—and what doctrine could be more beautiful and better arranged than the letter to the Romans? But what Paul loved most was that it was power, and that is something that should...

Brothers and sisters, a congregational gathering can have many good things—beautiful music, preaching, dancing, many things—but what attracts me most to the Gospel is that in this word there is power to transform human life. There is power to change the situation of a man who is in the grip of drugs, alcoholism, and sensuality; there is power. If you want to use it and are willing to let the power of God work on you, God can work in your life. God can change a society; God can defeat the hosts of hell. In Christ and in the power of the Gospel, you have power to be healed, to be set free, to be transformed. Your family can be restored, your situation can be changed; the things that seem impossible are possible with Christ.

The Apostle Paul said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He said, rather, in all these things we are more than conquerors. Hallelujah!

The word of God, the Gospel, is above all power. If it were not power, I would not be serving, frankly, I tell you, because why would anyone want mere religion, dead like that, going through all kinds of motions and things, letters and issues, when there is no power to change the life of a human being, to give him eternal life, to present him before the presence of God? What for? If Christ did not rise from the dead, then let us eat and drink, because we are the most deserving of pity, Paul said. If the power of God had not transformed Jesus' dead body into a living body, what would be the point? Let us go home to watch television and eat.

No, what ultimately justifies the Gospel is that it is the power of God to intervene in time and space, in history, and change the destiny of humanity; to change the course of a man, a family, a community, a city, a country, nature. The Gospel is ultimately the power of God, and you reach out your hand, grasp the cable of divine electricity, and cling to it; the electricity flows through you, changes you, and changes others around you. The Gospel is power.

And we Christians must always be seeking power in our lives. Do not settle for a formulaic, ritualistic religion. Do not settle for merely coming to church. You have to cultivate an appetite for the power of God, for divine energy. That is why the Holy Spirit is so important: seeking the anointing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and prayer. When you have to do something in your life, direct divine energy toward that project, toward that situation; direct spiritual radiotherapy at it until the tumor—whatever it may be in your life—is destroyed and disappears. Divine energy must be directed toward the mountains of life.

Christ said, if you have faith, tell a mountain to move from one place to another and cast itself into the heart of the sea, and it will be done. Because the Gospel is power, and you have to cultivate power. That is the most important thing in your life: you have to cultivate the reality of the power of God. Seek the power of God. Seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Seek prayer. Seek fasting. Seek the power found in the word of the Lord. Seek the power found in holiness, in worship, in giving and serving, because all of that generates power and authority in your life. And that is what gives you the power to change the situation in your life.

The church should not be made up of a number of people merely paying lip service to a collection of dead doctrines and theological and theoretical declarations. You have to teach people that there is power in their lives, that the power of God is in them. You have to cultivate that power.

Paul says, I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God. Pentecostal people must be a people who seek power above all—not elegance, not pretty gatherings with lots of music and lots of equipment and many elegant priestly garments. No, the power of God. All of that is nice, but if there is no power underneath it, go home and cultivate it there in your own spiritual life, because it is power to transform a community, to transform lives. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

There are many things—salvation, soterian, is the word the Apostle Paul uses. Salvation: nowadays we use that word, and it has become so common. Salvation from what? If you are saved, you are saved from something. What does the Gospel save us from? It saves from sickness, saves from death, saves from the devil, saves from the circumstances of the world, saves you from yourself, saves you from those powers that seek to destroy your life. It is rescue. Salvation is rescue; salvation is regeneration, redemption; it is being pulled out of a pit. As the Word says, God brought us out of death into life.

It is salvation. Again, it is power to rescue us from something. That word salvation is very important. Above all, we have to remember that we have been saved from death for eternal life. That is the main thing; at times we have lost that idea. God saves you from hell. God saves you from a life in which you were condemned to death. You were a child of wrath, as the Apostle Paul says in another passage; you bore the seal of condemnation upon your life, and Jesus Christ came, and through his blood and through your accepting him as your Lord and Savior, God changed your destiny and saved you, rescued you. You could not save yourself, and through what God did on the cross of Calvary with his Son Jesus Christ, you are now saved. It is salvation.

So the Gospel is above all that—eternal life—but it also saves you here in this world from many things. If you did not know him, you would be lost, and God saves you from a life destined for failure because it is always going around the same thing, doing the same things.

So, salvation in many ways. What has God saved you from? What can God save you from? Think about that this week. The power of God for salvation to everyone—the universality of salvation. Salvation is for all men, all women, the elderly, children, Hispanics, Anglo-Saxons, rich people, poor people, the highly educated, people who are not very educated—salvation for all.

God does not have a quota for how many will be saved. God wants everyone to come to salvation. God does not make the Gospel difficult so that only a small, select group can enter. God has made things so easy because God wants everyone to pass the test and everyone to enter. God wants all of us to earn an A. And I do not think he could have made it any easier.

Anyone who is condemned has only his own foolishness to blame. Christ said that the Son of Man does not condemn you; your own actions, your own words condemn you. People are condemned because they do not understand that God has made it so easy, and we cannot complain about God. People say, oh, a loving God could not allow people to go to hell. But God did everything possible: he gave his only begotten Son; he himself came down from heaven and assumed the form of a man so that we could be saved. What could be easier than that? It is simply for the salvation of everyone who believes.

If we simply believe, all that is needed is to open our hearts, open our minds, and say, Lord, I believe what you did. I believe what your word says. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe that he died on the cross for my sins, that he took my place; I believe that, and I believe that he is the mediator between God and men and therefore is my mediator.

I believe that, I receive it, I affirm it, I open my life to it, and I say yes and amen; and now I live my life according to that truth. It is as simple as that. There is nothing you can do to earn your own salvation. All that is required is that you believe. It is salvation by faith.

The essence of the letter to the Romans is this: salvation, justification, is by faith, not by works. The one who believes God is saved by definition. It is that simple. It is a conviction of the soul and mind, believing that God is who he says he is.

There are so many things that will assail our minds when we think about that. The other day Meche and I were driving, and we saw a bumper sticker on a car behind us that said, “God is too big to fit into a single religion.” The truth is that it is impressive, very clever, very shrewd wording. God is too big to fit into a single religion, meaning that all roads lead to Rome: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, confusionism, all the different things. Nowadays, people are creating a great many religions and inventing others. We are like the Greeks Paul encountered, who had a vaguely defined god, the unknown god; just in case they had missed a god, there was X—the X god.

And that happens when societies like Greek society reach a certain point of development, because every universe is limited, including the universe of reason. And once you have gone all the way around the circle of reason—it takes centuries—but once you have traveled all the way around it, you return to the same place and have closed the circle. There is nothing else left to invent, so now you have to start doing increasingly sophisticated, increasingly subtle things.

Look at modern art; sometimes it is foolishness because man does not know what else to invent. Modern literature, the madness found so often in modern literature, music—it is as though the circle has already closed and there is nothing else left to invent, so they start splashing around in the water because they can no longer get out of the water. So they throw it over here; it comes back down; they put it into a little glass, pour it onto a plate, and think they are creating something. But no, it is the same water they are splashing around in. And that is what happens to modern man.

The Greeks had already reached that point. They had invented all the gods they could, and they had engaged in a great many rational speculations. The only thing left for them to do was put something there just in case they had missed anything: “Here we will put something for the unknown god.”

Nowadays, people are also inventing their own gods, their own religion, their own ritual. They are doing it, ladies and gentlemen. They are no longer content to say the name of the Father. We were at Abby’s graduation, and I say this respectfully—God knows—and the person they invited to pray said, “Oh, unknown being of many names…” I’m going home. I feel like slitting my wrists. I could not survive in an environment like that for more than two or three seconds, brothers and sisters.

“Oh, you whom we do not know; whether you are a man or a woman, we do not know, but whatever you may be, whether you are an animal or a bird, we acknowledge you.” May the Lord rebuke the devil. God has made Himself known. God is certainly infinite, and He is certainly infinitely elusive; we cannot define Him, but in some strange way He has desired to be known by humanity. And He has revealed Himself through His Son Jesus Christ. Christ said, “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father”—in His attributes, His qualities of character, His personality, His love, His strength, His wisdom, and many other things.

Now, the truth is that it takes faith for you to say, “You know what? Muslims may believe whatever they want, and so may Confucianists or anyone else, but I am going to believe that Jesus Christ is God Himself. And I am going to believe that my faith—I will not even call it a religion—my Christian faith is God’s revelation.” If you want to believe that God is too great to have been embodied and manifested in a man, then look, I bless you; go your own way, but know that one day you will discover that you were mistaken. When that day comes and He appears to you: “You know what? Yes, look, My name is Jehovah, and here is My Son; let Me introduce Him to you. He is Jesus Christ, but you cannot enter because you did not accept Him while you were on earth.”

So you have to decide: Are you going to allow yourself to be intimidated? That is what I was saying earlier at the beginning. Are you going to allow yourself to be intimidated by those supposedly sophisticated words of unbelievers and rationalists who say, “No, believe whatever you want. Invent your own God, create your own religion, configure a God for yourself, make yourself an idol, as the prophet says. Find yourself some figurine out there, like those prefabricated idols sold in drugstores. It has not been painted or anything; only the statue has been made. Then give it your own little color, put lipstick on it, give it whatever eyebrows you want, and call that your God.”

That is what man is doing nowadays. But we believe that God has revealed Himself in Christ Jesus for the salvation of everyone who believes. You have to believe something that runs counter to reason: that God did indeed decide to reduce Himself to the figure of a baby, enter the form of a fetus in His mother’s womb, and come out of there—God Himself, confined within the straitjacket of His humanity—and that heaven and earth were there, contained in the person of Jesus Christ. And when He died on the cross, He released power that covered the past, present, and future of all who would choose to believe in Him, and that through that sacrifice there is salvation and eternal life.

If you believe that, you have salvation and rescue; you are preserved from the fire to come—for everyone who believes. Everyone… Black, white, Indian, red, whatever color they may be, brown, whatever—everyone who believes, who is capable of making that mental, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and volitional transaction, is saved. And I want to be one of those people, even though my mind will be telling me, “No, believe that other thing. How lovely, how sophisticated.” That flatters your mind, flatters your brain, flatters your cultural sensibilities. No, no. I have believed; I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

There are things I cannot understand, but it does not matter. That is exactly where I am going to plant my feet; that is exactly where I am going to remain. Everyone who believes—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Why does Paul say that? Because it is a theme that will be repeated many times later throughout the Epistle to the Romans.

God has a plan for the Jewish people. Paul is very clear about that. We cannot… That is why this celebration this afternoon is also one of the things that I… At this time, the evangelical church—and I am not talking about the modern rationalist world—is abandoning Israel more and more each day, pushing it aside and accusing it of oppressing the Palestinians, along with many other things. Brothers and sisters, I have read about that ad nauseam because I want to be fair and because I know it is countercultural at this time to believe that, no, God has a plan for the Jewish people, even though they are stubborn, proud, and arrogant. Those people in Israel are a secular, humanistic people. Israel is not a biblical nation; it is a secular nation. That is why the Orthodox Jews themselves, the ultra-Orthodox Jews, believe that there should not be a nation of Israel, because that is not supposedly the people for whom God is coming.

But you know what? Those who are swayed by Jewish secularism at this time do not understand the very dynamic of Scripture. God is always dealing with a rebellious people, yet He loves them anyway. And the Israel that exists today in that little piece of the Middle East is not the Israel God wants, but it is the Israel God loves. And we must love it as God loves it, despite its rebellion.

I know what those people are like; I believe I know their heart, but I have to love them as a matter of judgment because they are the people God has chosen, and He has a plan. Right now there is a parenthesis enclosing the Jewish people, and around that parenthesis at present are the Gentiles—you and I; this is the age of the Gentiles. We know the Word, we handle it, along with the mysteries of God, while those people have a veil covering them. But at a certain moment God says He will remove the veil, and they will be able to… In the meantime, God loves them. They have paid a terrible price for their ignorance and rebellion throughout history because the devil is bent on persecuting those people. The devil hates them because they are loved by God, yet they do not have all the favor with which God would like to cover and protect them. So they are neither one thing nor the other; they are nothing.

The devil hates them, and God cannot protect them as He would like, so they are exposed to all the persecution and hatred of fallen humanity. That is why they suffer so much, but God loves them, and we have to love them.

I would never dare to say that God has stopped dealing with Israel. No, God is still dealing with Israel. And we have to support those people, because the prophecies do not lie, nor does history. Everything one sees in Israel’s history validates and supports all those declarations made by the prophets centuries ago, including the formation of Israel in the last days as it has taken place. That tiny little country there, a mere speck in the Middle East, has the whole world in checkmate. And the whole world is obsessed with what happens in Israel. What a thing; how strange. It is because God has dealings with them.

And you, brothers and sisters, I believe that a healthy evangelical Christian spirituality must understand the mystery of Israel, its dealings with God, and God’s dealings with it. We have to respect that. Because you know what? In one sense, you and I are outsiders; we are latecomers. We arrived at the last minute. We were not even supposed to be invited to the feast. The reason we are at the feast is that they, who were the guests of honor, did not know how to appreciate the feast. So God called us in from outside and said, “Come, then; you eat the food.” But when you are seated at the table, remember this: the one who was originally invited is the other person, the Jew. You are eating as an added bonus.

And that is what Paul says: the branches that have been grafted into the tree must not become proud. And that is what is happening among many people in the evangelical Christian and Catholic churches: they have become proud and have said, “God no longer has anything to do with them; we are now the true invited guests.” No. You and I received a second invitation, and they have the privilege of being the first. And although they scorn God’s blessings, God loves them. You and I have to love them too. And when you do, you enter into the mystery of God’s heart throughout the centuries.

The Christian church has to love Israel. Despite all their errors and all their issues, we love them, and God has dealings with those people. That is why, at the very beginning of his exposition, Paul says, “To the Jew first.” Why? Because the Word of God was first given to the Jew. They scorned it, and then it went to the Greek. What does “Greek” mean? Everyone else: Greeks, Romans, Pentecostals, Central Americans, Caribbean people—but to the Jew first. Do not lose sight of that. I am pausing over this because it is important for strengthening the spirituality of the church. And to me, that is very important at this time, because we are on God’s clock.

And at a time when the whole world is abandoning the Jewish people, including an important sector of the evangelical world in the United States, they have to be guided and strengthened, because God blesses those who bless Abraham and his descendants. So that is very important.

And finally, brothers and sisters, I thought I did not have enough material, but there is too much material in the Word. We will continue, because in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed by faith and for faith, as it is written: “But the righteous shall live by faith.”

We would have to stay there… I am in a dilemma because that would be a whole sermon, but there is one thing you need to understand here. Here Paul is once again pointing to the most important thing. When he says, “For everyone who believes,” that word, which is the word pisteos or pisteum, means faith, belief, however you want to put it. That triggers an association in your mind concerning faith.

The Gospel is by faith; faith is the currency of exchange of the Gospel. It is the euro, the dollar of the spiritual Christian world. Faith is what you use to buy, sell, exchange, and make transactions. Faith is the currency of the Christian spiritual world.

He says that in the Gospel righteousness is revealed by faith and for faith. The original Greek says, “From faith to faith,” meaning that when one looks at the Gospel, when one reads the Word of God, including the Old Testament, one sees one thing—and Paul will point it out again and again later on—and that is that God has always worked with man through faith. Faith is what has made everything possible.

He says that even Abraham, when he believed God, it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham did not enter… That is, it was by faith that Abraham… Because Abraham believed God, he was justified. Before Moses, Abraham had already believed, but it was not through the law; before Moses, it was because he believed God.

And Paul says again and again that whenever God has dealt with a man or a woman, from Genesis itself to Revelation, it has been by faith. I want to be a man, a woman of faith. You want to say, “Lord, give me faith.” And faith means going against the current, going against your mind, going against your emotions, and standing firm.

Many times, the only thing you will have is a tiny thread of belief in God, because your whole being will be screaming at you, “Curse God and die.” Look, just hold on to that little bit. Simply say, “I am going to grit my teeth, Lord, and I am going to believe in You.” That is all.

Sometimes the world, life, and circumstances will invite you to reject everything you have believed: a death, the loss of someone dear to you, a failure in your life, something that has happened. The devil and his demons will be telling you, “Hey, why believe? Curse God. Die. End this now. Shoot yourself or go to the bar and drink a whole bottle.” You say, “No.” Simply that “no.” “I know that my Redeemer lives,” as Job said.

There are times when the only thing that will hold you up is a frail little thread, a confession—saying through clenched teeth, “No, I am going to keep believing in my God. I am going to keep hoping that morning will come in the next second, even though the night seems far too long. I am going to keep standing firm, because that is how God has dealt with men and women throughout history.” It is the one who believes; it is by faith—the righteousness of God, the power of God. And we will talk later about justification and righteousness, but everything in God’s dealings with humanity is by faith.

That is why the Bible says, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Because faith is the only thing… it is the conduit that makes all the other things possible. Brothers and sisters, this is very important, because it will appear again and again throughout the entire letter to the Romans. For in the Gospel, through the righteousness of God, man and woman are justified—remember what we were saying—by faith. Your salvation is by faith: believing God, believing what he says. As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by faith.” Throughout all of history, God’s blessings have always been obtained by people who say, “I believe.”

As the Lord Jesus Christ said to the father of the demon-possessed boy—the man pleaded with him, “Save my son; my son is possessed by a demon.” Christ said to him, “Do you believe that I can do it? You are asking me to do something; do you believe that I can do it?” What did the man answer him? “I believe.” And he said, “Help my unbelief.”

In other words, look, brothers and sisters, faith is not something simple; it is not easy to live a life of faith. That is not for cowards. People have been fed the idea that believing in God is for cowards and the weak. A great deal of philosophy has been written claiming that it is a neurosis, a compensation, a way for us to console ourselves and give meaning to a universe that has no meaning because we are cowardly and weak.

Look, to live by faith, you have to be a giant, a hero. To keep believing in God in this world that continually shouts at you, “God does not exist.” Every time you turn on the news, they tell you, “God does not exist.” How many people have the guts to say, “No, I do believe”?

When they tell you, “Jesus is an artificial construct of man; he is just another being like any other,” you say, “No, he is the Son of God, my Savior.” That takes guts. It is for strong people. Living the Christian life as Paul lived it is for people with backbone. Keep living out that faith; keep living, stand your ground, take pride and rejoice in what you have received. God delights in a man or woman who believes, and who believes in spite of his or her own nature.

At times there will be unbelief in your heart; banish it, cast it aside, smack it so hard that it loses consciousness for three seconds, because it will come back to bite you again. But every time it tries to draw near, push it away from you and keep believing; look ahead. Confess him as your Lord and Savior. Do not be ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God.

Let us bow our heads. If you wish, stand to your feet. Let us thank the Lord for everything we have received today. We are going back to our houses, to our homes, and tomorrow to work. Let us live by faith; let us remain firmly planted in what we have received; let us be resolute and clear-minded people. Let us not waver among two or three different doctrines. What Christ has told you is true; believe it, plant yourself there, live your life according to one confession, and do not keep looking around to see whether there might be something better out there.

No, you have already believed; close the door to everything else. If you die mistaken, it is much better to die mistaken while believing in something than to wander from place to place. The person who is mistaken but resolute is more powerful than the one who is undecided. It is better to live a lie while believing it one hundred percent than to keep looking to see whether something else might be better and changing doctrine and teaching every three years.

Plant yourself in what you have believed, and I assure you that you will never be put to shame. You will never be put to shame. The one who believes in Jesus is not put to shame. “No one who trusts in him will be put to shame,” says the word of the Lord.

Father, thank you for your word. We receive it into our hearts, we treasure it, and we ask you to give us strength, Lord, because our own nature is so weak, Father, and even to live by faith we need you. Strengthen my brothers and sisters; strengthen your church throughout the earth in this time when our spirits grow weary to the point of fainting. Strengthen the legs and feet of your sons and daughters, Lord; strengthen the foundations of the church. Renew the church, renew your people, Lord. Breathe upon your church in this time, raise her up, steady her feet, and enable us to believe.

Brothers and sisters, if there is anyone here this morning who has not received Jesus as Lord and Savior, who has not said to him, “Lord, I believe,” I would like to give you a moment, an opportunity now, so that we may pray for you before we leave. We have proclaimed a message that clearly says salvation is by faith: believing God and confessing him. If you confess Jesus Christ before men, he will confess you before his Father. That is what the Word says.

If you dare to go beyond your reason and connect with the power of faith and say, “Lord, I believe that you are my God; Jesus is my Lord, my Savior,” and if you believe it, affirm it, and confess it, you are saved; you have salvation and eternal life. And if there is anyone who has not yet done so and wants to take that step of faith this morning, I invite you to raise your hand wherever you are. We would like to pray for you before this service ends.

Is there anyone who wants to give his or her life to Jesus and say, “Today I decide to believe in and confess Jesus as my Lord and Savior”? If there is anyone who has not done it before and who is willing to pursue that heroic life, I invite you to raise your hand and come forward; we want to pray for you.

God knows your heart; God knows what is there in your spirit, and we want to enter into fellowship with you. Is there anyone else who wants to affirm their trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior this morning? Do you want to confess him? Do you want to put right something that is not right, knowing that you need to make this gesture of surrendering your life to the Lord Jesus? We want to pray for you this morning. Anyone else?

Let us pray, then. Father, he is engaging with a dimension of your word, receiving this call from you and saying publicly, “I want to confess my faith in Jesus as my Lord and Savior.” Receive your son, receive his gesture, bless him, and place your grace upon him this morning, Lord; touch him.

If we open the door, you come in and dine with us, and we with you; we go through life in dialogue with you. And that is what we ask for [inaudible] this morning, Father. May the path he has begun be firm and secure; may it never end. And we pray for all those people from yesterday—the family of our brother Mike, those in that family who do not know you, Lord. We bless them as well. May their contact with your church yesterday and on Thursday now bring about a revolution in their lives, so that they too may enter the ways of the Lord. We place them in your hands, Father. May that seed which has been sown bear fruit, and fruit in abundance. Thank you. We say to [inaudible] that we declare him your son, a son of the kingdom, one who belongs to God.

Thank you, Lord. And bless your people as they leave this place. In the mighty name of Jesus, God’s people say, “Amen.” God bless you, my brothers and sisters. May the grace of the Lord be with you all. Amen and amen.