Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Greeting

Most everyone here probably has a particular verse that you can point to and say that this verse played a significant role in my salvation or life

Many of you knew Pastor Mike Madigan, and he made a name for himself by asking people if they had a verse for whatever situation they were talking with him about

I remember when he asked me if I had a verse for wanting to marry Rebekah Kotowski

It was in this very room - and I was ready (I’d been warned ahead of time to expect the question) and I ripped a verse out of context and gave it to him

Mike, to his credit didn’t correct me, as that verse has very little to do with my beautiful bride or her need for protection and everything to do with the Gospel.

This year being the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation I thought we’d take some time to look at the verse that many would consider to be the life verse for the catalyst of the Reformation - Martin Luther

In 1920 Frank W. Boreham published a book of sermons on great Bible texts, linking each text with the life of a great Christian man or woman.

To Martin Luther he links the text that we’re going to look at today Romans 1:17 - we’re actually going to look at Romans 1:16-17.

Many of you who have been in the faith a long time probably wont hear too much that is new today and that’s okay - sometimes it’s good just to have the foundations refreshed in our minds and hearts

Some of you may hear these verses presented in a way that you’ve never heard before and it is my prayer that God will enlighten your spirit to see Him in a new way

And some of you have never heard this before but need to hear the beauty of the power of the Gospel and the eternal impact it can have for your life.

Preaching on this text, James Montgomery Boice said “In the 16th and 17th verses of Romans 1, we come to the sentences that are the most important in the letter and perhaps in all literature.

They are the theme of this epistle and the essence of Christianity.

They are the heart of Biblical religion.”

So whether this is the 100th time you’ve heard this text taught or the first, lets take allow the Spirit to open our eyes and hearts and see these truths anew, to allow our hearts to be refreshed in the power of what God has to say to us as we look into the depths of His greatest mystery.

If you would open your Bibles - I’m going to read Romans 1:1-18 just to place the verses in the context of what Paul wrote

Read Romans 1:1-18

Pray

Don’t Be Ashamed

Romans 3:16a; Mark 1:15; John 3:16; John 17:3; 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; Ephesians 2:1-10; Galatians 1:6-7; Philippians 3:4-6; 1 Corinthians 1:21-24; Mark 8:38; 2 Corinthians 11:23-28

What is this Gospel?

(1 Corinthians 15:1-5; Ephesians 2:1-10)

In order to understand why Paul wouldn’t be ashamed of the Gospel it is important to understand what he meant by the “Gospel”

The Gospel has become a popular term in the Christian church of late - with a resurgence in interest in the preaching and teaching of the Gospel.

There is the Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel

There have been books written like the Explicit Gospel; Gospel, Recovering the Power that made Christianity revolutionary; Gospel in Life; there’s even the Gospel of the flying spaghetti monster - not one I would recommend

There is the Gospel centered church movement

With all this talk of the Gospel - what do we really mean by it?

Let’s start with a few things it is not

Not the therapeutic Gospel - that you would really be fundamentally ok if you just cut this part of your life out

It’s like the smoker who has smoked a pack a day for years and finally quits - after 10 years the body has recovered from the effects so that it’s as if he had never smoked at all

The therapeutic Gospel says that if you would just modify this behaviour - you’ll be okay without ever really recognizing the fundamental broken core that lies beneath the behaviour

It places a band-aid on heart of a sinner rather than actually addressing the condition of the heart it is bandaging up

This is the gospel that says you are basically a good person and that you just need to submit to God and let Him correct this small area of your life - without ever confessing that you have made yourself the god of your life - and you’ll be okay

Not the moralistic Gospel - that we’re basically okay with God as long as we keep the rules

One of the core issues that the Reformation was based on was that Christ death only paid for the sins that we had committed up until the point of regeneration but that it was up to the believer to keep themselves saved after that

This is the gospel that says you’re really good enough to keep yourself saved - you just have to try harder.

That Christ will wipe everything away and now it’s up to you to keep the slate clean.

Both of these gospels are missing the point and are something Paul, and we, should be ashamed of

So what is the Gospel that Paul is talking about?

I remember at one church that I went to I had an interview to enter in to their church planting residency program

During the interview I was asked to define the Gospel

I tried to apply my best Seminary training and come up with a deep theological answer

But the answer they were looking for was as simple as the Sunday School song we all sang as kids

Jesus loves me, this I know,

for the Bible tells me so,

little ones to Him belong,

they are weak but He is strong

What does the Bible say about this Gospel?

Jesus first recorded words in the book of Mark tell us to believe in His Gospel

Jesus comes presenting the Gospel - essentially telling the people that to believe in the Gospel is to believe in Him

And that eternal life is to know Him and His Father

His Gospel is revealed at the cross and the empty tomb - this is the Gospel that Paul preaches

Paul makes four statements about the Gospel that are critical to our understanding

Christ died for our sins

He was buried

He was raised

He appeared alive to the believers

Now that we have a good idea what the Gospel was that Paul proclaimed

Why would Paul have to qualify that he is not ashamed?

It would seem that by the time Paul writes Romans there are plenty of people who have become ashamed of the Gospel and are trying to qualify it and amend it to fit their ideas of what the Gospel should be

This would be a battle that Paul would fight for the rest of his life - the perversion of the Gospel that he preached

Because Paul should have been ashamed

This gospel that he proclaims makes no sense to the world we live in and it made no sense to the world that he preached in

In Jerusalem he was mobbed for preaching the Gospel, in Athens he was called a “babbler” and in Rome he was deserted.

In the book “The Gospel According to Paul” John MacArthur writes

“Of all the apostles, the Holy Spirit chose Paul, the profound scholar, to defend the gospel’s simplicity against any hint of academic elitism or philosophical gentrification.”

Paul should have known better

After Christ and Solomon, the Apostle Paul’s mind was probably one of the sharpest the world has ever seen

And he had the credentials to preach the kind of gospel the world could put its faith into

But Paul himself says that he puts no faith in these things - counting them as loss - literally dung - for the sake of Christ

Yet even Paul recognizes that his message is foolishness to the world

There is a deeper element to Paul’s admission that he is not ashamed by the message of the Gospel

What he is saying is that he is not afraid of the consequences of speaking up on behalf of the Gospel

This is the same message Christ was alluding to in Mark 8

And if there’s ever been anyone who could say that he was not ashamed of the consequences of speaking the Gospel it was Paul

During his journeys he was constantly in peril for speaking the truth of the Gospel

Yet he not only stood up but sought more opportunities to preach the Gospel

He even essentially allowed himself to be arrested in order to gain access to Caesar’s court to preach the Gospel

He was warned in advance of his final trip to Jerusalem that he would be arrested and yet he went anyway knowing that God would use even his arrest to further His Gospel

We live in a world that is increasingly hostile to the Gospel - the true Gospel

They will make plenty of room for the prosperity gospel (although even that has started to be revealed for the sham that it is) or the therapeutic or moralistic gospel

But the true Gospel that calls them to repentance the world wants no part of

Yet I wonder how we have revealed ourselves to be ashamed of the Gospel - choosing not to speak to that co-worker or neighbor because of what their reaction might be

We may not get beaten for it or imprisoned but we might be left off an invitation to lunch or included in the office super bowl pool

I have a friend who travels overseas to train pastors in some of the most closed nations in the world

He told me about how on a recent trip three soldiers burst in to his training and took his papers and he thought he was going to be arrested

We don’t see that happening here - yet but I wonder where will we be if and when it does?

Paul is not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the dynamic, unharnessable power of God to effect salvation and all it’s temporal and eternal benefits for everyone who believes.

There Is Power

Romans 1:16b; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 1:27; Romans 10:14;

During the Reformation the purpose of God’s power in salvation was very much in debate

There are two primary ways that God’s power is demonstrated on the behalf of the believer

The first is through justification - and this was the pre-Reformational teaching regarding God’s power

This would make the power of God in Romans 1:16 merely about the forensic nature of our salvation - simply about the payment for sin that would remove the penalty of God’s wrath for all sins committed prior to your conversion

Much like the moralistic gospel that we looked at a few minutes ago, this explanation of His grace would make it about the moment of repentance

And surely there is an element to His power and grace that is certainly about that moment or else there is no salvation

But His power doesn’t stop there - God isn’t merely concerned with justifying us and then leaving us as we are